Facebook’s Portal Devices Can be Used to Target You With Ads

Facebook is a social network, but it’s also a means for the company behind the social network to serve up ads and marketing materials for businesses all across the globe. And its newest video devices don’t change that.

When Facebook announced the Portal and Portal+ video calling devices, it was reported at the time that the company wasn’t collecting data for the specific purpose of ad targeting. So even if you used Spotify on the device that wouldn’t be used to dish out Spotify-related ads on other Facebook-owned platforms — or across the internet in general as you browsed the web. But it turns out that’s not the case at all.

While Facebook said at the time the Portal devices wouldn’t be used to bolster its ad targeting for users, that’s apparently not the situation. As noted on Tuesday by Recode, Facebook can indeed use the information it gathers from the Portal devices to build up advertising efforts for individuals. So while the Portal devices themselves don’t, or won’t, have ads, that doesn’t mean that after you use one of the devices you won’t see related ads elsewhere on the internet, especially on Facebook’s services.

“Portal voice calling is built on the Messenger infrastructure, so when you make a video call on Portal, we collect the same types of information (i.e. usage data such as length of calls, frequency of calls) that we collect on other Messenger-enabled devices. We may use this information to inform the ads we show you across our platforms. Other general usage data, such as aggregate usage of apps, etc., may also feed into the information that we use to serve ads,” a spokesperson said in an email to Recode.”

So, where does the confusion come from? Apparently it boils down to the fact that because the Portal devices don’t show ads, that’s what the initial statement was about. Basically, the Portal devices don’t show ads so the Portal teams aren’t planning on using the information they gather from folks using the devices to distribute targeted advertising.

So Portal can use collected data to distribute targeted advertising, which Facebook could use to show on its other services, but that might not happen because, for now at least, Portal doesn’t show ads:

“I think [my colleague] was intending to say that we don’t intend to use it,” Camargo told Recode. “Potentially, it could be used.”

So it looks like while the Portal can indeed be used to develop targeted advertising efforts per individual, that won’t be the case for now.

Our Take

The change isn’t surprising in the slightest. This is Facebook we’re talking about after all. This is just another device the company can use to bolster its streams of information it gathers from its users, which it can then use to build advertising efforts. The fact that Portal doesn’t show ads (yet), and that’s the only reason Facebook won’t be using that data for those uses doesn’t necessarily leave me at peace.

Are you planning on putting a Facebook Portal device in your home?

[via Recode]

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Facebook Now Testing an ‘Unsend’ Feature for Messenger

Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company itself found itself in some hot water (some things never change?) when it was discovered some of the CEO’s messages sent in Messenger had been deleted from recipients’ inboxes.

That was seen as a pretty big issue considering Facebook Messenger doesn’t have an “unsend” feature built into it, readily available for general users. But a day after that all went down back in April and the company announced it would indeed be building a feature into Messenger, and that it would be available for all users. Since then, Facebook has been pretty quiet on the subject.

But it looks like it’s currently testing the feature, which would seem to indicate it is at least preparing for a launch sometime soon. An screenshot of the new, unofficial feature was shared on Twitter, and TechCrunch is reporting on Friday that the test out in the real world is happening after all. For its part, Facebook provided the following statement:

“Facebook internally tests products and features before they ship to the public so we can ensure the quality of the experience.”

Right now if you delete a message you sent from your own inbox/conversation, that message is still available in the inbox of the person, or persons, you sent that message to. There’s no way to unsend that message or delete it after the fact. With this unsend feature, though, you can delete the sent message and it will disappear from both inboxes. As noted in the report, though, this particular prototype of the feature includes a time limit, which indicates that you’ll only have so long to make a decision on un-sending the message or not.

