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I would like to see some privacy laws that effectively stated that: 1) All privacy settings must be easy to find, and govern the level of privacy of all aspec
by mrcharles 17y ago
I would like to see some privacy laws that effectively stated that:
1) All privacy settings must be easy to find, and govern the level of privacy of all aspects of communication.
2) All use of your data on a given service must be disclosed in plain English on an easy to find part of the site.
3) All sites are required to have a "scrub" feature that a user can use to delete all data associated with him from the service.
I am often concerned by how much of my info is out there, even though I try to control it as much as possible. I don't want to slide to the side of being the equivalent of an internet hermit, however. But sometimes you really don't have a choice, it's either be a hermit or let advertisers have your information.
Wish that would change.
- jpwatts 17y agoRegarding your point #3: how would "scrub" work with interconnected user data? Comment threads like this one are a good example; my comment is dependent on yours for context. Should you be able to delete your data and leave my comment dangling? If so, should your deletion cascade to my related data? Shouldn't I have a say in that?
- mrcharles 17y agoCertainly that's a grey area, but I don't see why such posts couldn't just replace the user with "Unknown User" and leave the actual data there. Definitely there'd be a problem with conversations when some posts disappear. But I should still be able to detach myself from those things.
- kngspook 17y agoThis becomes a bigger problem when you're dealing with quoting. Suppose I wrote something like: "As MrCharles said above, it's a grey area, but...". So then what? Do we scrub all mentions of your username down the thread? What about typos? Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for a scrubbing mechanism -- but it's a complicated problem.