Month: December 2018

New story in Technology from Time: Some 911 Services Knocked Offline Amid Nationwide CenturyLink Outage

(BOISE, Idaho) — Many CenturyLink customers across the U.S. were without internet Thursday amid a lengthy outage that even affected some Verizon customers.

The outage began early in the day but by late Thursday night, the company tweeted that its engineers had identified a “network element” that was affecting services and expected to fully restore services within hours.

Monroe, Louisiana-based CenturyLink didn’t provide details of the problem and it didn’t indicate how many customers were affected. Customers from New York to California reported outages.

Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the Federal Communications Commission, said via Twitter it was a nationwide outage and her agency needed to investigate.

The outage knocked out 911 emergency call services in parts of western Washington state. KOMO reports that some CenturyLink customers reported receiving busy signals when dialing 911. Other areas of the country also experiencing 911 outages included parts of Missouri, Idaho and Arizona.

In Idaho, the internet problems caused the temporary shutdown of phone services at the Idaho Department of Correction and the state’s Department of Education, The Idaho Statesman reported .

Some ATM machines weren’t working in Idaho and Montana.

At North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, Colorado, doctors and nurses for a time had difficulty accessing patient records. Rather than using digital devices, they had to take notes with pencil and paper, according to the Greeley Tribune .

WyoLotto officials said they would postpone announcing Wyoming’s winning state lottery numbers and winnings for the day until after the outage was over.

Verizon said it had service interruptions in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and parts of Montana as a result of issues with CenturyLink. Verizon said CenturyLink helps handle wireless network data traffic for Verizon and other wireless providers.

New story in Technology from Time: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison, Kathleen Wilson-Thompson to Board to Help Oversee Musk

(Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc. added Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson to its board, picking a controversial Silicon Valley luminary and a respected human-resources expert to show securities regulators that it’s giving Elon Musk more oversight.

Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle Corp., and Wilson-Thompson, the global chief human resources officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., join a board the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered to step up its oversight after Musk claimed in August to have had the funding and investor support for a buyout. The chief executive officer relinquished the role of chairman in November, and both he and the company agreed to pay $20 million penalties.

In Ellison, Musk has added another larger-than-life technology titan lauded for his business accomplishments but not without his own corporate-governance controversies. The 74-year-old billionaire came under attack from Oracle shareholders for excessive pay packages while running the company. Ellison also publicly defended Musk after his tweets about taking Tesla private landed him in hot water with the SEC, a point that raised eyebrows with corporate-governance experts.

“His vocal support for Musk doesn’t suggest the kind of objectivity coming in that I think people had hoped for,” said Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. “The SEC’s point was to to bring in two people who were neither supporters nor vocal opponents of Tesla.”

Street Cheers

Wall Street analysts and investors cheered the news, with Tesla shares rising as much as 3.5 percent to $327 as of 9:55 a.m. Friday in New York. The stock was up 1.5 percent this year through the close Thursday.

Wedbush Securities’ Daniel Ives called the choice of Ellison “a home run” and said he could “help channel Musk’s energy and passion into positives” and steer him away from the cloud created by his “going private tweetstorm,” according to research note published Friday.

Tesla also said it is setting up a committee on the board to oversee compliance with the SEC agreement regarding public disclosures and public statements and review potential conflicts of interest, employment and compensation disputes, according to a regulatory filing Friday.

The new additions to the board put a bookend on a months-long distraction that at one point looked like it might cost Musk his future with the company. While reining him in may prove challenging, they’ll help steer a carmaker that’s made significant strides in profitably making and delivering electric vehicles.

Ellison went off-script during an Oracle meeting with analysts in October to announce that he had been building a personal stake in Tesla and that it was his second-largest holding. He criticized how the media had covered Musk, 47, whom he called a close friend.

“This guy is landing rockets,” Ellison said in October of Musk, who also runs Space Exploration Technologies Corp. “You know, he’s landing rockets on robot drone rafts in the ocean. And you’re saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Well, who else is landing rockets? You ever land a rocket on a robot drone? Who are you?”

‘Funding Secured’

Tesla said in its statement announcing Ellison would be joining the board that he had purchased 3 million shares of the electric-car maker earlier this year.

Tesla’s board now has 11 members, including three women. This fall, California became the first U.S. state to mandate that publicly traded companies have women on their boards. Those with at least seven directors need to have at least three women by 2021.

The SEC moved to punish Tesla and Musk because it alleged he committed fraud by tweeting that he had the “funding secured” to take the company private at $420 a share. The agency said this and other claims the CEO made on Aug. 7 were false and misleading and affected Tesla’s stock.