An unsend feature is an oft-requested feature, especially for messaging platforms. However, as noted in the original report, there is a potential issue:

“But Unsend could also open vectors for abuse, as users could harass people over Messenger and then delete the evidence. Facebook will need to ensure that Unsend doesn’t accidentally become a weapon for bullies. That might mean allowing users to turn off the ability for their conversation partners to Unsend messages on a thread by thread basis, and/or a report button specifically for flagging messages that have since been retracted.”

There is no word on when the unsend feature may actually launch to the public, but if this is something you’re looking forward to the public testing may be a strong indication it’s coming sooner rather than later.

Our Take

Being able to unsend a message is a nice feature for any messaging platform, but, as noted there at the end it can also open up the floodgates for harassment. It will be interesting to see how Facebook handles it. You’d think this is one thing the company would want to try and avoid any potential backlash.

[via TechCrunch; @wongmjane]

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Facebook Says 30 Million Accounts Were Affected in Recent ‘Security Issue’

Before the end of September this year, Facebook confirmed that a major security breach impacted the social network and upwards of 50 million accounts.

Now, weeks later, Facebook has published another update on the matter, trimming the number of accounts that were apparently affected by the security breach, and saying at length that they not only patched the initial threat, but continue to investigate what happened to avoid any future issues. To start, Facebook now says that only “30 million accounts actually had their tokens stolen”.

The public post breaks down what happened, which starts with the attackers already having control of a set number of accounts, and then accessing the friends list of people, moving from one account to the next. This automated technique allowed the attackers to move from and secure upwards of 400,000 separate accounts. That technique also allowed the attackers to see a person’s profile page as they’d see it, including their News Feed, Messenger conversations, friends lists, and more:

“In the process, however, this technique automatically loaded those accounts’ Facebook profiles, mirroring what these 400,000 people would have seen when looking at their own profiles. That includes posts on their timelines, their lists of friends, Groups they are members of, and the names of recent Messenger conversations. Message content was not available to the attackers, with one exception. If a person in this group was a Page admin whose Page had received a message from someone on Facebook, the content of that message was available to the attackers.”

Facebook says the access to 400,000 accounts then led to the ability to steal the tokens for up to 30 million accounts on the social network. That number is still remarkably high, but it’s down from the initial 50 million that Facebook originally stated back in September. Here’s the most important bit, though:

“For 15 million people, attackers accessed two sets of information – name and contact details (phone number, email, or both, depending on what people had on their profiles). For 14 million people, the attackers accessed the same two sets of information, as well as other details people had on their profiles. This included username, gender, locale/language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in, website, people or Pages they follow, and the 15 most recent searches. For 1 million people, the attackers did not access any information.”

Facebook states that if you want to see if your account was vandalized by the attackers, you can visit the social network’s Help Center, through this link. The platform is also going to send personalized messages to individuals who had their tokens stolen, and explain what information from their accounts might have been breached and accessed.

Finally, Facebook says it is not ruling out “small-scale attacks” at this point, and they are investigating:

“This attack did not include Messenger, Messenger Kids, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Workplace, Pages, payments, third-party apps, or advertising or developer accounts. As we look for other ways the people behind this attack used Facebook, as well as the possibility of smaller-scale attacks, we’ll continue to cooperate with the FBI, the US Federal Trade Commission, Irish Data Protection Commission, and other authorities.”

Our Take

So, that’s a pretty lengthy update, but should be par for the course at this point as this situation develops. It’s great that Facebook is still working out the details and explaining what they discover to those interested in keeping up with what’s going on, at least.

[via Facebook Newsroom]

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Facebook Launches ‘3D Photos’ for More Immersive Images

While Facebook owns the photo- and video-sharing social network platform Instagram, Facebook proper still sees plenty of similar content shared every single day. And now the platform supports “3D photos” to spice things up a bit.

Facebook recently confirmed it is now rolling out a new feature called “3D photos”, which uses artificial intelligence to simulate depth within a picture. These new photos can be shared to your News Feed, and also some virtual reality headsets. Facebook says you’ll need an iPhone with dual cameras on the back to actually use the feature, which has been available on specific iPhone models sine the iPhone 7 Plus launched. And while Android handsets support dual rear camera setups (and even up to four rear cameras now!), Facebook says 3D photos are iPhone-only for the time being, but that it will support more devices “in the future”.

