[HN Gopher] Facebook security app used to 'spy' on competitors (... ___________________________________________________________________ Facebook security app used to 'spy' on competitors (2019) Author : lifeisstillgood Score : 38 points Date : 2020-09-06 18:46 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk) | s09dfhks wrote: | pretty sure everyone knew this was coming. I could sense every | hackernews' eyeballs rolling in unison when facebook announced | they were offering a VPN | vijaybritto wrote: | I was joking to my friends that FB was offering a VPN only to spy | on connections to other companies so that they can acquire them | after a certain level. But its shocking to see that this actually | happened | neilalexander wrote: | It's just another day in Facebook. | llimos wrote: | It's an old article. From my point of view I'm interested in | hearing the story of the developers tasked to work on this kind | of thing. Do they know what they're building and do it anyway | because their manager told them to? Or are they kept in the dark | and each build a small part so they can't tell what it's going to | be? Or does the company estimate which teams would be ok with | building something a little shifty and give it to them? | | I'd be especially interested to hear any insider perspectives, | from any $bigcorp | im3w1l wrote: | Likely internal propaganda. About how this doesn't really harm | the consumer. About how you protect them from worse things. And | that its all laid out in the EULA. | marcinzm wrote: | Some people just don't care and are proud of the technical | challenge irrespective of ethics. I once had a CTO candidate | boast about writing desktop spyware back in the day and how | he'd hacked all our families (his words, not mine, he brought | up the topic). | tmpz22 wrote: | You didn't quit in the spot? | marcinzm wrote: | We didn't hire him, the whole team had very strong and very | negative feedback once the shock wore off. | Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote: | Should be marked as (2019) and while interesting, Onavo was shut | down in Feb 2019 [1] | | " Since the acquisition, Onavo was frequently classified as being | spyware, as the VPN was used to monetize application usage data | collected within an allegedly privacy-focused environment. In | August 2018, Facebook pulled Onavo Protect from the iOS App Store | due to violations of Apple's policy forbidding apps from | collecting data on the usage of other apps. In February 2019, in | response to criticism over a Facebook market research program | employing similar techniques (including, in particular, being | targeted towards teens), Onavo announced that it would sunset the | Android version of Protect as well. " | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo | [deleted] | Magnets wrote: | Didn't google get caught doing this recently? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-09-06 23:00 UTC)