Musk and Tesla reached the settlement with the SEC on Sept. 29. It gave the company 90 days to add directors and take other actions. Since then, the CEO has publicly lampooned the agency and bristled at the notion that he’ll change his Twitter habits.

Read more on Musk’s criticisms of the SEC

Tesla’s legal department also has been going through shakeups since Musk’s run-in with the SEC.

The company tapped Dane Butswinkas, the Washington trial lawyer who represented the CEO in his legal battle with the agency, earlier this month to become general counsel. He’ll replace Todd Maron, who’s leaving Tesla in January after five years. Before he joined the company, he represented Musk through two divorces.

In November, Phil Rothenberg, a vice president on Tesla’s legal staff, left to became general counsel at Sonder, a hospitality startup. Rothenberg previously worked at the SEC.

New story in Technology from Time: Instagram Accidentally Changed Everyone’s App and People Absolutely Hated It

In the midst of the post-holiday glow, Instagram on Thursday introduced what at first appeared to be an update that required users to swipe side-to-side through their feed as opposed to scrolling up and down. And, as might be expected with any major change to a social media platform, the Internet did not take kindly to the update and sounded off accordingly and with much outrage.

The Instagram update didn’t affect everyone. But users who received it found that they needed to horizontally swipe through the posts on their feed, and also discovered that they could “tap” through the posts, much like one would while going through Instagram Stories.

According to a tweet from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, the social media company debuted the changes early on Thursday morning as a part of what was meant to be a “small test” of the new features — but the test was accidentally sent out more widely than anticipated.

While the update has been rolled back (those who are still experiencing it are advised to restart their apps), it hasn’t stopped the Internet from letting Instagram know exactly how they feel about the potential changes, which may or may not arrive in a future update.

Some Internet users have found the bright side to the Instagram update debacle, however.

 

New story in Technology from Time: 7 Can’t-Miss Tips for Your New Amazon Echo (Or Other Alexa Device)

Amazon’s Echo voice assistants have gone from expensive parlor trick of a gadget to the perfect stocking stuffer, so you probably weren’t surprised to see one of these smart home speakers wrapped up with your name on it. Well, maybe be a little surprised.

The Echo is a perfect first step or addition to a smart home, and taking advantage of some of its lesser-known features could take you from smart home skeptic to convert faster than you think.

Stop saying “Alexa”

Thankfully if you have a friend or family member with a name that sounds anything like “Alexa,” you can change the “wake word” that activates your new voice assistant. Download the Alexa app to your smartphone, then navigate to the Devices tab. Select “Echo and Alexa,” pick your Echo device, then select “Wake Word.” You can pick from Alexa, Echo, Computer, and Amazon. While it’s an admittedly limited selection of options, you’ll be happy to be rid of any false positives, and will feel like a Star Trek character each time you say “Computer!”

Get your Echo to read to you

Linking your Echo device to your Amazon account does more than personalize your experience. It links your Echo to the content you’ve already got from the company. So when you’re trying to wind down for the evening, your Echo can read you a story from your library of Audible content. You can also set sleep timers, so your book ends as you drift off to la-la land.

Get familiar with Alexa Skills

Voice assistants can tell you the weather, turn on your lights, and alert you to an upcoming appointment. But with the help of third-party developers, your Echo device can get a lot more interesting and entertaining when paired with the right Alexa Skills.

Alexa Skills are essentially apps you can enable on your Echo, and include offerings like trivia games, meditation timers, and news reports from major outlets. You can get started by asking your Echo device to “help me get started with skills.” Use Skills to learn a new word each day, play a round of Jeopardy!, or even find your phone when you misplace it.

Give everyone a voice

It’s your gift, but everyone in your home can benefit from your new Echo by giving each person their own personalized experience. You can ask your Echo to “learn my voice,” then go through a few minutes of repeating what your Echo says.

Teaching the Echo your voice means you can send and receive messages privately, skip over previously heard news stories, and bypass the shopping voice code needed for voice purchases. If you’re a member of an Amazon Household, you’ll also be able to link your services to the Echo device in question.

Use Alexa for quick decisions

Need an unbiased tiebreaker between you and your siblings over the last slice of pie? Even if you’re not a fan of voice assistants turning out your lights, locking your doors, starting your films or turning on your microwave, you can always use your Echo for the little things. Ask it to flip a coin, give you a random number between any two you pick, or play rock, paper, scissors to see who sits shotgun.

