<story><title>Facebook sues two Chrome extension devs for scraping user data</title><url>https://about.fb.com/news/2021/01/combating-scraping-by-malicious-browser-extensions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>1vuio0pswjnm7</author><text>Interesting, now Facebook is trying to portray themselves as some sort of legal watchdog over users&amp;#x27; data, suing weak, non-customer defendants at random.  No doubt they&amp;#x27;ll be citing this as evidence of their benevolent corporate mission in the next round of regulatory actions against the company.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;about.fb.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;legal-action&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;about.fb.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;legal-action&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Users&amp;#x27; data is Facebook&amp;#x27;s main asset.  They created the danger posed by these defendants by intentionally collecting user data on such a massive scale.  They&amp;#x27;re not protecting users, they are protecting their business of creating pools of similarly situated users for advertisers to target.  Facebook will never protect users from advertisers.  They will not sue their own customers.&lt;p&gt;At least with these defendants one can get a rough idea of what they were trying to do, the methods they were using to collect data.  With Facebook, the internal operations of the company, how they solicit, collect and use people&amp;#x27;s data, is deliberately withheld from public scrutiny.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re using your data to make our service better.&amp;quot;  For whom?  Their customers, which may include political campaigns.  Facebook is free.  The user is not the customer.  &amp;quot;We cannot reveal what we are doing because that would put us at a competitive disadvantage.&amp;quot;   Obviously they are doing much more than just storing your data and making it available to your friends list.  You are not the customer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>1vuio0pswjnm7</author><text>When Facebook customers, i.e., purchasers of Facebook advertising, filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook recently for fraud^1 (more specifically, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leginfo.legislature.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;faces&amp;#x2F;codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=17200.&amp;amp;lawCode=BPC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leginfo.legislature.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;faces&amp;#x2F;codes_displaySectio...&lt;/a&gt;
), Facebook tried to place their amended complaint under seal, so the public could not see it.  In part, because it disclosed what goes on behind the scenes at Facebook, the very things that the plaintiffs are suing over.  Facebook has much to hide and litigation is one way some of their shady practices may eventually find themselves under the spotlight of public scrutiny.  What goes around comes around.&lt;p&gt;1 &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cases.justia.com&amp;#x2F;federal&amp;#x2F;district-courts&amp;#x2F;california&amp;#x2F;candce&amp;#x2F;4:2018cv05286&amp;#x2F;331306&amp;#x2F;147&amp;#x2F;0.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cases.justia.com&amp;#x2F;federal&amp;#x2F;district-courts&amp;#x2F;california&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook sues two Chrome extension devs for scraping user data</title><url>https://about.fb.com/news/2021/01/combating-scraping-by-malicious-browser-extensions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>1vuio0pswjnm7</author><text>Interesting, now Facebook is trying to portray themselves as some sort of legal watchdog over users&amp;#x27; data, suing weak, non-customer defendants at random.  No doubt they&amp;#x27;ll be citing this as evidence of their benevolent corporate mission in the next round of regulatory actions against the company.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;about.fb.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;legal-action&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;about.fb.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;legal-action&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Users&amp;#x27; data is Facebook&amp;#x27;s main asset.  They created the danger posed by these defendants by intentionally collecting user data on such a massive scale.  They&amp;#x27;re not protecting users, they are protecting their business of creating pools of similarly situated users for advertisers to target.  Facebook will never protect users from advertisers.  They will not sue their own customers.&lt;p&gt;At least with these defendants one can get a rough idea of what they were trying to do, the methods they were using to collect data.  With Facebook, the internal operations of the company, how they solicit, collect and use people&amp;#x27;s data, is deliberately withheld from public scrutiny.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re using your data to make our service better.&amp;quot;  For whom?  Their customers, which may include political campaigns.  Facebook is free.  The user is not the customer.  &amp;quot;We cannot reveal what we are doing because that would put us at a competitive disadvantage.&amp;quot;   Obviously they are doing much more than just storing your data and making it available to your friends list.  You are not the customer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skybrian</author><text>You should have noticed by now that there is widespread, emphatic agreement that Facebook should protect users&amp;#x27; data from third parties.&lt;p&gt;This is why what Cambridge Analytics did was bad, right?</text></comment>