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Maybe yes, maybe not. So what? It should still be forbidden. If it turns out that not enough people want to pay for it, then tough luck for the company, they sh

Maybe yes, maybe not. So what? It should still be forbidden. If it turns out that not enough people want to pay for it, then tough luck for the company, they should design something that people will pay for. For example it is forbidden to take organs from people as payment. We could forbid taking certain private data from masses of people as payment.

fauigerzigerk 10y ago
If you put trade in organs in the same basket as trade in conclusions from personal data, then I have to wonder what you put in the other basket, the one where consenting adults are allowed to freely enter into agreements. If you are criticising that people are not willingly and knowingly entering into agreements with Facebook or Google, that is another debate. Yes I think there should be the utmost level of transparency and regulatory action on that front is justified in my view. But telling people that they cannot trade access to personal data for access to services goes way beyond the role I think governments should have. If that sort of thing is prohibited, how can a government allow its people to make any decisions that potentially affect their safety and their future, like choosing a career path, choosing a place to live, making decisions on health, education, kids, etc?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  The reason why government should forbid it is not to protect the individual that's agreeing to give away their data, but to protect society from the externalities of those transactions when they occur en masse. Privacy is a necessity for a democracy, without it, democracy falls apart, that is extremely dangerous, and that's why a democratic society should protect itself against it.
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    >The reason why government should forbid it is not to protect the individual that's agreeing to give away their data, but to protect society from the externalities of those transactions when they occur en masse. And now please explain to me what sort of voluntary agreement does not have negative externalities when it occurs en masse! Voluntary agreements inevitably create markets and markets have well known negative externalities. Even the democratic process itself has negative externalities. On that basis you can ban everything. I'm not against all regulation, but your justification is way too general. It leads straight into authoritarianism.
    - bpchaps 10y ago
      How does it lead to authoritarianism? You're making some pretty sweeping statements there..
      - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
        Because there are no personal freedoms that cannot be taken away if negative externalities alone are a sufficient justification. Outright bans are the strictest form of regulation. They should only be used as a last resort. We don't even ban industrial scale cruelty towards animals and now we should ban voluntary trade in personal data? That seems completely out of proportion.
        zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
        Are you suggesting that externalities alone cannot ever be sufficient justification for a ban, no matter how bad the externalities are?
        jerf 10y ago
        No. "X is not always a sufficient reason" != "X is never a sufficient reason."
        fauigerzigerk 10y ago
        No, I just think the bar for banning consenting adults from entering into an agreement should be very high, because the negative externalities of doing it too often are extremely grave as well.
        zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
        Which seems to be a different argument entirely, namely one of weighing the positive externalities against the negative externalities? I guess I would agree with that. Now, there is actually precedent for banning consenting adults from sharing private information in order to ensure the survival of the democracy that is quite common in stable democracies: You are usually not allowed to prove to third parties how you voted in an election. That's only because of the externalities that that can have on the democracy if third parties can pressure you into voting a certain way/can buy your votes.
- treehau5 10y ago
  We already allow our government to make decisions on access to personal data for services -- it's called HIPAA. The difference between that and seemingly "ordinary" data is that HIPAA data can be used against us unfairly. I argue that's the case now, and we have proof it is already happening. You better bet your bottom dollar insurance companies and the likes are mining social media to charge different prices based on silly facebook posts http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/16/data-mining-is-now-used-to-set-insurance-rates-critics-cry-fowl.html http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/16/data-mining-is-now-used-to-se... It's only a matter of time before police forces will begin to use these same techniques to "optimize policing" We live in a different time now. Our data is not as harmless as it used to be. Hackers can attack various sources of services and build complete picture of peoples lives. Companies are using data mining techniques to leverage people's private interaction with friends and families against them. The worst part about it is -- it's complicated, and we have a technically inept Congress that barely understands the implications of all these technologies, and we will soon have a technically inept soon to be incumbent president, so these legal issues are not going to get any better. this, plus what zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC mentioned, until we have the right to "be forgotten" or the ability to have our records completely purged after a period of time -- like you do with debt, like you do with criminal records, like you do with basically any public record, we will have these privacy issues. Right now if you want to purge false information about yourself on the internet, you have to go through hell and back (trust me, I've tried, Salon has had a completely fabricated story about me for almost 10 years now. I send an email every week asking them to redact my name from that article. Unless I seemingly spend hundreds of thousands to fight their legal arm, it's probably never going to change.)
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    I'm not arguing against all regulation. I'm arguing against an outright ban on voluntary trading of personal data.
    - ska 10y ago
      Out of curiosity, how do you feel about regulation on the disclosure side of this, and/or informed consent. For example, if you are not allowed to accept personal data without detailed (and interactive) information about possible uses, perhaps signed. Or if you constrain the actual uses to those that have been enumerated, in full detail, before consent was given. One the primary "banning" arguments I hear basically boils down to "people don't understand what they are agreeing to", which I think holds some truth.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- forgottenpass 10y ago
  consenting adults are allowed to freely enter into agreements. I accept as a fact of modern life, that I unless I want to go be a hermit in the woods, I'll find myself entering into many contracts of adhesion that go against my ideals. And that as much as I try to limit this (not using facebook or whatsapp) I can't actually escape them entirely. It is disingenuous to think that either (a) people fully understand and knowingly make the agreements they do w/r/t data or (b) do so willingly. To draw the conclusion that it's just adults freely consenting in light of the previous paragraph is sophistry.
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    I don't deny these issues at all. That's why I said regulating to make sure people understand what they agree to is fine. I also think people need to be able to change their mind. There are a lot of specific things that I think are unacceptable (such as employers or landlords demanding access to facebook accounts). As I said, I'm not against all regulation. But if most people are in fact fine with granting access to their personal data in exchange for services then peer pressure on the rest of us who refuse the deal cannot be justification enough to ban the entire business model. I'm in the same boat as you. I refuse to use Facebook.

