[HN Gopher] Max Schrems wins privacy case against Meta over data...
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Max Schrems wins privacy case against Meta over data on sexual
orientation
Author : c420
Score : 37 points
Date : 2024-10-04 20:17 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| sofixa wrote:
| Max Schrems is an international treasure.
|
| > Meta said it was awaiting publication of the court's full
| judgment and that it "takes privacy very seriously."
|
| I wonder how Meta employees can keep a straight face lying their
| faces off. I'm getting second hand embarrassment from them.
| Imagine being caught in such a blatant and egregious privacy
| violation and having to gall to make such a claim.
| hyggetrold wrote:
| _> I wonder how Meta employees can keep a straight face lying
| their faces off._
|
| Did you see that Social Dilemma documentary? People only find
| their conscience _after_ they 've checked a big bankroll.
|
| I've been in tech for almost two decades now and I've seen many
| many many good people throw their values right out the window
| once the price was right.
| paul7986 wrote:
| If you're a startup founder with high morality you could
| never go against you are going to have trouble succeeding!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you 're a startup founder with high morality...you
| are going to have trouble succeeding_
|
| This reminds of people who claim they're too honest to
| disguise that they're assholes. You can absolutely start a
| company and make lots of money without compromising your
| values. Someone claiming otherwise is usually trying to
| excuse bad behaviour or get over a past failure.
| hyggetrold wrote:
| _> You can absolutely start a company and make lots of
| money without compromising your values._
|
| Here's the thing though, and I say this from personal
| experience...if you're willing to compromise your
| values...you can make _a shitload_ of money.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if you 're willing to compromise your values...you can
| make a shitload of money_
|
| Of course. But then you're also playing a different game,
| one where the downsides are expanded from make no money
| to go to jail or worse.
| diggan wrote:
| Meta/Facebook kind of have a track record of strong claims that
| doesn't really hold up when scrutinized.
|
| From https://www.llama.com/
|
| > The open-source AI model [...] Llama is the leading open
| source model family
|
| Then from https://huggingface.co/meta-llama/Llama-3.2-1B
|
| > License: Use of Llama 3.2 is governed by the Llama 3.2
| Community License (a custom, commercial license agreement).
|
| In that license: Section 1(b)(i) requires you to display "Built
| with Llama" (branding requirements, really?). Section 2 has
| additional restrictive licensing requirements. Section 5(c) has
| retaliation that your license is terminated if you initiate
| legal proceedings. There is probably more too.
|
| Pretty close to "Not Open Source". Yet, Meta continue marketing
| Llama as such.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| yes and, it is essential that Meta is doing this with LLama
| at this time.. it is literally at their whim. so,
| complicated...
| scotty79 wrote:
| They are taking privacy, very seriously.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| That's just basic PR-speak; it's apparently important to
| release a statement saying "we are and have always been very
| serious about not doing (thing that we do and got caught
| doing)" after you've been caught doing a thing.
|
| I think the idea is there's some percentage of the public that
| will just uncritically accept the last thing they were told as
| gospel truth, and the rest don't believe you any less than they
| did before, so it's a net win.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| To note, they're not talking about not screwing X.
|
| All they're saying is they take X very seriously. Which can
| be interpreted positively by some, yet doesn't put them too
| much at risk when tomorrow they're found again screwing X.
| They'll still be taking X very seriously at that time.
| Alupis wrote:
| The article is short on details. Schrems alleges that Facebook
| somehow picked up his sexual orientation from a panel meeting,
| and then advertised to him based on that?
|
| Is it not more likely that the group of people/profiles and
| activities he participated on Facebook are what "outed" him
| instead?
|
| I had hoped for more details about how Schrems and/or a court
| were able to prove Facebook took his off-site meeting into
| account and based ads on that alone.
| suprjami wrote:
| 2024: When asking companies to comply with the law is being an
| "activist".
| macintux wrote:
| Taking a company to court is definitely in the realm of
| activism.
| elric wrote:
| Demanding that your basic rights be respected by billion-
| dollar scale ad-peddlers doesn't sound like activism to me.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It's doing something, therefore it's activism.
| amelius wrote:
| Did you look up the definition?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Demanding that your basic rights be respected_
|
| How do you think we got basic rights? (Natural rights are a
| philosophical object.)
| lupusreal wrote:
| Demanding basic rights is the most traditional and
| respected form of activism there is!
| infamouscow wrote:
| This says more about the (low) quality of the AP and it's
| (mediocre) editorial staff than about TFA and EU citizens
| exercising their rights in a court of law under the GDPR.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Perhaps the lesson is we should all be activists. We set
| activism as a civic duty, and teach it in primary school.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Do these rulings assign damages or fines?
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| The court decision pertains only to targeting advertising to the
| same user.
|
| They didn't say that the data can't be collected. They didn't say
| the data can't be processed at all. They didn't say that the data
| can't be "aggregated and analysed" for some purpose other than
| "to offer him personalised advertising".
|
| Meta does indeed offer controls to disable personalised and
| targeted advertising. If Schrems had disabled these settings
| appropriately, would Schrems have learned what Meta knew? It
| would seem that the targeting and personalisation is often the
| only way a user will find out what social media knows about us.
|
| So IMHO, this is a sad, sad day for your privacy and Schrem's
| privacy, because if Meta can't reveal what they know about us
| through advertising and targeting, then Meta does indeed take
| Meta's privacy very seriously.
| welcome_dragon wrote:
| Wait so someone at Meta entered somewhere that this person is
| gay? Or was this based on, say, cookies and general browsing
| habits?
|
| I think of the story where Target was pushing diaper ads on
| someone before her dad (maybe even her?) knew she was pregnant
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Sure, Schrems' claims seem to hinge on the fact that the only
| evidence of direct self-identification by Schrems is that one
| instance of a verbal claim on a panel discussion. (That is not
| how being gay works, by the way: it necessarily involves
| conduct, activity or interests...)
|
| But if advertising works on a recommendation engine basis, or
| groups similar tastes together, then if someone uses the Meta
| platform enough, there will be circumstancial evidence that
| this person's interests and activities coincide with other gay
| people.
|
| Perhaps the merit of the case rested with Schrems barely using
| Meta/FB, and only to discover that advertising was targeted. Of
| course, Meta is a vast platform, including comments sections
| and widgets and third-party cookies across many websites.
|
| But Meta takes Meta's privacy very seriously, so perhaps nobody
| but the court will ever see what Meta and their partners
| learned about Schrems, or how they learned it.
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