Meta Found Guilty of Mishandling Women’s Health Information

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I don’t understand, mishandling women’s health information and abusing the women in time with the months is Facebook’s job and one of the reason why the people invest in the company. What’s the new news here? Is the company alleging to no longer believe in their business model and to no longer abuse women? Maybe investors should stop investing then?

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Maybe follow the link in the blog post for more detailed information about the case.

I admit that I didn’t because the California Invasion of Privacy Act isn’t exactly helpful to me. Possibly the point is that medical information is unusually sensitive information and therefore requires unusually explicit informed consent. Not just the usual 55 pages of legalese that noone reads.

Note also that this is not “you signed up to social media, of course they are abusing your privacy, that’s the business model”. This is an app running on a (presumably) mobile phone where the developer of the app foolishly? recklessly? negligently? with full understanding? includes an SDK that is supplied by Meta.

(As far as I can see, the app is free - which should be a warning sign.)

This is part of a three-pronged attack by Surveillance Capitalism to invade all aspects of our lives.

  1. Social Media. You are not paying for the product so you are the product.
  2. Web site instrumentation. It is easier to build a web site if you use web site components that are supplied free by Surveillance Capitalism but of course just happen to slurp away masses of tracking data and attempt to unite that with a social media account if you have one.
  3. App instrumentation. Same deal.
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In any case, the news is that Meta lost the case, whatever the subtleties and complexities of the case, and faces potential damages of billions, and the case could now set a precedent.

My only gripe is that the larger the damages, the more it makes economic sense for the loser to appeal this all the way to the SCOTUS.

However when the app is, and I quote, “trusted by over 420 million users”, even modest damages awarded to each abused user is going to add up to a tidy sum.

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