fauigerzigerk 10y ago

If you put trade in organs in the same basket as trade in conclusions from personal data, then I have to wonder what you put in the other basket, the one where consenting adults are allowed to freely enter into agreements. If you are criticising that people are not willingly and knowingly entering into agreements with Facebook or Google, that is another debate. Yes I think there should be the utmost level of transparency and regulatory action on that front is justified in my view. But telling people that they cannot trade access to personal data for access to services goes way beyond the role I think governments should have. If that sort of thing is prohibited, how can a government allow its people to make any decisions that potentially affect their safety and their future, like choosing a career path, choosing a place to live, making decisions on health, education, kids, etc?

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
The reason why government should forbid it is not to protect the individual that's agreeing to give away their data, but to protect society from the externalities of those transactions when they occur en masse. Privacy is a necessity for a democracy, without it, democracy falls apart, that is extremely dangerous, and that's why a democratic society should protect itself against it.
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  >The reason why government should forbid it is not to protect the individual that's agreeing to give away their data, but to protect society from the externalities of those transactions when they occur en masse. And now please explain to me what sort of voluntary agreement does not have negative externalities when it occurs en masse! Voluntary agreements inevitably create markets and markets have well known negative externalities. Even the democratic process itself has negative externalities. On that basis you can ban everything. I'm not against all regulation, but your justification is way too general. It leads straight into authoritarianism.
  - bpchaps 10y ago
    How does it lead to authoritarianism? You're making some pretty sweeping statements there..
    - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
      Because there are no personal freedoms that cannot be taken away if negative externalities alone are a sufficient justification. Outright bans are the strictest form of regulation. They should only be used as a last resort. We don't even ban industrial scale cruelty towards animals and now we should ban voluntary trade in personal data? That seems completely out of proportion.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
        Are you suggesting that externalities alone cannot ever be sufficient justification for a ban, no matter how bad the externalities are?
        jerf 10y ago
        No. "X is not always a sufficient reason" != "X is never a sufficient reason."
        fauigerzigerk 10y ago
        No, I just think the bar for banning consenting adults from entering into an agreement should be very high, because the negative externalities of doing it too often are extremely grave as well.
        zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
        Which seems to be a different argument entirely, namely one of weighing the positive externalities against the negative externalities? I guess I would agree with that. Now, there is actually precedent for banning consenting adults from sharing private information in order to ensure the survival of the democracy that is quite common in stable democracies: You are usually not allowed to prove to third parties how you voted in an election. That's only because of the externalities that that can have on the democracy if third parties can pressure you into voting a certain way/can buy your votes.
treehau5 10y ago
We already allow our government to make decisions on access to personal data for services -- it's called HIPAA. The difference between that and seemingly "ordinary" data is that HIPAA data can be used against us unfairly. I argue that's the case now, and we have proof it is already happening. You better bet your bottom dollar insurance companies and the likes are mining social media to charge different prices based on silly facebook posts http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/16/data-mining-is-now-used-to-set-insurance-rates-critics-cry-fowl.html http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/16/data-mining-is-now-used-to-se... It's only a matter of time before police forces will begin to use these same techniques to "optimize policing" We live in a different time now. Our data is not as harmless as it used to be. Hackers can attack various sources of services and build complete picture of peoples lives. Companies are using data mining techniques to leverage people's private interaction with friends and families against them. The worst part about it is -- it's complicated, and we have a technically inept Congress that barely understands the implications of all these technologies, and we will soon have a technically inept soon to be incumbent president, so these legal issues are not going to get any better. this, plus what zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC mentioned, until we have the right to "be forgotten" or the ability to have our records completely purged after a period of time -- like you do with debt, like you do with criminal records, like you do with basically any public record, we will have these privacy issues. Right now if you want to purge false information about yourself on the internet, you have to go through hell and back (trust me, I've tried, Salon has had a completely fabricated story about me for almost 10 years now. I send an email every week asking them to redact my name from that article. Unless I seemingly spend hundreds of thousands to fight their legal arm, it's probably never going to change.)
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  I'm not arguing against all regulation. I'm arguing against an outright ban on voluntary trading of personal data.
  - ska 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, how do you feel about regulation on the disclosure side of this, and/or informed consent. For example, if you are not allowed to accept personal data without detailed (and interactive) information about possible uses, perhaps signed. Or if you constrain the actual uses to those that have been enumerated, in full detail, before consent was given. One the primary "banning" arguments I hear basically boils down to "people don't understand what they are agreeing to", which I think holds some truth.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
forgottenpass 10y ago
consenting adults are allowed to freely enter into agreements. I accept as a fact of modern life, that I unless I want to go be a hermit in the woods, I'll find myself entering into many contracts of adhesion that go against my ideals. And that as much as I try to limit this (not using facebook or whatsapp) I can't actually escape them entirely. It is disingenuous to think that either (a) people fully understand and knowingly make the agreements they do w/r/t data or (b) do so willingly. To draw the conclusion that it's just adults freely consenting in light of the previous paragraph is sophistry.
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  I don't deny these issues at all. That's why I said regulating to make sure people understand what they agree to is fine. I also think people need to be able to change their mind. There are a lot of specific things that I think are unacceptable (such as employers or landlords demanding access to facebook accounts). As I said, I'm not against all regulation. But if most people are in fact fine with granting access to their personal data in exchange for services then peer pressure on the rest of us who refuse the deal cannot be justification enough to ban the entire business model. I'm in the same boat as you. I refuse to use Facebook.