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Facebook asked WhatsApp users to give consent before collecting data, which some did. Why should the government intervine between consenting adults agreeing on

Facebook asked WhatsApp users to give consent before collecting data, which some did. Why should the government intervine between consenting adults agreeing on a contract willfully? Isn't this the definition of tyranny and why we oppose things such as the war on drugs?

Grangar 10y ago
These terms and conditions are untransparent garbage. It's estimated that if a person was to read everything they agree too, they'd be busy 24/7.
- necessity 10y ago
  I remember there was a website that supplied tl;drs of EULAs from popular websites. Anyone knows it?
  - heinrich5991 10y ago
    Googling "tldr eula" gives me https://tosdr.org/ https://tosdr.org/.
pille 10y ago
> intervine between consenting adults Buried in a setting that defaulted to the change that FB wanted. If you were to sneak in a change to a contract in the same way, I think a lot of courts would throw it out, or maybe even consider it fraudulent. > isn't that the definition of tyranny? Seems more like just the definition of government. The German government seems like both the underdog and the less capricious actor in this case.
icebraining 10y ago
Isn't this the definition of tyranny and why we oppose things such as the war on drugs? In my experience, many people don't argue against the war on drugs due to being against any imposition on consensual transactions but because it harms the people intended to help. They'd be fine with it otherwise. Personally, I have some sympathy for your view, but I'm of the opinion that contracts require meeting of the minds, and that it's plainly obvious that many, possibly most users have no real idea of what they're trading away, evidenced by the fact that the T&C conditions of these services are unreadable and not even expected to be read.
kriro 10y ago
There are some things you cannot contractually agree to in most countries. A government would also intervene if I agreed that you can kill me to harvest my organs if the money goes to my family and similar scenarios. It's an interesting ethical debate where the lines in the sand should be drawn (or if there should be any lines at all for that matter) but traditionally some lines exist and there are some things governments feel they need to control on behalf of consenting adults. Additionally it's a question of discrimination laws in certain countries. If WA gave you the option of opting out but in return not being able to use their service at all that could be seen as discrimination. If you take the stance that personal information are a very essential good that isn't all that unreasonable (once again I'm not making a value judgment only a logical one). I believe in most societies there's a somewhat solid majority support for the idea that government sets some rules for the marketplace. How many/if there should be any is open for debate but these frameworks exist and are typically backed by majority votes.
khabaal 10y ago
They did not. Opt-Out is not asking for consent. And even if you Opt-Out, WhatsApp will submit your data to facebook for analytic purposes. The real problem here was quoted as "misdirection of the [whatsapp] users and the public" because WhatsApp stated that there wont be any data exchange between them and facebook, when they were accuired two years ago.
- necessity 10y ago
  But do they need to warn you? I always assume that the information I send to a server is being stored forever by its owner, unless he tells me otherwise. If Whatsapp said it wouldn't share user info and dit it without informing users then yes it should be punished for it and prevented from doing so. But as far as I understand what happened was a TOS upgrade. Don't like it, go to Telegram.
  - khabaal 10y ago
    Think about it this way: You get a product, its free to use. The Company running the service is telling you, they wont share your data ever. You get reliant to the product, everyone uses it. Then they start sharing your data.
    - necessity 10y ago
      Then their breaking a contract and should be prosecuted for it. But I don't remember that.
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  Doesn't the Whatsapp TOS says that they can update that TOS whenever and however they want? Do you have to accept that TOS before using Whatsapp for the first time? So users accepted a TOS that says Whatsapp can change their rules as they wish and now they are angry because they did just that? I totally support people who don't like these kind of TOS and use open source alternative, but people who accepted these kinds of TOS and then complain when they do what they state they would do, that I don't support.
detaro 10y ago
Didn't they also say that you can't opt-out of analytics use?
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  You can opt-out by uninstalling Whatsapp. I mean, if you don't trust them with their analytics, why do you trust them with the rest of their features? Doesn't make much sense to me.
zyx321 10y ago
Oh you fucking know that's a lie. They deliberately went out of their way to hide the 'choice'.
rmc 10y ago
> Why should the government intervine between consenting adults agreeing on a contract willfully? Isn't this the definition of tyranny and why we oppose things such as the war on drugs? The idea that contracts between adults are sacred is basically a libertarian philosophy. Many countries (incl Germany) often limit what contracts can do. You can also make a case that people did not "freely consent" to transferring data. A click-through multi-page legalise doesn't count as "consent"
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  > Many countries (incl Germany) often limit what contracts can do. Coming from Syria myself, I'm well aware that many countries do not respect people's freedom to contract freely. Doesn't mean that they are not tyrannies. Also, the Whatsapp TOS pretty much says that they can update their TOS whenever and however they want, so when you first try to use it, you should not expect any kind of control over your data, if you care about that, use an open source alternative. I will never understand people who consent to proprietary software TOS and then complain about these TOS changing in certain ways when this is what they are all about. I mean this has been Stallman arguments against proprietary software for like 40 years now. Want complete control? Use free/open source software. Don't care about that, use proprietary software such as Whatsapp. What makes less sense to me is using something such as Whatsapp and demand and expect what only free open source software can deliver.
wsy 10y ago
Funny definition of tyranny. Going back to the case itself: a) the German government is elected; b) most Germans are glad to have strong privacy protection rules in place. So it is simply democracy, and agreement on a different set of social rules than the set you would prefer.

