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In January, when the news was announced that Facebook was paying teenage girls with gift cards to let it install what is, by definition, essentially spyware on their phone, it seemed like just another Tuesday. If it had been virtually any other business, the outrage would have been ten times greater. After all, paying 13 year olds to have access to the use of their mobile applications and their browser traffic is, at first glance, an unbearably scary way for a company to gather information about its competitors. But this shameless business is now precisely the kind of dissolute behavior that we expect from Occupiers 1 Hacker Way.
Facebook's moral turpitude aside, it is now clear that the company also initially under-reported the percentage of teenagers it had paid to become lab rats, while mistakenly asserting that parental consent forms were needed.
Citing the company's responses to questions posed by Senator Mark Warner, TechCrunch reports that Facebook now claims "about 18%" of those convinced to download the "Facebook search app" were teenagers. This, as opposed to the "5%" figure provided by the company to reporters more than a month ago.
When TechCrunch's Josh Constine asked for the first time how many teenagers were using the app, Facebook apparently only referred to the number of teenagers currently using it, as opposed to the number who used it all. throughout the life of the program.
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Constine said Friday: "Given that users aged 13 to 35 were eligible for the Facebook search program, 13 to 18 year olds accounted for 22% of the age group. This means that Facebook was clearly not trying to minimize teen participation, nor a tiny fraction of users. "
The company also misled reporters by claiming at the time that all underage users were required to provide "signed parental consent forms". They were not. In response to Warner's investigation, Facebook stated that its providers "did not require a signed parental consent form for teen users".
In some cases, this "confirmation" was really just a child checking a box online, claiming that he had permission from his tutors to receive money from Facebook in exchange for having it. allowed to absorb all their telephone and internet business.
The disappointment did not stop there. In response to Constine's initial story, the company said it would close the iOS version of the app, TechCrunch then raising the possibility that it violates Apple's business certificate rules, which resulted in the creation of a temporary image of the internal iOS application of Facebook. What the company has touted as a proactive measure, however, has turned out to be a constraint imposed by Apple on Facebook. The removal of the application, in other words, was not voluntary.
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As it was reported a week ago, the search application continued to run on Android phones for nearly a month. Facebook also claims to kill Onavo, an application that the company claimed was a way for users to protect their data, but which, in reality, was just restoring all this data to Facebook – apparently even when the application was disabled. . (Apple has already withdrawn, claiming that it was violating its data collection rules.)
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Of course, Facebook has written an impressive number of corp-speakers to justify paying children in exchange for installing eye-holes on their phones. "Like many companies, we invite people to participate in research that helps us identify things we can improve," he says. He further clarified that its application was for a "market study", in case there was some confusion on the sole purpose that would help Facebook earn more money.
The defense of the company was that she was direct with the children whose phone she was watching in exchange for money. "Every user was required to complete a clear consent flow before their participation," he said. Potential participants were required to confirm that they were over 18 years of age or to provide further evidence of parental consent, although the vendors do not need a signed parental consent form for teen users. "
A signed parental consent form is something that most children are required to have before a visit to the zoo. Facebook wanted to collect information about each visited website and each application used. And of course, it's unlikely that kids who do not miss anything need the $ 20 a month from Facebook. It's up to those for whom $ 20 is a lot of money you can imagine, would be willing to sacrifice their privacy – if they thought about the potential consequences.
The company also notes that it has not shared the information collected "with others" and that "people can stop participating at any time".
It's certainly generous for Facebook not to include a "no take back" clause in the deal, but the promise that Facebook would never share information with external entities is fragile and, frankly, very hard to believe. . It is a company that has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to exercise responsible control over the data of its users.
"I was delighted to learn that Facebook had put its role in the research study relatively prominently," said Senator Warner about the letter. "I'm still very concerned about how Facebook has used the search application and its Onavo virtual private network to track emerging competitors, in a way that users do not reasonably expect . "
You can read a full copy of Facebook's letter to Warner here.
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