“Whether it’s a shot of your pet, your friends, or a beautiful spot from your latest vacation, you just take a photo in Portrait mode using your compatible dual-lens smartphone, then share as a 3D photo on Facebook where you can scroll, pan and tilt to see the photo in realistic 3D—like you’re looking through a window. You can also view 3D photos in VR using the Oculus Browser on Oculus Go or Firefox on Oculus Rift. Everyone will be able to see 3D photos in News Feed and VR today, while the ability to create and share 3D photos begins to roll out today and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.”

This is a feature that was actually announced earlier this year, and is now only seeing the light of day for the public. The technology behind the feature is pretty interesting, though, relying mostly on the depth map that the dual rear cameras capture by default, and then uses AI and other software elements to create an improved image that can actually be panned and rotated as viewers shift their phones.

Facebook says the ability to see 3D photos is now available for everyone, including using the web browser built into the Oculus Go VR headsets. However, the ability to actually create 3D photos is rolling out a bit slower, so you may not be able to create the new image just yet, even if you can view them.

Our Take

This is a pretty neat feature, especially considering it’s viewable on any device with access to the standard News Feed, including VR headsets with a web browser. It would probably be pretty cool to look at these photos on Facebook’s new Portal smart display offerings.

[via TechCrunch; Facebook 360]

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Instagram Testing Tapping Instead of Scrolling Within Explore Section

The Explore tab is one of Instagram’s most popular sections, and it looks like the social network is investigating a new method to make the experience a lot more comfortable.

TechCrunch reports on Thursday, following a screenshot shared by “Suprateek Bose” and a confirmation from Instagram itself, that the platform is currently testing the ability to tap through posts, rather than scrolling through the content. In the screenshot we can see Instagram touting “Introducing a New Way to Move Through Posts”, with a “Tap to see the next post” to indicate how to progress further while exploring.

Here’s the official statement from Instagram:

“We’re always testing ways to improve the experience on Instagram and bring you closer to the people and things you love.”

Scrolling through the main feed of Instagram has been the standard method since day one, and while tapping might make exploring the Explore tab a bit more comfortable, it sounds like Instagram isn’t planning on bringing this new tapping method to the main feed anytime soon. For now, it sounds like the scrolling will remain intact for the stock feed for the foreseeable future.

Our Take

The benefit of the tapping method does reduce swiping your finger across the screen, which is nice, but it also means the content can be displayed in full on the device’s display automatically, rather than having to fine-tune with the scrolling option. It’s a small change, but one that will more than likely go over well enough if it does roll out globally.

What do you think of the change? Prefer tapping over scrolling?

[via TechCrunch; Suprateek Bose]

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Facebook Unveils Portal and Portal+ Video Calling Devices

Facebook is out with its first hardware products: the Portal and Portal+ — Smart Displays meant to live in your living room or kitchen which are primarily meant for doing video calls. The former features a 10.1-inch screen with WXGA resolution and 10W speakers, while the latter features a 15.6-inch Full HD display with 20W speakers and a 4-inch bass woofer.

Both devices feature “Hey Portal” voice recognition and have tight integration with Facebook services. This means the ability to do voice or video calls over Facebook Messenger and Facebook Watch integration. They also have Spotify and Pandora integration.

Portal and Portal+ have two AI-based features: Smart Camera and Smart Sound. The former automatically pans and zooms to ensure that everyone is in view in a video cal, while the latter minimizes background noise and enhances the voice of whoever is talking.

The Portal and Portal+ will take on Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s upcoming Home Hub smart display. However, the Portal devices also feature Alexa integration so one can use Amazon’s voice assistant for checking the weather, controlling their smart home devices, and more.

