Yet another Hacker News

Jury finds Facebook liable for deceiving users in Cambridge Analytica case

70 points pseudolus 1 hour ago 5 comments

sxp 56 minutes ago | parent

Since these articles tend to actually bury the data that was scraped:

  > .. the information likely included one's "public profile, page likes, birthday and current city" ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...

This information was limited to what was publicly accessible on the site rather than some private data as many outlets tend to claim.

ElProlactin 51 minutes ago | parent

The data wasn't "scraped." Here's the part you left out describing what really happened:

> Aleksandr Kogan, a data scientist at the University of Cambridge, was hired by Cambridge Analytica, an offshoot of SCL Group, to develop an app called "This Is Your Digital Life" (sometimes stylized as "thisisyourdigitallife").[15][16] Cambridge Analytica then arranged an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey for payment that was only for academic use.[15][17] However, Facebook allowed this app not only to collect personal information from survey respondents but also from respondents' Facebook friends.[15] In this way, Cambridge Analytica acquired data from millions of Facebook users.[15]

deathanatos 47 minutes ago | parent

Is that not parsed as,

> (public profile), [private] page likes, [possibly private] birthday and [possibly private] current city

(I've put in my best understanding of the other elements. AIUI, you can make the latter two public, but if I recall the scandal, that wasn't what occurred.)

NewJazz 53 minutes ago | parent

This was 10 years ago. Pretty crazy that this is finally seeing the justice system.

ElProlactin 53 minutes ago | parent

> Meta agreed in August to pay up to $18 billion to settle the multistate lawsuit surrounding child safety issues. Buried in the 130-page settlement was an agreement to release Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, making New Mexico the only state to pursue a case. Florida was the only other state that did not sign the settlement, saying it was not tough enough on Meta.

This is an inconvenient reminder for people who want more "regulation" and who believe states with high levels of paper regulation like California really care about protecting consumers.

Years down the line, you'll find that a bunch of the people who worked on these cases have cush jobs working on the other side.