[timee80]

I know it’s not just Facebook. Google, Microsoft and I bet most apps seem to scrape more data than they should do. Just wondered how many have gone back to their old blackberrys because that are fed up of this?, and try to live without the apps.? Before someone pipes up about old os’s being eol, I am fully aware of this. Thanks

[glwerry]

No. I have important business apps that won't work under BB10 (I tried, honest I did) and so I'm on Android. Period.

[conite]

I know it’s not just Facebook. Google, Microsoft and I bet most apps seem to scrape more data than they should do. Just wondered how many have gone back to their old blackberrys because that are fed up of this?, and try to live without the apps.? Before someone pipes up about old os’s being eol, I am fully aware of this. Thanks

The Facebook issue had absolutely nothing to do with the device used.

If you don't like data mining, don't install the apps, upgrade to G Suite, and lock down all your other privacy settings. You can also use a private browser, and a VPN.

If your solution is to go back to a pre 2014 device, then you might as well go back even further and use a pager.

[timee80]

The Facebook issue had absolutely nothing to do with the device used.

If you don't like data mining, don't install the apps, upgrade to G Suite, and lock down all your other privacy settings. You can also use a private browser, and a VPN.

If your solution is to go back to a pre 2014 device, then you might as well go back even further and use a pager.

I’ll scour eBay for a Nokia 3210, pagers are a bit too old school for me these days lol

[timee80]

I wasn’t trying to say it was to do with a specific device. I meant the platforms (iOS and android) that allow Facebook and others to capture your browsing, emails, calendars, messages, and other activity, even when not logged in to the app

[conite]

I wasn’t trying to say it was to do with a specific device. I meant the platforms (iOS and android) that allow Facebook and others to capture your browsing, emails, calendars, messages, and other activity, even when not logged in to the app

That's not really accurate though.

Only data that you specifically give permission to Facebook to mine gets mined, ie: contacts. Everything else they collect is done while you're using its service, on its own servers.

[duncan86]

The Facebook issue had absolutely nothing to do with the device used.

If you don't like data mining, don't install the apps, upgrade to G Suite, and lock down all your other privacy settings. You can also use a private browser, and a VPN.

If your solution is to go back to a pre 2014 device, then you might as well go back even further and use a pager.

Well, with my keyone Facebook comes pre-installed due to a carrier agreement, and you can't uninstall it. You can disable it, block notifications, disable updates, etc, but you can never fully remove it, and as the keyone forbids rooting one is more or less stuck with it. That said the fault is with the carriers who mandate it than with the device itself.

[conite]

Well, with my keyone Facebook comes pre-installed due to a carrier agreement, and you can't uninstall it. You can disable it, block notifications, disable updates, etc, but you can never fully remove it, and as the keyone forbids rooting one is more or less stuck with it. That said the fault is with the carriers who mandate it than with the device itself.

Ok, but if you disable it, it's effectively extinguished.

Nor does it mine your contacts unless you run it and explicitly give it permission to do so.

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

Ok, but if you disable it, it's effectively extinguished.

Nor does it mine your contacts unless you run it and explicitly give it permission to do so.

Really and who is certifying this? Seems to me they've been caught more than once leaving features turned on, that users explicitly disabled ....though I think it was Google itself. That's the problem, the OS's , both Android's an IOS's - There is no real guarantee of privacy protection. It's that elephant in the room that we don't want to talk about....cause well there's a reason. We need a locked-down bb10 space in this smartphone space, there is room for it.

[duncan86]

Ok, but if you disable it, it's effectively extinguished.

Nor does it mine your contacts unless you run it and explicitly give it permission to do so.

Perhaps, but I'd rather not have it on my device at all as a matter of principle as well as wasted space.

I also had disabled apps spontaneously get re-enabled after a carrier update as well.

Nothing against the keyone in particular but it is a little understood or ignored aspect of the greasy goings-on between the carriers and google.

[conite]

Really and who is certifying this? Seems to me they've been caught more than once leaving features turned on, that users explicitly disabled ....though I think it was Google itself. That's the problem, the OS's , both Android's an IOS's - There is no real guarantee of privacy protection. It's that elephant in the room that we don't want to talk about....cause well there's a reason. We need a locked-down bb10 space in this smartphone space, there is room for it.

Let's break this down.

First, Facebook is exactly how I described.

Second, if you are expanding this to Google specifically, I already posted mitigation procedures above. You can lock things down as well as your desktop - which means most, but not all.

Arguing the use of ancient tech to avoid the modern world may be functional, but not practical. We all have an online presence because we insist on it. We want the services, and are willing to provide quid pro quo.

[kbz1960]

What does Facebook have to do with what OS a person is using? The issue is Facebook, yes?

[bb10adopter111]

Ok, but if you disable it, it's effectively extinguished.

Nor does it mine your contacts unless you run it and explicitly give it permission to do so.

Facebook mines your contacts on Facebook regardless of your phone permissions.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[conite]

Facebook mines your contacts on Facebook regardless of your phone permissions.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Not so. You have to give it permission when you first log into the app.

