How Google and Facebook prevent you from protecting your privacy



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Google and Facebook give the user the "illusion of controlling his control" when in fact this is not the case, says a report

This is so convincing the result of the study conducted by the Norwegian Consumer Council. badyze how the privacy of users manages three major technologies: Microsoft, Facebook and Google

All defended themselves by ensuring that privacy is very important to them.

The report's conclusions, however, say that found after a series of tests conducted between April and May this year is that they use "dark models" to remove users from options that most protect their privacy or do it in an "unethical"

Subtle Methods

The document ensures that the signatures give the user "the illusion of having it under control" his private life, while in fact it's not like that. They use subtle methods such as using a different design, misleading wording or an intrusive default setting.

Here are some of the models discovered by the Norwegian Consumers Council:

  • The most important options are hidden advanced privacy
  • New pop-ups that force users to make certain decisions, while key information is omitted or reduced
  • . make decisions in which either everything is rejected (losing certain benefits), or they are accepted without control in the terms.
  • Lack of alternatives to postpone decisions.
  • Longer and more complicated processes for users who want a
  • Threat loss feature or account deletion if certain configurations are not chosen.

To illustrate this reality, the document reflects some specific cases.

For example, Facebook warns anyone who wants to disable facial recognition that it means that the company "will not be able to use this technology if a stranger uses your photo to impersonate your identity."

"And the privacy panel of Google promises that the user can easily erase the data … but doing it is difficult, as it was a labyrinth at place of a tool to maintain control, "reads the study. 19659003] Microsoft, on the other hand, has received praise because Windows 10 grants the same weight and importance to options that allow more privacy than those that expose your data to a greater extent.

Consumer Control noted: "The combination of intrusive defaults and the use of obscure models push Facebook and Google users, and to a lesser extent Windows 10 users, towards protected options private life to a degree that we consider unethical . "

The badysis wanted to examine the confidentiality offer of the large companies in the sector when it came to a new storage policy came into effect on May 25th. of user data in the European Union (EU) known as GDPR .

Working on it

"In the last 18 months, in preparation for the implementation of the new EU Data Protection Regulation, we have taken steps to update our products policies and processes to provide all our users with meaningful transparency of data and direct controls over all our services, "reported Google in response to the report." 19659007] " We are constantly evolving these checks based on the evidence of the user experience: only last month we further improved our co nfiguración of announcements, information and controls of the user. 39; a Google Account, "added the company.

Facebook is also defended." We made our policies clearer our privacy settings easier to find and we introduced the best urs tools for people to access, download and delete their information, "said the social network. For his part, he told the BBC: "We have seen the Norwegian report and we would like to insist that we commit ourselves to achieve the GDPR through our cloud computing services and we provide guarantees related to this policy in the contracts we sign with third parties. "

Shortly after the GDPR came into effect in May, Google and Facebook were charged with" theft ". violating the laws by the privacy group noyb.eu, created by the activist Max Schrems, and which ensured that people could not freely choose the privacy settings.



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