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Netflix Prize 2 Cancelled Due to a Lawsuit and FTC Inquiry
- nlabs 17y agoHow does sharing the Netflix data violate privacy? With the hundreds of thousands of records it would be difficult to trace information to an individual. The US needs more engineers and fewer lawyers.
- gaika 17y agoThere's a way to identify individuals in the raw data: http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/netflix-faq.html http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/netflix-faq.html
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- nfnaaron 17y agoIt's almost always surprising just how much private data can be exposed after data has been "anonymized." When you're using private data in any public way, or even with "partners or affiliates," you need to be very careful, watchful and responsive.
- nlabs 17y agoInteresting thanks for the link. However, seems like you need to be able to cross-correlate with another database in order to de-anonymize. If netflix made a good faith effort to protect privacy, how are they liable?
- raganwald 17y agoIf I am your bank and I make a "good faith" effort to protect your money from robbery, how am I liable if I am robbed of your money? For certain types of agreements, good faith is not enough. Netflix chooses to go into a business where it is privy to private information about its customers. The onus is on Netflix to protect that information. I would say the same thing had hackers cracked their security and made off with the data. Good faith efforts that fail to secure the data are not enough, they must succeed in protecting the privacy of their customers.
- nlabs 17y ago>>If I am your bank and I make a "good faith" effort to protect your money from robbery, how am I liable if I am robbed of your money? Banks take the precautions ahead of time (deposit insurance) against robbery-thats part of the "good faith" of protecting a users money. Nice try.
- inerte 17y agoCar manufacturers have to make sure the brakes and air-bags work. Elevators makers have to make sure they won't fall. Parachutes can't have holes. Lots of examples. Heck, imagine if companies could do things wrong and get away with: "Hey at least I was, like, trying reeeeally hard. I thought it was ok to do this". Acting in good faith would become the excuse to use when the shit hits the fan. PS: "Acting in good faith" in the real world means following the standard, industry adopted, government mandated: policies, process, regulations, laws, etc... That's what let you get away from problems. Not happy thoughts.
- nlabs 17y agoditto my above comment. If netflix says data will be collected and then anonymized in its TOS, and it does so, then it acted in good faith. If a hacker reveals a weakness and Netflix pulls the plug, should they be sued? If yes, then how can companies innovate, when they will constantly fear liability?
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y agoThe same way they do now. (Successful) companies don't fear liability: they prepare for it but realize that they will never be 100% insulated. You weigh your options: if the benefits of doing something outweigh the costs (including lawsuit outcomes, poor public perception, etc) by enough of a margin, then you forge ahead.
- inerte 17y agoYou think the amount of effort by Netflix to protect the identities of its costumers was enough. It was not. They intentionally released an amount of information, thinking none of its costumers could be traced, but guess what? They were. Yes, it had to be used with other datasets to discover individuals, but Netflix ignored (you say acted in good faith) this possibility and decided to go ahead. They were ignorant of the implications of the data they released. They didn't saw the possibilities that their costumers could be found. They were stupid and reckless. The problem is that you're thinking about this situation as the researcher, the person who wants the data set to play with. Put yourself into the company's shoes. You want to improve the recommendation algorithm. You hold a contest, which needs the costumer data to work. But you know that your costumers won't be happy to have their info released, so you go and anonymize the data. See where I am going? You had an idea, executed, but the consequences were bad. Imagine if car companies acted this way, one morning an engineer comes to work and puts a new brake system in the company's car already in production thinking it'll be awesome and work ten times better than the previous brakes. Without rigorous, government and industry trials, experiments and tests. Good idea, poor execution. Netflix doesn't have "good faith", they wanted to improve their recommendation algorithm. They wanted to profit. Now, I don't have anything against profits. But it's naive to think Netflix did this for the benefit of mankind. They had their own reasons, and to achieve that, they've broken a promise to their costumers. They said: Hey, we'll keep on our database this information, but don't worry, none will ever know it. But then they go and _relase_ costumer data, _thinking_ it's sufficiently anonymized. They were wrong. Double mistake there. The "hacker" wasn't alone in this, "he" had a direct help of the company which was supposed to not let this happen.
- pyre 17y agoSure we released that murderer from jail, but he needs to buy a gun to shoot someone, and we didn't sell him the gun. You can't blame us. If they know that the information can be de-anonymized using publicly available information, have they really made a good-faith effort?
- nlabs 17y agoSometimes you release people (sometimes murders) because of a thing called a constitution...a case where there is liability for NOT releasing the murderer.
- pyre 17y agoYou weren't meant to take that literally. It's just to illustrate a point, not necessarily describe a real-world scenario. Notice how you're arguing my metaphor's accuracy rather than actually defending your original point.
