Not to mention most OEMs put a custom launcher of some sort on their Android devices already and pretty much always have. I don't see Facebook as being any more odious than Samsung just because they know I like The Black Keys and Mad Men too. My phone's manufacturer could collect much more personal information about me than Facebook does. For all I know they're recording all my calls and uploaded them somewhere.
Really it's just so easy in the tech blog world to get page views by decrying whatever Facebook does as an invasion of privacy and that's what Om is doing. He should be ashamed for writing such a brainless piece of linkbait.
Once again, "Black Keys and Mad Men" is different to "your personal history, your friends, what you look like, what your friends look like, what you like, what your friends like, who you talk to, what you talk about, what your friends talk about, which services you subscribe to, where you went to school, where you worked, when you worked, when you graduated, when you began a relationship, when you ended a relationship, your sexual preferences..."
Facebook doesn't need any apologists, least of all from the HN community. Whether the article is linkbait or not, Facebook does need constant critique. Om Malik points out that Facebook Home means a new kind of persistent data-gathering wrapped in a trendy (?) skin that most facebook users will want to try out. It is bad enough that a billion people blithely use their web and phone apps without them having something that sinks its hooks in deeper
This wasn't a useful critique though, it was idiotic scaremongering. If the article gave some useful reasons why you maybe shouldn't install this (they can track your movements and sell ads to people near you in real time) that'd be one thing. But it was idiocy like "they'll see what apps you use and clone them!" or gibberish like "they can access the hardware!"
It's pure linkbait and Om should be ashamed for writing something so poor.
Many of those are only known by Facebook if you explicitly fill out the information - and while I hate to be cynical, if folks who use Facebook at this point in time don't realize that this data is collected then shame on them.
Facebook is consistently under a giant lens and receives critiques with every step it takes. Instead of actually taking some rational side to the argument, Om simply scaremongers.
Really it's just so easy in the tech blog world to get page views by decrying whatever Facebook does as an invasion of privacy and that's what Om is doing. He should be ashamed for writing such a brainless piece of linkbait.