The simplest explanation of why this is a tragically bad idea for them can be explained by a single product: “condoms”.
If they automatically identify photos where someone happens to have left out a condom somewhere in the frame, and then use their likeness to advertise that brand of condoms (at the brand’s request), they will destroy any remaining trust in their platform among teens and inspire hostile legislation after the progeny of a public figure have their face used in such an ad without their opt-in consent.
This is one of the worst ideas they could possibly have come up with. It’s insane to think what kind of filter bubble they’re working within that permit this to proceed to the patent stage.
For tragically bad, I would go with five words: "know someone who is pregnant?" with a picture of the user's teenage daughter like Target[1] except more social. I am pretty sure that could turn into a greater tragedy, and probably is inevitable given how much of a distortion field this requires to implement.
Feels like the kind of feature that you monetize until there are too many voices against it at which point you probably made so much money that it's totally worth it.
Feels like the kind of feature that you monetize until there are too many voices against it at which point you probably made so much money that it's totally worth it.
Then you put out a non-apology press release with the key phrase "We can do better."
I hope people stop being naive and finally understand they are product, not the customers. If you are not paying for the services it means somebody else pays for you to get the service and that your interest is only important to Facebook as long and as much as they can still keep you posting all your lives' details and carrying their spying app on your phone. Because that's what FB really wants from you, not your happiness.
Facebook's motto:
1. Implement out-of-touch privacy antagonistic methods to earn money.
2. Face public backlash.
3. Say, we are sorry. We are stopping it (not totally). We are going to improve.
4. Repeat.
Business model that could make so much money that followed-up penalties for privacy violations already priced-in.
Until government steps in - this behavior will continue.
The question and blames should be directed to lawmakers - why they are hesitant to pass strong privacy laws to stop that.
Clearly FB is not going to do anything. It's way cheaper to send Mark Z. to be grilled once a year then abandon privacy violation based business models.
> why are they hesitant to pass strong privacy laws
Because companies like FB/Google/Amazon spend ridiculous amounts of money "lobbying" and trading favors with the government to prevent them from doing anything to get in the way of surveillance capitalism.
I thought they already did this. I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in their terms of service they can use your pictures for this(not that I don't think it's horrible or that it's excusable.) Wasn't there some trouble a bunch of years ago when someone found one of their facebook pictures being used in an ad? Or am I thinking of something totally different?
When the Smiths of Missouri – an all-American family with the regulation two blond children – posed for their Christmas photo, little did they know they would end up on a billboard thousands of miles away in the Czech Republic.
Just under a fortnight ago, a family friend of Jeff and Danielle Smith was travelling in Prague when he spotted some familiar faces beaming out of a poster advertising a grocery store's home delivery service.
When I was in college and Facebook was relatively new, I once saw a girl I went to college with in a dating ad. She wasn't a model, she didn't give them permission. But they scraped her photo from Facebook.
It would make much more sense to just use the data for advertising and not peoples pictures.
Examples:
- If you see Steve's close friends all drink grey goose but he doesn't start advertising goose to him
- If you have advertised Polo shirts to John and then he uploads a picture of him in a new Polo shirt, fb can take credit for that sale
- Allow advertisers to exclude users who already own/use their product
etc.
This approach is much less visible to consumers and so would be more widely accepted (or just have less articles saying bad things about it).
I can’t see how this would be legal. As a amateur photographer myself, I know that to do a commercial photo like this, to advertise a product, I’d need model releases and a potentially a property release. Neither of these are needed for editorial images or people’s own personal pictures. I can’t see the facebook could do this via the EULA, so they’d have to contact everyone identifiable in the pictures - which I suspect would mean it’s not viable for them.
Not really, I'd say in that case its more like doing stock photo shoots, knowing it will be used for commercial purposes.
Vs what FB is doing, sure they mostly likely own any photo uploaded to them via their TOS, but people never expected for those photos to be used in commercial purposes, even if they say they can in the TOS.
So what if a user uploads a photo they don't own? If I take a group picture with my friends (but I'm not a Facebook user), send it (outside of Facebook controlled means) to one of those individuals pictured, and THEY choose to post it -- what happens, in this new scenario?
The poster doesn't own the rights to the photo, and thus doesn't have the right to implicitly (via some EULA rewrite) grant Facebook the right to use it.
