We see this time and again but ... you SOLD, you're not the captain anymore.

If the new captain doesn't make the promise, you can't give it much weight, and if it is Facebook, probably no weight even if they did :(

I mean, this is really a condemnation of any data privacy practices whatsoever claimed by any company, as they may at any point in the future sell the entire company and databases with it.

The only privacy claims one may wish to take seriously are those that occur simultaneously with promises never to sell the company.

I used to use a location tracking app called Moves, which was a neat 24/7 location tracking lifelogging tool. Facebook, the very last people I would like to have that data, bought them, and presumably integrated it into my shadow profile.

Special thanks go to to the founders of Moves: Zsolt Szász, Jukka Partanen, Juho Pennanen, Aapo Kyrölä, and Aleksi Aaltonen. Hope you got paid selling private data that belongs to the users that entrusted it to you.

One can demand such promises from the acquirer in the form of a contract that states, in effect, this:

a) If acquirer does X, the seller, Y, has the option to repurchase the company for $1. b) Any future acquirer must agree to the same contract. If it does not, Y must be extended the option to repurchase the company for $1 before the sale.

I don't think anything less could constitute a true promise that the acquirer would avoid X.

I remember the original reddit posts before their crowd funding on how they were going to be open hardware.

Then open firmware.

Then support Linux.

Then ...

The same thing applies to the gullible idealists that believe in B-Corporations

> Exhibit n + 1 on why when you're acquired you're not in a position to promise anything to anyone despite any assurances from the acquirer.

You are in a position to promise something where you have contractually retained control, or at least contractually secured an enforceable promise from the purchaser.

Otherwise, you are in the same position as Joe on the street.

unless you flex your cryptoanarchist power and enshrine strong encryption into your architecture. what WhatsApp did. make it costly for the new owner to change their minds.

We were in talks with a potential acquirer of our company recently and this was an explicit reason we gave to them why we ended up not taking the deal – we knew that whatever promises they made to uphold our current priorities, there is a very real chance they wouldn't stick. And we weren't happy doing that to our customers in our current stage (all early adopters).

He had as much authority as anyone else to make the promise. Consumers shouldn't have believed it from anyone.

This is why I was quite sad when IBM announced that RedHat would be continuing with “business as usual” ...

It's possible to get assurances but you must write them down in the form of legal agreements.

Getting "company assurance at the highest level" is just as good as is the word of the person at the highest level. There are people for whom their word is their bond, but it's not very common.

Just curious to understand what does Exhibit n + 1 mean? Would you kindly explain?

is it such a big deal to create a fb account though? Can't you just use a fake name if you don't care about having a fb account?