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We have recently talked about of the antitrust hearing which featured the CEOs of Facebook, Of Amazon, Of Alphabet (Google) and Apple. We have discovered, so to speak, that it is quite normal to hear them say one thing for another and find loopholes and ploys to continue doing what they like. We therefore want to point out and remind you privacy incidents occurred recently.
Because we live in a strange time where let's shake news quickly and it is not always easy to stay focused and understand which news is true, which is important and which is clickbait. It therefore happens all too often that interesting news, for one reason or another, escapes us and immediately ends up in the forgotten corner of the internet (and of our timeline). Also for this reason we recommend using methods alternatives to Google News, like him RSS.
Privacy incidents
One of the most recent incidents concerns Instagram. We already talked about it in mid-August, remember? A bug was found (according to Instagram, in fact, it was an unwanted bug) which was rather embarrassing and went a bit into the background. In fact, it was discovered that the photos and messages removed from one's Instagram account were not actually removed from their servers 1. A security researcher noticed this and requested a copy of his data. In fact, inside the package he also found deleted photos and direct messages!
How many of you remember what happened to Twitter not even a year ago? We'll refresh your memory. Twitter began to ask, in an increasingly insistent manner, to activate two-factor authentication by entering a mobile number. One fine day he posted an apology message on his support page 2. Why an apology message? Because the phone numbers provided for security reasons (including two-factor authentication) had been inadvertently used for advertising purposes. In practice, those who had entered their mobile number for two-factor authentication could also be targeted by targeted advertising! 3
And Facebook?
A very similar thing happened to Facebook too. In fact, many don't remember it but just over a year ago Facebook had to pay 5 billion dollars in fines for this having improperly used telephone numbers obtained for security purposes. That seems like a lot of money right? That's about a month's worth of revenue for Facebook 4. Just to put things in perspective a bit (how much does Jeff Bezos earn, for example?).
Privacy Incidents: Google
Do you remember what happened with Google? Less than a year ago doing a Google Takeout of your data (a Google system for downloading your personal data) you could end up with videos of complete strangers! 5 Funny, right? For Google, however, you can also find an entry on Wikipedia called precisely Google privacy issues.
Accidents, bugs or carelessness?
So many good reasons why Don't blindly trust big tech and to rely on the software as much as possible Open source. Which is obviously not without problems but anyone can collaborate, audits by external security companies are also possible. There must be a reason why practically all servers on the internet use Linux 6.
- Instagram wasn't removing photos and direct messages from its servers[↩]
- Personal information and announcements on Twitter[↩]
- Twitter has used two-factor authentication data to build marketing lists[↩]
- Facebook will pay an unprecedented $5 billion penalty over privacy breaches[↩]
- Google Photo saved users' videos to other people's archives[↩]
- Public servers on the Internet[↩]
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