Technology

59569 readers

3431 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

128

Department of Education Sued Following Markup Investigation Into FAFSA Data Shared with Facebook. (themarkup.org)

submitted 3 months ago by ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 months ago (7 children)

This is unconscionable. What even could have been the motivation for the government to do this?

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Meta and the Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment on the suit or for more information on how the students’ data was used.

The Pixel Hunt

Meta offers the pixel free to businesses and organizations to embed on their websites and track visitors. By using the tool, companies can gather data about users’ interest and later advertise to them on Facebook.

My guess is it was a “free” way to get data on who was applying and how successful they were at promoting the application. Just slap a line of HTML to call the facebook evilbots and later we can log in and see our results.

Oh, facebook’s horrible though. Yeah, that’s a downside. Also, being as we’re in the twenty-first century could we pay for some more expertise in the government? The person who actually did the work was probably paid very little and reported to someone who “isn’t computer-savvy”.

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 2 points 3 months ago

Concur. Most FERPA violations are similarly mundane snafus.

load more comments (5 replies)