Last year was not a good year for Facebook. Starting with the Cambridge Analytica, the social media giant seemed to stumble through a series of gaffes that literally erased billions from Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth. Yet, here we are again with the social media giant continuing to act with cavalier indifference towards its users’ privacy, and at this point, are you really surprised? We’re all adults here – I’m in no position to tell you what you should be keeping private or not, but I feel it’s my duty to make sure you are aware with whom you are sharing data, and that they are NOT here to serve you, but vice versa. And let’s put one big, stinging fact on the table – despite all of this, Facebook’s stock bounced back easily from last year’s drubbing, and is now poised to surge ahead thanks to better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings.
The latest proof that Facebook doesn’t care about your privacy
A few years back, Facebook instituted two-factor authentication for its login process, asking user’s for a phone number as the second factor. At this point, 2FA is the new security hotness, and millions are already smarting from a variety of virus infections, identity theft and account hacks to agree that 2FA was the best way to secure their accounts. While they weren’t (and still aren’t) wrong, could they have guessed that Facebook would start using that phone number as a means for other people to search for you, even if the searcher wasn’t someone you actually knew? How about doing this without even asking if its OK? This setting can be changed, but by default it’s set to allow “Public” access to use the 2FA phone number to help others find you. I don’t know about you, but that feels like the opposite of what everyone thought sharing this number with Facebook would do.
Strike two this month comes in the form of Facebook openly admitting that it receives data from many apps, including ones that help users track menstrual cycles, heart rates and website viewing habits, even if the user didn’t have a Facebook account. If this looks eerily similar to a recent article I wrote about a certain cell provider who was not being a good steward of your data, it is because it is yet another iteration of the same questionable practice.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles from FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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