Whisper mode is your late-night home helper

Voice assistants aren’t the best at keeping it quiet, especially if you bumped up the volume up to listen to something earlier in the day. You can stop getting yelled at when you’re trying to keep the noise down by enabling the Echo’s Whisper Mode. Ask your device to “enable Whisper Mode” and it’ll turn the volume down and speak to you, well, in a whisper.

Delete your dumb questions

Whether you’re concerned about the voice data you generate being mishandled or just don’t want a record of you asking whether a pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of bricks, take control of your data by deleting it yourself.

Visit Amazon’s site and check out the Alexa Privacy section in the Content and Devices page. There you’ll see a list of every inquiry your Echo has recorded, and have the option to delete everything from start to finish. Even better, you can wipe the history and manage the access of other smart home device and Alexa Skills you may have forgotten about, too.

New story in Technology from Time: 5 Can’t-Miss Tips and Tricks for That New Amazon Kindle You Just Got

Good job, you literary lover! If you were lucky enough to receive an Amazon Kindle e-reader for the holidays, chances are you’re a fan of books more than you are of carrying them around.

Amazon’s Kindle remains the e-reader of choice, and with support for books, audiobooks, and other documents, you can use it for more than just enjoying the latest bestseller. Here are a few tips and recommendations to get the most out of your new Kindle.

Get thee to a library

While Kindle books may often be cheaper than physical tomes, there’s one even cheaper alternative: A library book. And more than likely, your local library has its own digital library, offering a catalog of free and easily accessible literature.

To get these books on your Kindle, you’ll have to set up an account with digital library company OverDrive. Through your local library’s OverDrive page, you can download compatible ebooks and send them to your Kindle wirelessly. Like a normal library, you’ll be subject to loan periods, waitlists and borrowing limits. But it beats carrying actual books to and fro when you can simply download them to your device. And hey, no more late fees is a plus. All you need to get started is a library card.

Get some protection

Speaking from personal experience, no one wants to pull their gift of a Kindle from their backpack a few weeks later only to find it scratched up, or worse. You can get a case to protect the entire device, but you’ll have to deal with an accessory that detracts from the device’s aesthetic and adds to heft of if while you hold your Kindle up on the train, at the beach, or while waiting in line.

Instead of adding all that bulk, just protect the most important part, and get a screen protector. Thinner plastic options can protect your Kindle’s screen from minor scratches and scuffs from keys, pens, and whatever else you’ve got in your bag. A more durable screen protector, usually made from a hard plastic or tempered glass, will protect it from even more forceful accidents.

Share your favorite authors with friends

If you just devoured an amazing book and want to share it with someone else, that’s still easier with physical books. Sharing books you buy for your Kindle is a bit more complicated, but it’s definitely possible. You can share your latest read by visiting your Content and Devices page, a repository for your digital purchases on Amazon, selecting the purchased book you’d like to loan, and picking the Loan option. All you need is the recipient’s email address. The recipient doesn’t need a Kindle to read the selected book, so long as they have the Kindle app on their smartphone or other device.

It’s convenient, but the system isn’t perfect: Some books are ineligible for loan, you can only loan a title once, and while it’s on loan you can’t read it yourself. So be sure you’re giving a book to someone who will actually read it and not just nod along politely as you talk about your favorite chapter.

Take the web’s writing with you

Reading books is good and all, but you’re no doubt reading things on the Internet, too, and may even have a library of articles you’ve bookmarked and saved for later using a service like Instapaper or Pocket.

Services like Instapaper Premium and Pocket 2 Kindle (P2K) can send your saved articles to your e-reader for later consumption on a recurring basis, and even mark the ones it sends as read, so you only need to keep track of what you, well, actually read. It uses your Kindle’s e-mail address, which you can find on the Contents and Devices page.

Prime members get some books for free

If you’re already an Amazon Prime member, you can take advantage of benefits like Prime Reading, especially if you’re considering signing up for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited service. Prime Reading, like the more expansive Kindle Unlimited service, offers a selection of titles available to read for free, as long as you’re a Prime member. You’ll have access to over 1,000 titles, including popular and trending books that could satisfy your literary appetite.

New story in Technology from Time: 5 Can’t-Miss Tips for That New Chromecast You Just Got

Lucky enough to unwrap a Google Chromecast for the holidays? Congratulations! As the new owner of Google’s media streaming dongle for your TV, you’re probably excited to plug it in and get to watching.

But beyond the basics, you can get more mileage out of your Chromecast if you make sure to take these tips into account.