Privacy is a big issue with Facebook especially with recent developments which is why the company is putting a lot of emphasis on it. Users can completely disable the camera and microphone on the Portal and Portal+ with a single tab. They also come with a camera cover so that one can easily cover the camera when not in use. Facebook is also providing users with the option to set a 4 to 12-digit passcode for Portal before anyone can use it.

The social networking giant is also making it clear that it “doesn’t listen to, view, or keep the contents of your Portal video calls.” All video calls over Portals are encrypted. All AI features like Smart Camera and Smart Sound run locally and no data is sent to Facebook’s servers whatsoever. The devices don’t have facial recognition and do not identify who is using the device as well. Lastly, Portal only sends those voice commands to Facebook servers which are said after the “Hey Portal” keyword. And even that can be easily deleted from one’s Facebook Activity Log.

The Portal and Portal+ go up for pre-orders starting today, with the former priced at $199 and the latter at $349. If you pre-order both, you will receive a $100 discount. The devices will start shipping in November.

Compared to Amazon Echo Show, the Portal devices seem pretty limited in nature with a strong emphasis being laid on video calling. Interestingly, one cannot even use the devices to browse their FB newsfeed which is really telling.

➤ Portal

[Via FB Newsroom]

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Instagram Testing Sharing Location History With Facebook

Facebook owns Instagram and has for quite some time now, but the separation between the two platforms has been distinct. But that is already starting to blur quite a bit with recent major changes in executive staff at the photo- and video-sharing social network.

And it looks like it may be changing even more in the future. A report on Thursday from TechCrunch outlines how Instagram is currently testing the ability to upload location history of its users over to Facebook. The “feature” is being tested right now within a prototype version of Instagram, according to the report, which includes the ability to share location data with Facebook, which can then be turned into targeted advertising:

“Allows Facebook Products, including Instagram and Messenger, to build and use a history of precise locations received through Location Services on your devices.”

The app’s ability to track location is based on GPS coordinates, and according to the report it will continue to track location even when the app is not in use. It will then upload that data over to Facebook’s own Activity Log.

As it stands right now, Instagram has stated that it hasn’t changed anything, and that it tests different features quite often. This means that this new feature could see the light of day in the public version of the app at some point in the future, or it could never be implemented.

However, if this feature does come to fruition, then it means that Instagram could be sharing your location with Facebook in the background, and it does not appear to be an “opt-in” situation, as the default nature of the feature appears to be switched “on” right out of the gate.

“Location History is a setting that allows Facebook to build a history of precise locations received through Location Services on your device. When Location History is on, Facebook will periodically add your current precise location to your Location History even if you leave the app. You can turn off Location History at any time in your Location Settings on the app. When Location History is turned off, Facebook will stop adding new information to your Location History which you can view in your Location Settings. Facebook may still receive your most recent precise location so that you can, for example, post content that’s tagged with your location. Location History helps you explore what’s around you, get more relevant ads, and helps improve Facebook. Location History must be turned on for some location feature to work on Facebook, including Find Wi-Fi and Nearby Friends.”

Our Take

This is basically another way for Facebook to work out targeted ads for visitors to its platforms, which shouldn’t be a surprise in the slightest. After all, we recently learned that Facebook uses the 2FA phone number, which should be meant entirely for security purposes, as another means to implement targeted advertising. Using Instagram to do the same thing is low hanging fruit.

At what point does Facebook go too far with this goal, though?

[via TechCrunch]

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Facebook Uses Your 2FA Phone Number for Targeted Advertising

Being stalked from one website to another by persistent advertising is a real issue, but some companies, like Apple, have made strides to try and reduce its impact.

But targeted advertising isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, especially if Facebook has any say in the matter. The company has recently confirmed that it does indeed go to some pretty great lengths to provide information to advertisers, with this latest effort definitely one of the social networking giant’s worst.

