WhatsApp Uses Status Updates to Remind Users About Its Privacy Commitments

[Digital Dude]

There's no confusion in my mind, it used to be great, and now it isn't. I believe I read that Suckerberg has given us until 1 May before his next land grab of personal data. I've already added 'Signal' to my apps as contingency (a). It isn't as polished as 'WhatsApp', but hopefully, it will be before long. If push comes to shove, I'll use the screen-freeze messaging app from Apple.

 

[cipher29]

We can't read your messages, but we will still dump all metadata around who you talk to, how often you talk to them, who's in your contact list and what you collectively all do for fun!

We truly care and value your privacy lol ...

 

[cipher29]

I deleted Facebook over 3 years ago and last month WhatsApp and Instagram and I will never look back ! I have now more contacts on Signal than I ever had before and a few on Telegram.
Does anyone have an idea about how many people deleted WhatsApp ?

I noticed the same thing.. An absolute avalanche of new Signal contacts... Literally made me so happy to see it!

 

[cipher29]

They might not read the messages themselves but they will log who wrote to whom, from where, at what time. They do this in coordination with regard the Facebook pixel that most websites have and then have a pretty good idea what people might be talking about, or at least interested in. Then they show your contacts ads relevant to this. That isn’t a good way to respect privacy... Go rot in hell Facebook and Co. it’s really too bad, WhatsApp and Instagram where such good apps...

IG is the only FB app I still have on my device, and I'm quickly moving towards deleting it.. When 20-30% of the photos you now see are ads + IG just trying to force feed their TikTok wanna be rolls down your throat, the user experience is terrible.

 

[Oz.]

Desperate times for fb!

Signal and iMessage works for me

 

[cupcakes2000]

The most disturbing thing that caused my wife to drop Facebook (I never had it) was a recent trip we made to Charlotte. We were passing a Crate and Barrel store. The store was in a plaza near a mall surrounded by many stores. We never shop at Crate and Barrel, and my wife is not on any of their mailing lists. As we were driving by, my wife remarked: "I'd like to stop in Crate and Barrel". That is all she said. She did not look anything up on her phone and we were not using any map program at the time (we only have Googlemaps and Apple Maps). She did not have Facebook open on her phone at the time. I told her we had to be somewhere at a certain time and we couldn't stop. We continued past and went on our way. When we returned home a few hours later, my wife opened Facebook on her device and guess what? The top ad was Crate and Barrel. I wish I could say this was the only time this has happened, but we've noticed other incidents, but none as isolated as this.

I've heard so many say that Facebook doesn't listen to conversations. I call BS. It's creepy, annoying, and yes, a bit frightening.

We dropped Facebook right after this episode and haven't looked back. Zuckerburg is scum.

Whilst I have no doubt at all that this happened and completely agree it’s creepy af, I highly doubt that the app was somehow ‘listening’ to you.

More likely is that your partner has clicked like on a product tagged with the brand or browsed the brands website, or even stopped scrolling past an ad on Facebook for a few seconds and then continued without clicking (or a place that has some Facebook trackers). They can measure pointer movements, and placements, scrolling speeds and all that type of data. These things can be done almost passively without any real awareness of what your doing.
This was likely coupled with some sort of location tracking. Unless you (and she) are extremely vigilant it’s easy to have over looked sharing some sort of location data once, perhaps pointing to the journey. Perhaps it was even browsing the web or Facebook app from the location you ended up at, coupled with the data they hold on you knowing where you normally live, it’s not hard for advanced algorithms to work this stuff out. You took an a to b route, there are only certain main roads you would have taken I assume.
Just as freaky, but I’m certain these apps don’t ‘listen’ to you passively. On an iPhone certainly. That doesn’t make it any less creepy. In fact in my opinion it’s substantially more creepy.

 

[jjudson]

Whilst I have no doubt at all that this happened and completely agree it’s creepy af, I highly doubt that the app was somehow ‘listening’ to you.

More likely is that your partner has clicked like on a product tagged with the brand or browsed the brands website, or even stopped scrolling past an ad on Facebook for a few seconds and then continued without clicking (or a place that has some Facebook trackers). They can measure pointer movements, and placements, scrolling speeds and all that type of data. These things can be done almost passively without any real awareness of what your doing.
This was likely coupled with some sort of location tracking. Unless you (and she) are extremely vigilant it’s easy to have over looked sharing some sort of location data once, perhaps pointing to the journey. Perhaps it was even browsing the web or Facebook app from the location you ended up at, coupled with the data they hold on you knowing where you normally live, it’s not hard for advanced algorithms to work this stuff out. You took an a to b route, there are only certain main roads you would have taken I assume.
Just as freaky, but I’m certain these apps don’t ‘listen’ to you passively. On an iPhone certainly. That doesn’t make it any less creepy. In fact in my opinion it’s substantially more creepy.

I appreciate your points, but the thing that made this most concerning is that the Crate and Barrel store was in a plaza among a number of other stores -- and a very large mall was adjacent. By the time my wife made that comment, we had already passed the Crate and Barrel by probably 150 feet and were around other stores at that moment.

It just seems very strange that Crate and Barrel out of all of the stores was picked out -- especially as we never shop at that store (we were in Charlotte which is 2 hours from our home in the mountains where stores like that don't exist).

 

[cupcakes2000]

I appreciate your points, but the thing that made this most concerning is that the Crate and Barrel store was in a plaza among a number of other stores -- and a very large mall was adjacent. By the time my wife made that comment, we had already passed the Crate and Barrel by probably 150 feet and were around other stores at that moment.

It just seems very strange that Crate and Barrel out of all of the stores was picked out -- especially as we never shop at that store (we were in Charlotte which is 2 hours from our home in the mountains where stores like that don't exist).