Connect your services

Before you begin, download the Google Home app from your Android or iOS store to make setup easier. If you’ve already got the app, or use Google Home devices, it should detect the presence of a new device after you plug the Chromecast in and power it on.

Start by connecting all the services you use to the Google Home app for easy operation once your Chromecast is powered up and ready to go. Hit the settings icon, scroll down, then select the options like Music and TV & Video to connect the Chromecast’s default streaming service options to your existing accounts.

Add it to a group

Since your Chromecast is connected to your TV, it may also be connected to the best set of speakers in the house, be it a soundbar or surround sound system. If you’ve got a few Google Home devices in multiple rooms, consider creating a group to enable multi-room audio. Hit the Add icon in Google Home, select “Create speaker group,” and pick your devices. It’s easy, and devices can be part of multiple groups if you want to use your TV’s speakers on certain occasions, or want to play music in multiple rooms while someone is watching TV. You can adjust the audio of each device individually so it isn’t blasting in every room, too.

Consider getting one more accessory

Whether you’ve got a Chromecast or the 4K-capable Chromecast Ultra, your Internet connection matters. Since both use Wi-Fi, a weak signal from a faraway router could be the difference between an enjoyable evening streaming and one with buffering, quality dips, and the occasional disconnect.

To get the most out of a poor connection, you can always ditch the Wi-Fi and go for a more direct approach — as in, a direct connection using an Ethernet cable. Yes, it’s a little like buying a toy for your toy, but Google’s Ethernet Adapter accessory replaces your included power cable and adapter, featuring a built-in Ethernet port on the adapter itself. That means you won’t have to worry about Wi-Fi signal strength, and can count on a more stable connection and higher-quality streams.

Make it easy to stream from your browser

Your Chromecast can do more than stream video from apps on your smartphone — you can also use the Chrome browser on your desktop or laptop to stream — or, as Google says, “cast” — content to the big screen. You can find the Cast feature by clicking Chrome’s three-dot menu icon. After selecting Cast, you can keep it on your browser’s toolbar by right-clicking the Cast icon and selecting “Always show icon.”

It’s great for showing a website to the whole room or for bypassing pesky streaming restrictions implemented by companies like Amazon, which doesn’t support casting to Google’s devices from its apps. Instead, use your Chrome browser and stream a video through there. Select the full screen zoom in Chrome’s menu, then select the full screen zoom in the video itself. Hit the Cast button, pick your TV, and enjoy your favorite show or movie.

Learn how guest mode works

Friends coming over for a get-together may have a few songs or videos they want to add to the communal playlist, so why not make it easy for them to get in on the fun? From the Google Home app, select your Chromecast, hit the settings icon, and scroll down to select “Guest mode.” Enabling Guest Mode means anyone can send media to your Chromecast without connecting to your Wi-Fi network. Guests can open Chromecast-enabled apps like Netflix, Spotify, VRV, or YouTube, among others, and connect to nearby devices either via inaudible tones or by entering the displayed PIN.

Put your smartphone on the big screen

Chromecast users with an Android device running Android 5.0 or newer can send what’s on their screen to their Chromecast. Screen mirroring is done through the Google Home app — just pick the Account tab, select Mirror Device, and then pick your smartphone.

New story in Technology from Time: 5 Can’t-Miss Tips for That New Google Pixel 3 You Just Got

Google’s Pixel 3 and 3 XL were some of the best Android devices released this year, so if you were lucky enough to unwrap a Pixel for yourself this holiday season, you’re in luck. It runs Google’s latest Android operating system, has an amazing camera that uses machine learning to improve photos, and looks pretty good as long as you ignore the notch.

The Pixel 3 gets even better if you take advantage of a few tricks to get the most out of your device. Here’s a handful of handy tips:

Keep your phone unlocked at home

It’s a pain to enter your passcode, lock screen pattern, or use your fingerprint to unlock your smartphone every time you pick it up, especially if you’re just hanging around at home. Luckily, Google’s Smart Lock settings can keep your phone unlocked in situations when you probably don’t need to be super secure. Using Smart Lock, you can keep your phone unlocked when it’s in a certain location, when it’s near certain trusted devices, or when it’s set down after being in your pocket or hand while you travel. To change your Smart Lock settings, visit your Settings app and go to Security, then select Smart Lock.

Get Google’s data-saving app

The more you use your smartphone, the more data you’re bound to consume. If you’ve got a more restrictive data plan, managing that data might be the difference between a normal day with your phone or a day spent waiting and waiting (and waiting) for your searches and downloads to finish because you’re being throttled by your carrier.