A couple of days ago, Gizmodo ran a piece that outlined how Facebook uses the phone number some users added to take advantage of two factor authentication as a way to target those same individuals with ads. This is an extension of how Facebook already handles phone numbers saved to the platform’s profiles.

How it works normally is if you add your phone number to your Facebook profile, and then add your phone number to some online retailer’s online presence, those two sources can match and be used to target advertisements as you peruse the web. Facebook has said in the past that it doesn’t use security details in this way, but that is definitely not true, as the company has changed its tune in a statement to TechCrunch:

“We use the information people provide to offer a better, more personalized experience on Facebook, including ads. We are clear about how we use the information we collect, including the contact information that people upload or add to their own accounts. You can manage and delete the contact information you’ve uploaded at any time.”

A spokesman also told us that users can opt out of this ad-based repurposing of their security digits by not using phone number based 2FA. (Albeit, the company only added the ability to do non-mobile phone based 2FA back in May, so anyone before then was all outta luck.)”

Our Take

So, Facebook uses your security details in an effort to lock down even more advertising efforts. Crazy to think that’s a thing, because it’s hard to imagine that even Facebook would do something like this. But here we are in 2018 and this is our reality now. The fact that Facebook says if users don’t want to get targeted advertising they need to remove their phone number from 2FA security efforts is bananas.

[via Gizmodo; TechCrunch]

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Facebook Reveals ‘Almost 50 Million’ Accounts Affected by Security Issue

This week, Facebook suffered a major breach, which left millions of accounts vulnerable to an outside, malicious attack.

On Friday, Facebook officially announced that hackers accessed the Facebook network on Tuesday. According to the post “nearly 50 million” accounts are affected by the illegal intrusion. The company also revealed that the hackers were able to gain access via the platform’s “View As” code. That particular feature allows Facebook users to see how their Facebook profile appears to folks who look at it.

The hackers gained Facebook’s access tokens, which are individual codes that allow Facebook users to remain logged in.

“On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 25, our engineering team discovered a security issue affecting almost 50 million accounts. We’re taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what’s happened and the immediate action we’ve taken to protect people’s security.

Our investigation is still in its early stages. But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted “View As”, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.”

At this point, Facebook says that it has informed law enforcement of the situation and has already patched the vulnerability. Facebook does not make it clear if the accounts in question have had any personal information stolen or otherwise obtained, or how those accounts might be misused in the future.

The social network has reset the access tokens to the nearly 50 million accounts that were affected by the breach. The company also confirmed it took precautions with an additional 40 million accounts that were accessed with the View As feature within the last year.

Finally, Facebook says that no one needs to change their passwords.

[via Facebook]

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Facebook Messenger Bug Disturbing Many iOS Users

If you are using Facebook Messenger on your iOS device, then you might have run into an issue where the app itself, or the iOS keyboard, become unresponsive.

It was first reported by TechCrunch, and the issue has been shared across social media since late last night. For some users, the app appears to be completely broken and unresponsive once it’s launched on an iPhone. For others, the app will freeze after a user inputs a few characters.

As it stands right now, Facebook has confirmed that there is a bug that is affecting iOS users. However, there is no word on what exactly is causing the issue, or what Facebook needs to do to fix it. The social network has said it is working on a fix, though:

“Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that it is looking into the issue, but for now there’s no word from the company on what is causing it and how it plans to fix it.”

There is no workaround right now. As many Messenger users have tried, closing and reopening the app does not fix the issue at all. For now, it looks like if you use Messenger on a regular basis you might want/need to try accessing the platform via another device, or from the desktop.

In a perfect world these types of bugs wouldn’t crop up. However, they’re basically unavoidable at this point, so the important thing for Facebook and any other company that runs into an issue like this is how quickly they fix it. Facebook knows there’s an issue and they say they are working on a fix, so Messenger users have to hope it arrives sooner rather than later.

Have you run into the bug at all?

[Source TechCrunch]