{"id":632,"date":"2014-04-15T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/convergedsystems.com\/blog\/?p=632"},"modified":"2018-10-09T11:56:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T16:56:17","slug":"facebook-under-fire-for-private-message-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.convergedsystems.com\/blog\/facebook-under-fire-for-private-message-mining\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Under Fire for Private Message Mining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A class-action lawsuit against Facebook has been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itnews.com\/internet-based-applications-and-services\/77218\/facebook-faces-class-action-suit-canada-over-intercep\" class=\"external external_icon\" rel=\"nofollow\">filed<\/a> in Canada. The allegations state that Facebook was harvesting data through scanning its users\u2019 private messages without their knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>The social media site did not disclose to users that private messages would be scanned for content to collect data for third-party companies. URLs collected from those messages were considered \u201cLikes\u201d for the companies\u2019 sites, and also helped companies with user profiling.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S. a similar suit was filed against Facebook in December. Facebook users Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of all U.S. Facebook users who were unaware that content in their private Facebook messages was scanned without their consent. The complaint stated that Facebook failed to inform users of its actions, and that the company had claims implying \u201cthe promise that only the sender and the recipient or recipients will be privy to the private message\u2019s content, to the exclusion of any other party, including Facebook.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The link shared in a private message would represent two additional \u201cLikes\u201d to a company\u2019s Facebook page. This allowed companies to increase its amount of \u201clikes\u201d and potentially \u201cpump up to 1,800 \u2018Likes\u2019 an hour,\u201d Hacker News reported.<\/p>\n<p>Allegedly, Facebook profited from sharing data with the third-party sites and companies, which included advertisers, marketers and other data aggregators. The Wall Street Journal exposed the social media mogul in an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/digits\/2012\/10\/03\/how-private-are-your-private-messages\/\" class=\"external external_icon\" rel=\"nofollow\">October 2012 report<\/a>, after which Facebook stopped the scanning.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook responded in a statement, placing blame on \u201ca bug with our social plugins where at times the count or &#8216;Likes&#8217; goes up by two.\u201d The company also said that many websites use the \u201cLike\u201d, \u201cRecommend\u201d and \u201cShare\u201d buttons and use a counter to monitor how many times people click those buttons, including through private messages.<\/p>\n<p>With pending lawsuits, Facebook may want to rethink its privacy policies.<\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-32 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox external\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.convergedsystems.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F632&#038;t=Facebook%20Under%20Fire%20for%20Private%20Message%20Mining&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.convergedsystems.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F632&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=Facebook%20Under%20Fire%20for%20Private%20Message%20Mining\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:32px;height:32px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" style=\"display: inline;width:32px;height:32px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.convergedsystems.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/64x64\/facebook.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-32 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-twitter nolightbox external\" data-provider=\"twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.convergedsystems.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F632&#038;text=Hey%20check%20this%20out\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:32px;height:32px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"twitter\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" style=\"display: inline;width:32px;height:32px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.convergedsystems.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/64x64\/twitter.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-32 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-linkedin nolightbox external\" data-provider=\"linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Linkedin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.convergedsystems.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F632&#038;title=Facebook%20Under%20Fire%20for%20Private%20Message%20Mining\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:32px;height:32px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"linkedin\" title=\"Share on Linkedin\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" style=\"display: inline;width:32px;height:32px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.convergedsystems.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/64x64\/linkedin.png\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A class-action lawsuit against Facebook has been filed in Canada. The allegations state that Facebook was harvesting data through scanning its users\u2019 private messages without their knowledge. The social media site did not disclose to users that private messages would be scanned for content to collect data for third-party companies. URLs collected from those messages&#8230; <a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.convergedsystems.com\/blog\/facebook-under-fire-for-private-message-mining\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Facebook Under Fire for Private Message Mining - Converged Systems Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.convergedsystems.com\/blog\/facebook-under-fire-for-private-message-mining\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facebook Under Fire for Private Message Mining - Converged Systems Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A class-action lawsuit against Facebook has been filed in Canada. 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