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And interesting thing is how people are all up in arms about the NSA tapping private information, but are completely oblivious to advertising companies doing th
by surferbayarea 11y ago
And interesting thing is how people are all up in arms about the NSA tapping private information, but are completely oblivious to advertising companies doing the same. At least the NSA's objective is to fight terrorism, companies like Google/Facebook invade people's privacy for the sole purpose of making money from it.
- IIAOPSW 11y agoI implicitly agreed to Googles terms when I used Google. I never asked to be born in the States.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoYou never asked to be born, period.
- mirimir 11y agoYou implicitly agree to citizenship by not renouncing. And in any case, the NSA may (supposedly) surveil non-citizens with fewer restrictions.
- IIAOPSW 11y agoYou have to pay to opt out of citizenship. Name any other club that you have to pay over 1000 USD to not be a part of.
- mirimir 11y agoMafia Anyway, the parent comment made no sense. Maybe people expect privacy because they're US citizens. But the NSA doesn't specifically surveil people for that reason.
- DrScump 11y agoYou can't renounce your U.S. citizenship from inside the country anyway.
- zxcdw 11y agoI do agree with you, though as a brief tangent (as if this horse wasn't beat badly enough here in HN during the past almost 30 months...), my personal concern is both political and ethical, and I suspect this same concern applies to many of us who see dragnet surveillance as a problem. The political aspect is that whatever data there is about an individual can be used against them, selectively, for say political purposes. This is a gross violation of transparency and the principles of a democratic society. The ethical aspect is that I am being spied upon because of what I am not -- because I am not a US citizen. The talk about whether US constitution protects US citizens from dragnet mass surveillance (and thus whether NSA spying is unconstitutional) outright disgusts me (although I do understand the relevance for US citizens, of course). Telling one to "not use US internet services" is like telling one to opt out from the Internet. It's a "tough cookies" argument with very limited practical applicability. Collecting information about me to make money out of me by selling me stuff? Honestly, in comparison, that doesn't feel that bad at all. Luckily, browser add-ons like Ghostery and various adblockers mitigate this to an extent.
- surferbayarea 11y agoIdeally the ad exchange should be an independent and open system like the stock exchange. A user's private information should be carefully federated and controlled access given to various advertisers. This exchange should not be controlled by Google, but should be an open system. Just like you can buy shares for a business, you should be able to buy advertising rights to a user(or set of users). The money paid by advertisers should flow to the user.
- mirimir 11y agoIt's easy to avoid ads and prevent ad tracking. Avoiding NSA surveillance is nontrivial. Maybe impossible.
- kruczek 11y agoConversely it could be said that Google/Facebook invade people's privacy only to make money from it, while NSA might use that information for blackmailing, etc. - reasons directly affecting victims.