Fair enough. But locations of any store which subscribes to the ad network is linked. You could have driven passed one and not even noticed, but it would be flagged just in case. I get your point, and it IS sinister, but it’s exceptionally clever pixel and like button tracking, and browser/app fingerprinting coupled with IP address info that’s done it. It’s very clever stuff and much less nefarious than outright spying on convos. I’m sure certain voice assistants use that, but then they’re not hiding it. If the Facebook app was listening to you without consent, actually listing to conversations, when they get discovered then there would be hell to pay. These ways are much more subtle and way more effective.

 

[wolfshades]

Fair enough. But locations of any store which subscribes to the ad network is linked. You could have driven passed one and not even noticed, but it would be flagged just in case. I get your point, and it IS sinister, but it’s exceptionally clever pixel and like button tracking, and browser/app fingerprinting coupled with IP address info that’s done it. It’s very clever stuff and much less nefarious than outright spying on convos. I’m sure certain voice assistants use that, but then they’re not hiding it. If the Facebook app was listening to you without consent, actually listing to conversations, when they get discovered then there would be hell to pay. These ways are much more subtle and way more effective.

I believe him, as I have a similar story for you.

I was getting my haircut, and my barber was talking about a brand of motorcycle he was thinking about buying. I have never in my life wanted to buy or ride one, so I listened politely to what he said, offered a few questions and we went on to talk about other things.

The next day what do I see in my list of Facebook‘s targeted ads? You guessed it - the same brand of motorcycle. And then other brands of motorcycles too.

Given the scenario you painted, maybe I clicked on an ad for one, had my mouse hover of it somewhere? Not likely as LIS, I have less than zero interest in them. Particularly after a friend of mine became a human crayon after hitting an obstacle on a highway.

I knew then and there some app was listening to our conversation (my barber has an Android and I have my iphone) and was able to communicate it to Facebook somehow.

Someday in the not to distant future I hope someone’s able to do a forensic audit trail of the Facebook and advertiser actions to bring us to where we are today. Preferably in a “tell me like I‘m five years old” vernacular so we can all understand it perfectly.

In the meantime I’m actively working at getting off of all platforms related to FB.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I believe him, as I have a similar story for you.

I was getting my haircut, and my barber was talking about a brand of motorcycle he was thinking about buying. I have never in my life wanted to buy or ride one, so I listened politely to what he said, offered a few questions and we went on to talk about other things.

The next day what do I see in my list of Facebook‘s targeted ads? You guessed it - the same brand of motorcycle. And then other brands of motorcycles too.

Given the scenario you painted, maybe I clicked on an ad for one, had my mouse hover of it somewhere? Not likely as LIS, I have less than zero interest in them. Particularly after a friend of mine became a human crayon after hitting an obstacle on a highway.

I knew then and there some app was listening to our conversation (my barber has an Android and I have my iphone) and was able to communicate it to Facebook somehow.

Someday in the not to distant future I hope someone’s able to do a forensic audit trail of the Facebook and advertiser actions to bring us to where we are today. Preferably in a “tell me like I‘m five years old” vernacular so we can all understand it perfectly.

In the meantime I’m actively working at getting off of all platforms related to FB.

I don’t for a second disbelieve what happened. But you’re trying to tell me that an app on your presumably locked and in pocket iPhone was listening to you nefariously? I don’t buy that. Certainly not in the recent past few years.

The technology to do that (bypassing all of the security features present on modern day iOS and iPhones), the risk of getting caught out, the bandwidth/storage and power needed to parse all the info from the multiple millions of people who have the Facebook app (for example) is just not feasible when compared to app/browser fingerprinting and tracking methods.

As I said before, it’s cheaper, more efficient, more effective and far less nefarious.

It’s much more likely something you have overlooked something you did, or something a ‘friend’ (in Facebook terms) linked you to. It’s easier to comprehend an app ‘listening’ to you, but in actuality it’s a hell of a feat to achieve and keep secret.

(Aside from always listening virtual assistants of course, because they’re actually listening to you because you have told them to).

 

[jjudson]

...in actuality it’s a hell of a feat to achieve and keep secret.

Just thinking out loud here, but what if it's not so secret -- to the folks at Apple? What if it were things like listening into conversations that has opened the rift between Apple and Facebook? Things have gone downhill between them pretty fast, to the point where there's legal action in the works. I doubt Apple would advertise this hole in their functionality as it implicates them in a major security leak and would severely erode trust in their operating system. There are many anecdotal stories out there of this kind of behavior. Too many to not be curious.

Who knows? Some industrial secrets are kept secret for a reason...

 

[cupcakes2000]

Just thinking out loud here, but what if it's not so secret -- to the folks at Apple? What if it were things like listening into conversations that has opened the rift between Apple and Facebook? Things have gone downhill between them pretty fast, to the point where there's legal action in the works. I doubt Apple would advertise this hole in their functionality as it implicates them in a major security leak and would severely erode trust in their operating system. There are many anecdotal stories out there of this kind of behavior. Too many to not be curious.

Who knows? Some industrial secrets are kept secret for a reason...

The problem with these theories are that they are theories looking for a reason to exist. It’s easier for people to believe an all encompassing simple theory like ‘the app must be listening to my conversation’ - rather than trying to comprehend the technicalities of what they’re actually doing. It’s nearly impossible to prevent internet tracking. it’s nearly impossible to fully understand how it works.
All of the anecdotal stories can be easily and more obviously applied to app/browser tracking and fingerprinting, pixels and share buttons, IP address tracking and the well documented nefarious state of the interest based ad world. They don’t need to listen to you, you can easily give this stuff away in other ways without even realising.