back to article Facebook crosses off one legal headache, another pops up: Server blueprint theft spat with Bladeroom settled, but...

A busy Monday saw Facebook settle one court case, only to have another pop up. When the social network's attorneys weren't helping their CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepare for a grilling before US Congress this week, the legal eagles struck a settlement in a trade-secret battle involving Open Compute Project blueprints, before …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Zuck will say nothing of significance

    other than

    "I'll take the 5th" or "I know nothing" to every question after spending several minutes conferring with the 20-30 lawyers he will bring with him.

    cynical? not half.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Zuck won't willingly talk about this, that's for sure

      As Zuk is questioned this week, will Politicians realize just how insidious 'internet-tracking' is, or will they stay lost in obsession with Fake News and blaming 3rd Parties. Take Shadow-Profiles:

      1. Installing an Adblocker doesn't stop Facebook from tracking you through your friends. You automatically get added to 'Lookalikes' groups for tracking and sales purposes etc. Low-hanging-fruit friends / colleagues / family with your email / phone number etc, basically betray your trust due to ignorance!

      2. Backroom data deals such as Facebook Hospital-Patient-Slurp or Google NHS-Deepmind. Again Ad-blockers won't save you here either. Neither will Data Brokers scraping info from supermarket loyalty schemes, bank credit reports, mortgage, car loans / credit cards / phone service etc.

      3. Shadow Profiles created by tracking non-users on websites with ties to Facebook or hosting 'Like' buttons / Google-Analytics or other 3rd party partnerships that do the same kind of tracking... Here Ad-blockers should help. But only if they're updated all the time and the list of shadowy data websites is current, which is something which can't be guaranteed all of the time. It also assumes that your partners, kids, family don't visit and borrow a device and accidentally disable some of your defenses, even just for an evening etc.. It happens believe me!

      1. Stoneshop

        Re: Zuck won't willingly talk about this, that's for sure

        Installing an Adblocker doesn't stop Facebook from tracking you through your friends.

        I knew there was an upside to not having them.

    2. Ian Michael Gumby
      Boffin

      @AC Re: Zuck will say nothing of significance

      Zuck will fall on his sword and say mea culpa.

      He pleads the fifth he's toast on the NorCal lawsuits against FB.

      He'll tap dance around tough questions. And if the Republicans were smart, they'd nail FB on giving away the data for free to Obama. That's actually against the FEC (election law)

      There's a lot that FB has to answer for...

    3. BillG
      Megaphone

      Re: Zuck will say nothing of significance

      @AC wrote: "I'll take the 5th" or "I know nothing" to every question after spending several minutes conferring with the 20-30 lawyers he will bring with him.

      More like "we could have done better" and "we have implemented new procedures" and "Your privacy is [snicker] very important [snicker] [snork] to us at Facebook HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

      20-30 lawyers? Maybe multiply that by 10. Congressional hearings are just shows for the public so the career politicians can pretend to do something. Unless someone says "fuck" or a congresshuman embarrasses themselves with overly-dramatic posturing this will be quickly forgotten.

      Facebook crosses off one legal headache, another pops up

      Hail Hyra?

    4. Tom 38

      Re: Zuck will say nothing of significance

      It would seem that all he has to say is a bunch of stuff like this:

      "I have no recollection of that"

      "I don't recall"

      "It's conceivable, but I don't remember it"

      <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/everything-jeff-sessions-did-not-recall-under-oath/>ad infinitum</a>

  2. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    Nothing will change...

    Depressing as it is, I do feel that when all of the dust settles on this current drama, I have the sinking feeling that nothing will change in their behaviour. On both sides of the argument there are too many snouts in the trough, and no real political will to make it happen. Whilst GDPR is a good thing, this will be outmanoeuvred by the tech companies somehow and once again we will all be playing catchup to re-take control of our online presence.

    So the only way to protect yourself online is to either (A) not play the game, which is both hard and easy to do at the same time as we all want to use the internet right? or (B) minimise as far as possible your online engagement with any of these major companies or related apps, or use as many privacy enhancing tools as you can.

    There is one consolation in all of this, and that is that ALL empires fall - eventually. It may take decades or centuries - but they do fall.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing will change...

      >There is one consolation in all of this, and that is that ALL empires fall - eventually. It may take decades or centuries - but they do fall.

      Not much consolation to be had there - my life would be impacted much worse by Trump losing an empire, versus Zuck....

  3. Gordon Pryra

    in other news, cigarettes give you cancer

    We still see people claiming they didn't know cigarettes give you cancer.

    If someone gives you something for free and all you need to do is give them all your personal data you cant claim to not understand what the cost of the free gift was.

    Face book was dying anyway, very few new startups and although the papers talk about their huge advertising ability, the stuff pushed via Facebook seems to be the crap that your spam filter keeps out of your email.

    This issue is not Facebook being evil, its people being idiots and them pretending to be surprised that a private company that gave them free stuff didn't make money from toothpaste adverts but actually made the cash from selling data about the user to people who want to see that data.

    How the hell did they think Zuk got rich when none of them had EVER clicked on an advert on Facebook?

    Final news, we don't have Brexit or Trump because of some data mining company, we have these things because people ARE stupid and lazy, stupid enough to tick the relevant box, and lazy enough not to think about what they were doing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: in other news, cigarettes give you cancer

      we don't have Brexit or Trump because of some data mining company, we have these things because people ARE stupid and lazy

      Well, on this side of the Atlantic, Trump is nether my concern, nor my responsibility.. Regarding Brexit, yes, I voted to leave. Apparently, according to some commentard twat, that makes me both stupid and lazy. Having worked my arse off in a whole range of jobs over the past thirty five years I don't think I can validly be accused of being lazy. And with two degree to my name and a reputation amongst colleagues for my insight, I don't think "stupid" applies.

      So, Gordon Pyra, perhaps we could hear you defence that that you're not a twat?

      1. Stoneshop

        Re: in other news, cigarettes give you cancer

        And with two degree to my name

        Two implies plural, hence degrees. And further spelling errors at least indicate sloppiness, if not the stupidity you claim to be free from.

        and a reputation amongst colleagues for my insight, I don't think "stupid" applies.

        Having no way to verify your possessing those degrees (in which disciplines, or is it simply that you are involved with 66.6% of a certain pop group?) or your standing among colleagues, your statement appears to be somewhat lacking with respect to actually supporting what you claim. Furthermore, engineer's disease is not uncommon.

  4. dmacleo

    what really bugs me is he, and only he, has ability/authority to remove/scrub HIS data yet nobody else does. IMO disservice to users.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      'Where'd you stay last night?'

      A gem from the joint Senate Commerce and Judiciary committee hearing...

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-43706880

      21:07

      'Where'd you stay last night?'

      Senator Dick Durbin opens with a straightforward question. "Mr Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing the hotel you stayed in last night?"

      After a long delay and a slight laugh, Zuckerberg says "Um, uh, no!"

      The crowd laughs - and Durbin continues asking if he would share the names of people he has messaged this week.

      That's another no from Zuckerberg.

      "I think that might be what this is all about," Durbin says.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like