Using Datally, Google’s own data management app, you can see exactly how much mobile data you’re using, and restrict use on a per-app basis, giving each its own daily limit. You can even “bank” data for later use when you know you’ll need it, so you’ll never be stuck with a slow connection as long as you’ve planned ahead.

Use Digital Wellness for bad habits

We all know we’re not supposed to stare at our phones and flick through pictures of our friends and their amazing lives, but we do it anyway. You can ditch that bad habit in 2019 using Google’s Digital Wellness feature. As you can guess, it shows just how much time you’re spending staring at your phone, and what you can do about it (namely, stop staring at your phone).

Visit Settings, then Digital Wellness to get a sobering picture of just how much time you spend in each app. It’s great for determining which apps to avoid (or delete) and which to keep. Other helpful features include a grayscale mode for discouraging use when you should be sleeping, and time limits, which lock you out of an app once you’ve spent your allotted minutes wasting time in it.

Choose new defaults, from voice to voicemail

Google’s own selection of default apps is fine, but if you’re someone who uses a different messaging or email app, changing default settings could save you the headache of opening the wrong app only to have to navigate to the correct one. Unlike switching default apps in iOS, Google makes it easy to do. All you need to do, besides get the new default app you want, is visit Settings, Apps & Notifications, then Advanced to see and edit your list of default apps, your voice assistant, and your default home screen launcher.

Snag a few NFC stickers

Inside the Pixel 3 is a near-field communication (NFC) sensor, which can communicate with NFC tags to share and receive information. Useful for a wide variety of reasons, you can take advantage of NFC tags to automatically enable and disable certain settings on your device.

Want your phone to keep it down while you’re studying? Tap the NFC sticker on your desk to open your language-learning app, enable Do Not Disturb mode, log the start time of your study session, and send a message to your partner, all without looking at the screen. NFC stickers are cheap, and when paired with an app like Trigger, they can help you walk into the office already prepped for work or open a series of apps and services you need when you get home.

New story in Technology from Time: 5 Can’t-Miss Tips For That New iPhone You Just Got

Unwrapping a new smartphone is always great, but if you were lucky enough to get an iPhone for the holidays, you’re probably more than excited to try out its new features.

From its TrueDepth camera to its powerful library of apps and games, the latest iPhone is full of potential. These tips and tricks will help you get even more mileage out of your newest iOS device.

Customize your Control Center

Swiping down from the top of the iPhone’s display will reveal the control center, where you can enable and disable connectivity options like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and control media playback, among other options. It’s convenient, but its default selection leaves a bit to be desired. Thankfully, you can easily make a few changes to surface the most important Control Center shortcuts.

In the Settings app, select Control Center, then Customize Controls. You can then pick and choose which options you’d like to include or exclude, so you can remove the QR Code scanner you never use and replace it with the Apple TV remote you depend on daily.

Use apps to avoid Apple’s default picks

Don’t like Safari? Hate the included Mail app? You don’t have to use all the apps your iPhone includes, and can even change default options for various tasks like opening links and sending emails. All you need is the right set of apps. Apps like Opener can help open links in the right apps, and Copied can make it easy to save key information to a more useful clipboard for use later.

You can check out our list of the top iOS apps to get a head start in picking the cream of the crop and customizing your iPhone experience.

Learn how Shortcuts works

One of Apple’s biggest latest additions to iOS is the Shortcuts app, which lets you create your own sequence of actions to take care of complex or repeated tasks. Daily occurrences, like telling your family when you’ll be arriving home, or more utilitarian options, like automatically sharing whatever you just saved to your camera roll, are perfect for Shortcuts. You can create shortcuts with other apps, use more advanced options like programmer-friendly if-then commands, and download existing shortcuts from the app’s gallery of featured options.

Third-party keyboards are your friend

Having a few specialized keyboards in your arsenal makes it easier to enter more obscure characters, or type faster than you would by simply tapping at each letter. Keyboards like Google’s Gboard supports both in-keyboard web searching and typing by swiping over letters. UniChar makes obscure characters and text symbols easily accessible, and TextExpander lets you use keyboard shortcuts you create using the app on your other devices. You can search for keyboards in the App Store or by opening your keyboard in whatever app you choose and selecting the App Store icon that appears next to the text field.