- nlabs 17y ago>>If they know that the information can be de-anonymized using publicly available information, have they really made a good-faith effort? If your premise that Netflix knew the db could be de-anonymized is correct, then its not "good faith". Otherwise, Netflix could argue it did everything it said it would do in its TOS, and didnt foresee the hackers exploit. Whether that makes them liable or not is what Im asking. Im not a lawyer. The reason the bank robbery example is irrelevant is banks say in their TOS that your money is 100% protected up to the FDIC limit. So, Netflix TOS said it would make its db internally anonymized, which it did. Clever cross-correlating made this not enough.
- pyre 17y agoTrue, but then the question becomes: What does Netflix do now? Once they know that their efforts are not enough, what is their reaction? IIRC, they were warned about the fact that the second prize was revealing too much information, but went forward with it anyways.
- toby 17y agoI get "Forbidden" for both those links. Are there any other links to those papers? I hadn't heard of this result and I'm very curious.
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- davidu 17y agohttp://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=%22shmat+oak08netflix+pdf%22&d=4766125284327848&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=914e38af,76fc4030 http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=%22shmat+oak08netflix+pdf%2...
- wingo 17y ago"Let us summarize what our algorithm achieves. Given a user's /public/ IMDb ratings, which the user posted voluntarily to reveal /some/ of his (or her; but we'll use the male pronoun without loss of generality) movie likes and dislikes, we discover /all/ ratings that he entered /privately/ into the Netflix system" (em. orig.) One's "political orientation maybe revealed by his strong opinions about "Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," and his religious views by ratings on "Jesus of Nazareth" and "The Gospel of John." Even though one should not make inferences solely from someone's movie preferences, in many workplaces and social settings opinions about movies with predominantly gay themes such as "Bent" and "Queer as folk" (both present and rated in [one individual's] Netflix record) would be considered sensitive"
- pronoiac 17y agoSome people from the first dataset were deanonymized. Given age, gender, & zip code is enough to identify 87% of the US. See http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/netflix-prize-2-privacy-apocalypse-now.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/netflix-priz... and its links.
- nlabs 17y agoYes the issue is Netflix's liability. The reason it can be de-anomized is because people reveal more info in some other database (for example idbm) - if people willingly reveal more info in some other db, is that netflix's fault?
- lftl 17y agoYes, it's netflix's fault unless they clearly obtain permission from people to share information that their customers could naturally assume was private. As stated elsewhere Netflix should just have a clear opt-in for sharing the data and we can continue on.
- nlabs 17y agoMaybe its somewhere in Netflix's terms of service that data on users movie preferences will be collected, however this information will be kept anonymous (as best as can be done by netflix).
- lftl 17y agoIt is. They mention in their privacy policy that they may disclose anonymized histories, so they might have a decent legal leg to stand on. I don't think this helps them much in court of public opinion, and it helps even less in not pissing off a segment of their customers. Making it opt-in seems like an easy compromise. The only downside I see is if they get a really low response rate.
- nlabs 17y ago
- raganwald 17y agoIt seems there are enough engineers, or at least there are enough to reverse the anonymization and reveal details that customers rightly considered private. "Difficult" to de-anonymize is not enough. It must be impossible, and the burden of risk must be on Netflix, not the customer. We're sympathetic in this case because the contest is innovative and interesting. Imagine a slightly different story. In this one, the FBI asks Netflix for "anonymized" information, then de-anonymizes it and starts wiretapping people considered "suspicious." I think we would be rightly appalled at the idea of the government monitoring the movies we watch, and we would criticize anyone handing over the information they need to do it without asking or notifying us. It's the same thing here, and Netflix should ensure opt-in with full disclosure of the potential for de-anonymization for the same reasons. When I sign up for a service, I don't expect the vendor to publish data of my transactions to the entire world, even if they claim it is anonymized.
- nlabs 17y agoI agree. (although Id still rather see more engineering and less lawyering). Netflix does need to get people to opt-in.
- evgen 17y agoNetflix is also facing problems because there is a specific law (the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988) that makes it illegal for them to reveal data that could be linked to service subscribers. In this case the burden of proof would fall on Netflix to prove the dataset could not reveal a single link between subscriber and rental history.
- cdavid 17y agoThe point is that it is actually fairly easy to trace information back to a user. People who are not familiar with this kind of data just don't realize how little you need to uniquely identify someone. I am a little surprised to see that people who are generally uproar against companies not respecting privacy think it is perfectly ok to do it if it is for "science". This is one of the big reasons why academics cannot release data BTW, especially in the social science: anonymizing data almost inherently means destroying valuable information.