Grangar 10y ago

These terms and conditions are untransparent garbage. It's estimated that if a person was to read everything they agree too, they'd be busy 24/7.

necessity 10y ago
I remember there was a website that supplied tl;drs of EULAs from popular websites. Anyone knows it?
- heinrich5991 10y ago
  Googling "tldr eula" gives me https://tosdr.org/ https://tosdr.org/.

pille 10y ago

> intervine between consenting adults Buried in a setting that defaulted to the change that FB wanted. If you were to sneak in a change to a contract in the same way, I think a lot of courts would throw it out, or maybe even consider it fraudulent. > isn't that the definition of tyranny? Seems more like just the definition of government. The German government seems like both the underdog and the less capricious actor in this case.

icebraining 10y ago

Isn't this the definition of tyranny and why we oppose things such as the war on drugs? In my experience, many people don't argue against the war on drugs due to being against any imposition on consensual transactions but because it harms the people intended to help. They'd be fine with it otherwise. Personally, I have some sympathy for your view, but I'm of the opinion that contracts require meeting of the minds, and that it's plainly obvious that many, possibly most users have no real idea of what they're trading away, evidenced by the fact that the T&C conditions of these services are unreadable and not even expected to be read.

kriro 10y ago

There are some things you cannot contractually agree to in most countries. A government would also intervene if I agreed that you can kill me to harvest my organs if the money goes to my family and similar scenarios. It's an interesting ethical debate where the lines in the sand should be drawn (or if there should be any lines at all for that matter) but traditionally some lines exist and there are some things governments feel they need to control on behalf of consenting adults. Additionally it's a question of discrimination laws in certain countries. If WA gave you the option of opting out but in return not being able to use their service at all that could be seen as discrimination. If you take the stance that personal information are a very essential good that isn't all that unreasonable (once again I'm not making a value judgment only a logical one). I believe in most societies there's a somewhat solid majority support for the idea that government sets some rules for the marketplace. How many/if there should be any is open for debate but these frameworks exist and are typically backed by majority votes.

khabaal 10y ago

They did not. Opt-Out is not asking for consent. And even if you Opt-Out, WhatsApp will submit your data to facebook for analytic purposes. The real problem here was quoted as "misdirection of the [whatsapp] users and the public" because WhatsApp stated that there wont be any data exchange between them and facebook, when they were accuired two years ago.

necessity 10y ago
But do they need to warn you? I always assume that the information I send to a server is being stored forever by its owner, unless he tells me otherwise. If Whatsapp said it wouldn't share user info and dit it without informing users then yes it should be punished for it and prevented from doing so. But as far as I understand what happened was a TOS upgrade. Don't like it, go to Telegram.
- khabaal 10y ago
  Think about it this way: You get a product, its free to use. The Company running the service is telling you, they wont share your data ever. You get reliant to the product, everyone uses it. Then they start sharing your data.
  - necessity 10y ago
    Then their breaking a contract and should be prosecuted for it. But I don't remember that.
patrickaljord 10y ago
Doesn't the Whatsapp TOS says that they can update that TOS whenever and however they want? Do you have to accept that TOS before using Whatsapp for the first time? So users accepted a TOS that says Whatsapp can change their rules as they wish and now they are angry because they did just that? I totally support people who don't like these kind of TOS and use open source alternative, but people who accepted these kinds of TOS and then complain when they do what they state they would do, that I don't support.

detaro 10y ago

Didn't they also say that you can't opt-out of analytics use?

patrickaljord 10y ago
You can opt-out by uninstalling Whatsapp. I mean, if you don't trust them with their analytics, why do you trust them with the rest of their features? Doesn't make much sense to me.

zyx321 10y ago

Oh you fucking know that's a lie. They deliberately went out of their way to hide the 'choice'.

rmc 10y ago

> Why should the government intervine between consenting adults agreeing on a contract willfully? Isn't this the definition of tyranny and why we oppose things such as the war on drugs? The idea that contracts between adults are sacred is basically a libertarian philosophy. Many countries (incl Germany) often limit what contracts can do. You can also make a case that people did not "freely consent" to transferring data. A click-through multi-page legalise doesn't count as "consent"

patrickaljord 10y ago
> Many countries (incl Germany) often limit what contracts can do. Coming from Syria myself, I'm well aware that many countries do not respect people's freedom to contract freely. Doesn't mean that they are not tyrannies. Also, the Whatsapp TOS pretty much says that they can update their TOS whenever and however they want, so when you first try to use it, you should not expect any kind of control over your data, if you care about that, use an open source alternative. I will never understand people who consent to proprietary software TOS and then complain about these TOS changing in certain ways when this is what they are all about. I mean this has been Stallman arguments against proprietary software for like 40 years now. Want complete control? Use free/open source software. Don't care about that, use proprietary software such as Whatsapp. What makes less sense to me is using something such as Whatsapp and demand and expect what only free open source software can deliver.

wsy 10y ago

Funny definition of tyranny. Going back to the case itself: a) the German government is elected; b) most Germans are glad to have strong privacy protection rules in place. So it is simply democracy, and agreement on a different set of social rules than the set you would prefer.