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In 2015, Facebook was in a difficult situation. It was time to update the Android version of the company's application, and two different groups within the company did not agree on how the data capture should be performed.
• But why does Facebook think I know these guys?
] The commercial team wanted to get Bluetooth permissions to be able to send ads to people's smartphones when they entered a store. Meanwhile, the growth team, tasked with making more and more people join Facebook, wanted to get "call log read permissions" so the social network could track all those to whom Android user called or sent SMS to recommend their best friend (yes, maybe this is how Facebook discovered who you left and had a bad date Tinder and then put this guy in "People you know perhaps ")
According to internal mails recently seized by the British Parliament, Facebook's commercial team acknowledged that what the growth team wanted to do was extremely scary and feared to tarnish l & # 39; image.
In an e-mail of February 4, 2015, which summarized the problem, Facebook Beacon Facebook product manager, Mike LeBeau, reportedly said: The request for permission to "read the call log" was "a very risky operation of the point of view of the picture, but it seems that the team in charge of the growth will go ahead and will do it ".
LeBeau feared that "a screen capture of the scary screen of Android permissions becomes a meme (as was the case in the past) and extends to on the web.It ends up attracting media attention and the company's reporters badyze exactly what the new update requires. " He suggested a possible title for these journalists: "Facebook uses the new Android update to enter their privacy in an ever more frightening way – by reading their call records, checking if you're in a company, etc. " Honestly, it's an excellent and accurate title. This guy may have a future as a blogger.
6) OK, Facebook developers were at least aware of their public image (bluetooth tags and call logs): "Facebook uses the new Android update to penetrate your privacy
– ashkan soltani (@ ashk4n) December 5, 2018
You Can not Begin a New Topic You Can not Answer This] A man named Yul Kwon appeared to save the motherland, claiming that the growth team had found a solution! At the time, because of the low authorization of Android, there was a way to update the Facebook application to get "Read call log" permission without asking for it. "Based on their initial tests, it seems that this would allow us to upgrade users without submitting them to an Android permissions dialog", said Kwon. "That would always be u n radical change (modification of part of a software system that may cause the failure of other components), then users should click to upgrade, but without any box Authorization dialog. They are trying to finish testing by tomorrow to see if the behavior is the same in different versions of Android. "
Eba! Facebook could suck up more user data without frightening them by telling them that they were doing it! It's a bit surprising from Yul Kwon because he's at the head of Facebook's "privacy sheriff," who should ensure that all new products from Facebook are consistent with privacy, because I created a profile about him in an article published on same day that this email was sent in. A member of his staff told me that his job was to make sure that the things they are working on do not end up on the cover of New York Times "due to an invasion of privacy. I think it was technically correct, but it would be more rebaduring to try to make sure that Facebook does not make the scary things that led to privacy breaches rather than hiding the truth to users about these scary things.
When I asked Facebook about. comments attributed to Kwon, a spokeswoman for the company said that the company "still considers the best way to seek the permission of a person, whether through a box authorization dialog set by a mobile operating system such as Android or iOS, or an authorization that we designed in the Facebook application. "He wrote in an e-mail that the feature was optional in the application and that it was "a discussion of how our decision to launch this feature would interact with the system's authorization screens." Android operation itself.This was not to avoid or not to ask permission to people. "
Download my facebook data as a ZIP file
It contains somehow the history of calls made with my partner's mother pic.twitter.com/CIRUguf4vD
– Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018
("I downloaded my Facebook data as a ZIP file . In a way, all my call history with my partner's mother / partner. ")
However, probably thanks to this escape of permission requests from Android, Facebook users did not realize for years that the company was collecting information about their intended recipient and sent messages, which would have helped them explain why their recommendations of "people you may know" were so strangely accurate.This did not manifest until earlier this year, three years after the start , when some Facebook users noticed their call history and their SMS in their Facebook files when they had downloaded it.
When this was discovered in March of 2018, Facebook disguised, as if it was not a big deal. "We introduced this feature to Android users a few years ago," he wrote in a blog post, describing it as a " option for Messenger or Facebook Lite users on Android ".
Facebook continues: "Users must expressly agree to use this feature, if at any time they no longer want to use this feature, they can disable it in Settings, or here for Facebook Lite users. , and all the call history and text previously shared via this app will be removed. "[19659002]
Facebook included a photo of the screen on which the option is proposed in your message. In his little gray font, he informed people that he would share the history of his calls and SMS.
This email was seized by the British Parliament from the founder of a company called Six4Three. It was one of many internal Facebook documents that Six4Three had obtained as part of the discovery in a lawsuit that the company was filing against Facebook for banning its Pikinis app, which allowed Facebook users to collect photos of their friends wearing bikinis. Credo
Facebook has a long answer to many revelations contained in the documents, including the discussion in this particular e-mail:
Call History and SMS on Android
This feature allows users to choose to give Facebook access to your call logs and SMS on Facebook Lite and Messenger on Android devices. We use this information to do things like the best advice for people to call Messenger and to clbadify contact lists in Messenger and Facebook Lite. After a thorough review in 2018, it appeared that the information was not as useful after about a year. For example, because we use this information to list the most useful contacts, an old call history is less useful. You will hardly need to call someone you called last year, compared to a contact you called last week.
Facebook continues to avoid highlighting in its calls and SMS history This feature is one of the main ones to continue making extremely accurate suggestions from people you may be familiar with.
Facebook announced in April that it would delete call records more than a year ago. In other words, the company realized that it was not particularly helpful to recommend that you add someone you were exchanging messages with seven years ago because of a couch in OLX. Unless contact with the couch has occurred in the past year.
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