[bb10adopter111]

Not so. You have to give it permission when you first log into the app.

I'm not talking about the contacts on your phone. I'm talking about your contacts on Facebook's servers. That's their business model.

Facebook regularly suggests allowing access to their users' contacts through all of their interfaces, and they only need to be granted access occasionally for the ploy to work. The fact that you technically deny them permission to access contacts via their mobile app is really incidental, IMO.

FB has the contact info for most of their customers because they design their interfaces to encourage people to grant permission. Only sophisticated users who are paying attention are likely to resist their approach.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[JSmith422]

The Facebook issue had absolutely nothing to do with the device used.

If you don't like data mining, don't install the apps, upgrade to G Suite, and lock down all your other privacy settings. You can also use a private browser, and a VPN.

If your solution is to go back to a pre 2014 device, then you might as well go back even further and use a pager.

What privacy browsers and vpn's do you like for this purpose?

[CrackNutRun]

I am not surprised when I read people's comments that mix security and privacy issues in one topic. The truth is that when I first read the news about facebook, my mind immediately made the same connections between the aforementioned issues, simply because there is an overlapping context - data mining. My answer to the first post of the thread is that I try to be a conscious consumer, by sacrificing convenience for security and privacy. I hope Chen's invitation for the manufacturing of a mobile device with a striped down version of 10os and a "basic" browser as he mentioned, will flourish. Otherwise I will continue to work, live, communicate, without the double-edged sword "comfort" of modern communication devices.

[conite]

I hope Chen's invitation for the manufacturing of a mobile device with a striped down version of 10os and a "basic" browser as he mentioned, will flourish.

He never mentioned BB10.

[MC_A_DOT]

Is this a serious question

Where's the tinfoil at lol

[anon(10321802)]

If your solution is to go back to a pre 2014 device, then you might as well go back even further and use a pager.

Oh, stop. A Q10, first released in April 2013, can still do so much more than a pager.

Posted from my BlackBerry Q10

[anon(10321802)]

I understand what the OP is saying. It's not just Facebook that is tracking you, but the spotlight on their privacy and tracking practices has raised the question of privacy and tracking in general.

Facebook is bad enough, but Google is, by far, the biggest tracking company of them all.

Android is, first and foremost, a data-mining platform meant to feed into Google's targeted ad business. It has been proven time and time again to be tracking just about everything you do with the device and sending that data to Google.

So would switching back to BBOS or BB10 reduce the amount of data Google is collecting from you compared to Android? Yes, it absolutely would.

Posted from my BlackBerry Q10

[conite]

I understand what the OP is saying. It's not just Facebook that is tracking you, but the spotlight on their privacy and tracking practices has raised the question of privacy and tracking in general.

Facebook is bad enough, but Google is, by far, the biggest tracking company of them all.

Android is, first and foremost, a data-mining platform meant to feed into Google's targeted ad business. It has been proven time and time again to be tracking just about everything you do with the device and sending that data to Google.

So would switching back to BBOS or BB10 reduce the amount of data Google is collecting from you compared to Android? Yes, it absolutely would.

Posted from my BlackBerry Q10

Sure.

But switching back to a pager (although that was said half-jokingly) would do that even better.

The fact is, a pager is missing 99% of what people need in a modern communication/mobile device, BBOS is missing 90%, and BB10 is missing 75% (numbers are for argument sake).

Time (and buyers) has spoken on the various platforms/technologies.

We need a realistic, forward-looking solution to this "problem".

With the availability of drivers and developers, I see a managed, stripped-down, locked-down device based on Android as the best option.

I just don't see the user-base to make it viable however.

[Gavril Gheorghiasa]

what is this facebook privacy problem about ? cause if it's nasty, i can uninstall and delete my fb account right in the next moment

[conite]

what is this facebook privacy problem about ? cause if it's nasty, i can uninstall and delete my fb account right in the next moment

Welcome back from planet Mars!

[Troy Tiscareno]

The "Facebook privacy issue" in the media had nothing to do with mobile devices, and folks using FB on BB10 or even BBOS would have been equally affected by problem as anyone else. The issue wasn't that FB had your contact data, because no matter what the platform, you, the user, had to give them permission to access your contact data.

The problem was that FB had incredibly poor controls and practices for how their third parties got your data. A developer here posted that he was writing a game and used the FB API to request the user name of the gamer, but he was essentially given everything: username, real name, address, phone, email, etc. FB's API at the time didn't even allow him to request JUST the username - it was all or nothing, and then it was up to him as the developer to be responsible with the data. That's a HUGE breach of trust and I believe it also violated FB's privacy policy, yet that's how FB worked for many years.

But there's nothing you could have changed on your phone to prevent that other than not giving FB access to any of your contact info in the first place - but most FB users want to use the functions and features that giving that data gets them. I'd bet at least 98% of BB10 FB users allowed FB to access their contacts, and, again, once they had that information, the OS made no impact on third parties getting access to that information.