Over the weekend, PJ Media’s “Lifestyle” section published a report, “Shock: Facebook Is Tracking You Even If You’re Not on Facebook,” saying Facebook tracks not only its users, but also people who have never had a Facebook account in their lives.
This is old news.
But it’s worth remembering as the chief executive of the social (read: spy) network heads to Washington, D.C. to face some heat from lawmakers who, it seems, finally have some questions.
This week, Mark Zuckerberg will have to answer to Congress. He is scheduled to appear at a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on April 11 and the House Energy and Commerce Committee the following day. His prepared testimony before the latter has been released.
Their questioning is likely to largely focus on the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, which harvested data of, and politically profiled some 87 million of its estimated 2 billion users worldwide, mostly Americans, but this isn’t the extent of the problems with Facebook. Writing for CDT, Michelle De Mooy raised some thoughtful questions that should be asked.
Regulating Facebook and other such companies now seems inevitable. Congress will need to be mindful to not usurp people’s First Amendment freedom of expression rights in the process. This won’t be an easy task, given the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica imbroglio incurred wrath as much for the fear that they may have helped Donald J. Trump get to 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue as much as it did for breaches of trust.
There are much more obvious breaches of trust committed by Facebook that are easier to regulate, and perhaps the all-too-often gutless Congress will have the cajones to make Facebook finally face the music.
One of those is curtailing the collection, retention, collation, and selling of data of non-users by Facebook.
Facebook manages this feat by urging users to upload their contacts lists or address books, assuring them it will provide a better “user experience.” Having been a victim of at least a few IRL friends doing this, I’ve been hounded by Facebook emails in the past urging me join the spy network. There’s no way to opt out, because Facebook requires you to open an account to register your “ad preferences” and manage your “privacy” settings.
Another way Facebook collects data about nonusers is through trackers embedded across the open Web. This is even more pernicious because nonusers don’t know it’s happened. Meanwhile, Facebook explicitly boasts to advertisers that it has data not only on their users but non-users, as well. The monetization of nonusers is, quite frankly, unconscionable.
Mr. Zuckerberg, my ad “preferences” are NONE. And actually, they’re not preferences, but demands. Stay off my GD machine! And DELETE my data on yours!
Facebook wields tremendous power, but clearly isn’t able to use it responsibly or transparently. It is still under a 2011 Consent Decree with the Federal Trade Commission which prohibited deceptive privacy statements and imposed user consent requirements, among other things.
Perhaps Congress should ask about that failure, too.
And when you’re done with Facebook, Congress, let’s talk about that other spy network, the NSA.
sua sponte 