Or what if someone uploaded copyrighted Getty images of famous people which then get used in ads. Whose liable in that case when Getty rolls around with DMCA notices.
Well, this is just another piece of evidence that my decision to both not be a part of Facebook and to not have any pictures of me online were correct.
That's not enough, though—you also have to make sure your friends are not on facebook, and don't put pictures of you online. It's not an individual consent issue anymore in a wired-up world.
To file patent, you have to have some prototype, but it actually cannot be in production for more than year (and does not have to be in production at all).
This is absolutely literally precisely the practice that ignited the right to privacy movement in the late 19th century: misappropriation of likeness without notice or compensation for commercial advertising, in the case of Abigail Roberson, whose 1897 portrait photograph was appropriated by Franklin Mills to sell flour, reproduced over 25,000 times acros the United State. She sued and won, but lost on appeal.
What an exceeding corrupt and useless tactic! Thanks Facebook, every time I think you've hit the rocky bottom of the Moral Well, you break or the shovels and pick axes and make stuff happen!
No. Their mission is to monetize as much of the world's population as possible. That "open and connected" thing is just the pretty lie that they have to tell.
I can just imagine this being the new Instagram challenge for young people. Get good looking enough to get in an ad, make no money but be famous in your group of friends. Personally, I don't want to see anyone I know being "used" for an ad. Just imagine, grandma being featured in an adult diaper ad or your son's friend being used in an ad for some toy. Keeping up with the Jones' by seeing them in target ads.
If you delete your account, is there any way to make sure your data is deleted? I feel like disabling my account probably only denies myself access to their data on me
I think Facebook maintains profiles on people that don't have accounts. I don't see any reason why deleting your account would cause a deletion of any data. If they did wipe the slate, it probably wouldn't take that long for them to rebuild their dossier on you.
Better to confound FB by posting/uploading fake content. Even better if you can keep it consistently wrong. Be sure to tag your name to other people's faces to confuse their facial recognition algorithms.
Lawyers and Para-legals of HN, what's your opinion on this; watermark all photos you upload to FB with a disclaimer saying something like:
"By leaving this picture accessible, Facebook agrees that I retain full copyrights, and Facebook can not use this picture for advertising purposes, all clauses of Facebooks EULA in contrary being void"
Would something like this work and be accepted in a court of law ?
It’s as ineffective and thus nonsensical as the “copyright notice” that typical consumers started to cut and paste into their bios few years back. By using their service, you’ve already accepted their agreement, to whatever extent it’s legally enforceable. I really doubt that it includes a clause that you can negate or place restrictions on the agreement within the content that you post using their service. It would make more sense to send them a letter if that’s really what you want to try to do. If you don’t want Facebook to use your image the best way is to not upload it to them.
IANAL, but for that to work you'd need, at a minimum, someone authorized to bind Facebook contractually (e.g, a corporate officer) to have read the watermark and left the picture accessible, and even that's less clear than if the acceptance was by action rather than inaction.
Watermarks have no specific legal merit and never did. People use them because it makes them feel better, copyright exists with or without the watermark and Facebook's terms (that you agreed to) apply with or without it.
Plus implicit agreements to a contract is a rabbit hole, and you'd never be able to show that a human working at Facebook ever witnessed this supposed contractual verbiage.
This reminds me a lot of those "share this image to stop Facebook selling your information to advertisers" meme that was going around a few years ago.
I can only imagine that this would just make the photos unusable (I imagine a "John Smith" printed diagonally on a photo, enough to make it 'viewable' by friends, but unusable by advertisers. Of course there is always photoshop, and I will assume that even if someone watermarks a photo like that, someone, somewhere can spend 10mins and process/edit the semi-transparent letters so as to 'remove' them from the picture.
Nope. But in some jurisdictions consumer protection and data privacy laws ought to prevent FB doing this, their EULA notwithstanding.
However, bear in mind that this is from The Telegraph, which is a not a high quality news source. There is likely to be a significant element of misreporting, so I'd like to see a verifying story from a credible source before damning FB.
[+] [-] floatingatoll|7 years ago|reply
If they automatically identify photos where someone happens to have left out a condom somewhere in the frame, and then use their likeness to advertise that brand of condoms (at the brand’s request), they will destroy any remaining trust in their platform among teens and inspire hostile legislation after the progeny of a public figure have their face used in such an ad without their opt-in consent.
