Remember that VPN app that Apple pulled from the app store, the one that Facebook was using to spy on users' internet usage to gain intel about potential competitors. When Facebook acquired the VPN app this guy came with the purchase. VP of Inegrity. Oh, the irony.
Facebook's "VP of Integrity" Guy Rosen (guy_ro) co-founded Onavo, a spyware company that Facebook acquired in 2013. Onavo's flagship app was Onavo Protect, a VPN service that Facebook used to monitor the activity of its competitors, including Snapchat. Facebook acquired WhatsApp and copied features from Houseparty based on the data it harvested from Onavo users.
Onavo Protect was removed from the App Store in 2018 for privacy violations, and from Google Play in 2019. Onavo then rebranded to Facebook Research and marketed itself through targeted ads to teenagers on Instagram and Snapchat. Apple revoked Facebook's developer certificate because Onavo was using it to bypass the App Store review process. Three U.S. senators (Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey, and Mark Warner) criticized Facebook Research for harvesting data from children. Facebook Research was discontinued later that year.
Guy Rosen moved on to be Facebook's VP of Product Management. In 2019, he briefly adopted the "VP of Integrity" title when performing damage control for Facebook's live stream of the Christchurch mosque shootings, and then reverted back to VP of Product Management after he was called out on it.
> The next time Facebook needs a public relations injection, it should consider using someone other than the co-founder of Onavo.
It seems like they knew exactly what they where doing. They want money and I don't believe for a second that the most ethical road is where the money is, you have to be able to say no to money and Facebook clearly shows us time and time again that money has the highest priority.
The highest value seems to be in companies that brand themselves as trustworthy but really isn't. No matter if it is Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Google or Nestle.
Unbelievable. Just when I think I've seen it all in tech, how can someone like this take their title seriously having peddled their spyware to the highest bidder. Hope the cognitive dissonance keeps these execs with a broken moral compass up at night, if not for what they've done for themselves, then for contributing to making the world a worse place for their children and beyond. Thanks for sharing, wish there was a database full of these snakes and their slimy legacy they've left behind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
Another commenter noticed this first but the comment is buried at the bottom of the thread. You have to enable showdead to see it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23319381