Adjust your screen’s brightness and color

Want more control over your brightness levels? You can get your screen even dimmer by adjusting both the automatic brightness setting and white point level. In the Settings app, go to General -> Accessibility -> Display Accommodations. By disabling Auto-Brightness and enabling the Reduce White Point option, you can manually adjust the brightness of your screen, sparing your eyes from an onslaught of bright blue light. Just remember to adjust or disable the white point option when you need some brightness in the daytime. Speaking of blue light, you can ease the irritation from blue light by enabling Apple’s Night Shift mode, which adds an orange tint to your display and makes it easier to read at night.

New story in Technology from Time: Washington, D.C. Attorney General Sues Facebook Over Data Mining Scandal

(WASHINGTON) — The attorney general in the nation’s capital has filed a lawsuit against Facebook for allowing data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly access data from as many as 87 million users.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Karl Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia. It alleges that Facebook misled users about the security of their data and failed to properly monitor third-party apps.

After the revelations about Cambridge Analytica, congressional hearings were held and Facebook changed what sorts of data it lets outside developers access.

It was revealed this week that Facebook’s privacy controls had broken down yet again. In that case, a software flaw affected nearly 7 million users, leading to their photos being exposed to a much wider audience than they had intended.

New story in Technology from Time: Facebook Keeps Missing Chances to Come Clean About User Data

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Nine months after a scandal erupted over Facebook Inc.’s open borders of user information, those borders are in the news again.

The New York Times reported late Tuesday that after Facebook tightened rules in 2015 to limit the account information that could be hooked into outside companies’ apps and websites, the social network made many exceptions and some previously made special deals continued until recently.

Those arrangements allowed companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix to have a sometimes unsettling level of access to Facebook users’ information. The Facebook data pipeline included, the Times said, Netflix and Spotify being able to read people’s private Facebook messages and letting Amazon obtain Facebook users’ names and contact information through their online friends.

Facebook’s explanation is that the flow of information between its user repositories and the company’s partners did require the consent of Facebook account holders, and that agreements with more than 150 companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple obliged those partners to comply with Facebook privacy requirements and weren’t abused.

Many of the third-party data agreements described in the Times article appeared to have been relatively unused or dormant, and the news organization didn’t identify examples of Facebook’s partners siphoning mass amounts of information about Facebook users or otherwise abusing their access. That’s good, but it doesn’t absolve Facebook of blame here.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a mantra that he told members of Congress and has repeated frequently: People who use Facebook have control over how their information is used. That is true in only the strictest sense.

Consent — which might mean someone entered her Facebook password once in 2013 — in the internet world does not match how normal humans think about permission. I’ve written before that the open data sharing that made the internet useful — for example, by knitting together your Gmail account with an online file storage service so you can email a document to a colleague — helped make our lives easier but also let our digital information loose in a way that most people didn’t understand, let alone agree to with eyes wide open.

My bigger issue with Facebook is it has missed repeated opportunities to come clean about the scope and breadth of its information pipelines with outside companies.

After the March revelations about how Cambridge Analytica appeared to take advantage of loose Facebook rules to gather information on people’s Facebook friends without their overt approval, we were somewhat comforted by the idea that this was a vestige of Facebook past. Facebook changed policies after 2014, and there would never be a repeat of this Wild West with Facebook user information.

Since then, though, there have been dribs and drabs of reporting from news outlets that even after Facebook tightened its rules about the account information outside companies could harness, Facebook made many exceptions or let old agreements continue long after they stopped being useful. Maybe those special deals were fine to make, met the smell test of consent from Facebook users, and complied with Facebook’s 2011 agreement with the U.S. government to never again share user information without people’s explicit permission. Maybe.

Even if all that were true, why didn’t Facebook do a full accounting after March of all its partnership arrangements that hooked outside companies into Facebook data? That’s my real complaint here. Facebook cannot seem to clean up its own mess.

After the Cambridge Analytica revelations, Facebook should have peered into all the dusty corners of its closet and dragged out all of the skeletons. It had an opening to detail all the companies that had special arrangements for account information for purposes such as recommending Netflix movies that I liked to my contacts on Facebook Messenger. There’s no evidence that Netflix used its ability to peek into people’s private messages, but it sounds creepy, and Facebook whiffed on its chance to identify any open data pipelines, plug up the ones that weren’t absolutely necessary, and make a full accounting to the public and Congress.

At their root, disclosures about Facebook’s data deals undermine trust in the company. The company that says it is committed to transparency repeatedly fails to be transparent. A company that says safeguarding the privacy of its users is its paramount mission has repeatedly failed to truly safeguard their privacy. And the company that says it has learned from its mistakes keeps missing chances to reform its bad old habits.