This is one of the worst ideas they could possibly have come up with. It’s insane to think what kind of filter bubble they’re working within that permit this to proceed to the patent stage.
[+] [-] throwaway_9168|7 years ago|reply
"Remember, what Facebook is doing has never been done before. There are going to be mistakes."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420
It reminded me of this classic tweet:
https://twitter.com/emilylindin/status/933073784822579200?la...
[+] [-] protomyth|7 years ago|reply
1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
[+] [-] chillacy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThalesX|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reaperducer|7 years ago|reply
Then you put out a non-apology press release with the key phrase "We can do better."
[+] [-] lmilcin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nafizh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gesman|7 years ago|reply
Until government steps in - this behavior will continue.
The question and blames should be directed to lawmakers - why they are hesitant to pass strong privacy laws to stop that.
Clearly FB is not going to do anything. It's way cheaper to send Mark Z. to be grilled once a year then abandon privacy violation based business models.
[+] [-] 908087|7 years ago|reply
Because companies like FB/Google/Amazon spend ridiculous amounts of money "lobbying" and trading favors with the government to prevent them from doing anything to get in the way of surveillance capitalism.
[+] [-] grawprog|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badwolf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k1t|7 years ago|reply
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/11/smith-family-p...
When the Smiths of Missouri – an all-American family with the regulation two blond children – posed for their Christmas photo, little did they know they would end up on a billboard thousands of miles away in the Czech Republic.
Just under a fortnight ago, a family friend of Jeff and Danielle Smith was travelling in Prague when he spotted some familiar faces beaming out of a poster advertising a grocery store's home delivery service.
[+] [-] partiallypro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soared|7 years ago|reply
Examples: - If you see Steve's close friends all drink grey goose but he doesn't start advertising goose to him - If you have advertised Polo shirts to John and then he uploads a picture of him in a new Polo shirt, fb can take credit for that sale - Allow advertisers to exclude users who already own/use their product
etc.
This approach is much less visible to consumers and so would be more widely accepted (or just have less articles saying bad things about it).
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] okmokmz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rythie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] olefoo|7 years ago|reply
Technically you are giving facebook all rights to reproduce and monetize any content you put on the platform... thus has it always been.
[+] [-] ralusek|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w-ll|7 years ago|reply
Vs what FB is doing, sure they mostly likely own any photo uploaded to them via their TOS, but people never expected for those photos to be used in commercial purposes, even if they say they can in the TOS.
[+] [-] MrZongle2|7 years ago|reply
The poster doesn't own the rights to the photo, and thus doesn't have the right to implicitly (via some EULA rewrite) grant Facebook the right to use it.
[+] [-] somethoughts|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnFen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] idlewords|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KorematsuFred|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mic47|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|7 years ago|reply
https://gizmodo.com/how-a-19th-century-teenager-sparked-a-ba...
[+] [-] craftinator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starpilot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnFen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] behringer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickben|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmm84|7 years ago|reply
I can just imagine this being the new Instagram challenge for young people. Get good looking enough to get in an ad, make no money but be famous in your group of friends. Personally, I don't want to see anyone I know being "used" for an ad. Just imagine, grandma being featured in an adult diaper ad or your son's friend being used in an ad for some toy. Keeping up with the Jones' by seeing them in target ads.
[+] [-] jammygit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swagasaurus-rex|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecount122195|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Anarch157a|7 years ago|reply
"By leaving this picture accessible, Facebook agrees that I retain full copyrights, and Facebook can not use this picture for advertising purposes, all clauses of Facebooks EULA in contrary being void"
Would something like this work and be accepted in a court of law ?
[+] [-] code_duck|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ladon86|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone1234|7 years ago|reply
Plus implicit agreements to a contract is a rabbit hole, and you'd never be able to show that a human working at Facebook ever witnessed this supposed contractual verbiage.
This reminds me a lot of those "share this image to stop Facebook selling your information to advertisers" meme that was going around a few years ago.
[+] [-] HenryBemis|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hedders|7 years ago|reply
However, bear in mind that this is from The Telegraph, which is a not a high quality news source. There is likely to be a significant element of misreporting, so I'd like to see a verifying story from a credible source before damning FB.
[+] [-] JohnFen|7 years ago|reply
No.
[+] [-] rolph|7 years ago|reply
It would definately skew or alter brand perception, so here we go with a filter being required.