- tbgvi 17y agoAnother case of lawsuits stifling innovation. And I agree with one of the comments on that post - why doesn't Netflix have people opt-in to have their data anonymized and used for this purpose? Edit: replaced bureaucracy with lawsuits
- nlabs 17y agogood idea...opt-in and we can improve our recommendations to you. People worried that some geek will find out they watched Who's the Boss reruns will miss out.
- nfnaaron 17y agoI think bureaucracy had little to do with it. As I recall, the first Netflix contest did indeed expose private, and sometimes embarrassing, information. This was a privacy issue, and something legitimate to address.
- nlabs 17y agoprivacy issues dont necessarily need to be dealt with by lawsuits. Most lawsuits are about money.
- nfnaaron 17y agoNot to quibble, but lawsuits are also not bureaucracy.
- tbgvi 17y agoGood point, was at a loss for the right word when I commented. This kind of behavior by lawyers is just like patent trolling and I couldn't pinpoint a word for that. Maybe privacy trolling? The lawyers are the same ones that sued Facebook for Beacon.
- sh1mmer 17y agoRight, but I find it astonishing that it was necessary to cancel the competition altogether. I find it surprising that there wasn't a middle-ground which anonymized or didn't include personally identifying information. I feel the lack of a middle-ground is probably due to the lawsuit plaintiffs refusing to back down (presumably for financial gain) and thus causing Netflix to hedge their risk.
- nfnaaron 17y agoPlus one to Netflix for making this the first sentence: "This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer for Netflix." No vague hiding behind an unidentified team or blog. A person has chosen to identify himself with the decision, and the company chose to present it that way. The general tone is also positive. This is a good way to communicate. Contrast with Amazon's anonymous whine on their kindle blog when they gave in to MacMillan. Not signed by a person, not even "the team." And full of blame and "you'll see!" http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_et_md_pl?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdMsgNo=1&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx2MEGQWTNGIMHV&displayType=tagsDetail&cdMsgID=Mx5Z9849POTZ4P#Mx5Z9849POTZ4P http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_et_md_pl?_e...
- smackfu 17y agoTrue, although I prefer if the real person has a real job title.
- barmstrong 17y agoI agree that a person identifying himself was admirable. But I'd rather he identified himself, and then went on to say how he really felt about it (I'm assuming here they were more disappointed to close it then he let on). This is professional - but it also lacked much backbone.
- smakz 17y agoComparing Amazon's official communication with customers to Netflix I think Amazon wins. Looking at Netflix's blog they have 3 posts for the entire year. Looking at Amazon's discussion forums, there are a swath of official announcements, including one that informs customers how to access 2 million free books outside of Amazon. Sure, having a name in front of the post is nice I guess, but in terms of consistent and valuable customer communication I think Amazon wins. Also here's an example of an apology from Bezos himself http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx1FXQPSF67X1IU&displayType=tagsDetail http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?_...
- froo 17y agoDear Lawyers, Lame Regards The Tech Community
- nlabs 17y agoNetflix Prize 3: How to create a meaningful database that is impossible to de-anonymize.
- mortenjorck 17y agoFunny, yes, but I honestly think they should consider this.
- gwern 17y agoIt's been a while since the flurry of de-anonymizing data papers back in 07-08, but my takeaway impression was that you can't truly de-anonymize large datasets without destroying its utility.
- nlabs 17y agoThats too bad. Sounds like an interesting research area.
- slyn 17y agoIndeed. See this: http://godplaysdice.blogspot.com/2009/12/uniquely-identifying-people-by-birth.html http://godplaysdice.blogspot.com/2009/12/uniquely-identifyin... I imagine gender and DoB factor in heavily to something like a recommendation engine, and I'm sure zip code would come into play when trying to get those last couple percent as is the case with the Netflix prizes.
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- brendano 17y agoThere's lots of ongoing work on the topic, new conferences, etc. One of the keywords is "privacy preserving data mining".
- stuntgoat 17y agoWhy not just have the customer opt-in/out of 'algorithm participation' per movie selection? Likely, Netflix has the power to start it's own social network platform based on it's existing users' movie preferences. Some user's might be proud to say that they rate specific movies highly, and correlate to particular algorithms based on collective opinions. For instance: 'Click here to add user X's preferences to your algorithm for Y genre'
- jmonegro 17y agoYou mean 'inquiry'
- raheemm 17y agoWhat is the protocol for which words to begin capitalized in a headline?
- sp332 17y agoI think the title used to say "enquiry."
- tjogin 17y agoIs not "inquiry" and "enquiry" identical in all respects except spelling?
- sp332 17y agoEnquiry is asking someone else a question. Inquiry is looking into it yourself.
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