4 ms·

I'm genuinely curious -- I've never been particularly concerned about privacy on the internet, and it seems like the author's main concern is better ad targetin

by toby 16y ago

I'm genuinely curious -- I've never been particularly concerned about privacy on the internet, and it seems like the author's main concern is better ad targeting (which I see as beneficial, although I may be in a minority). What are some other dangerous scenarios that people can imagine?

pyre 16y ago
In order to create this 'targeted advertising,' they create huge databases of information on people. People called this creepy when the FBI was doing it, but it's ok when a private corporation does it? It's not like the FBI/CIA/MI6/etc doesn't just send a request to the company and get your data anyways... So I'm not really seeing the difference between any company having access to this information and the government having access to it. In some cases, it may be that the government has better controls over who can internally access the data. Not that I necessarily trust the government to create such oversight, but the sheer amount of bureaucracy can prevent things from happening. On the other hand, there are plenty of companies that have 'organically' grown from a point were everyone was trusted, and now they have poor controls in place or they just have the bare minimum 'government mandated' controls in place to comply with the law. In general though, I don't really think that anyone can be trusted with that sort of information.
- dhimes 16y ago
  To your point is the Beverly Dennis v. Metromail case. A company had a bad idea for outsourcing some of the tasks they performed with the data they had. It's covered here http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ftc-info_mktpl.htm http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ftc-info_mktpl.htm (buried deep in the page)
jodrellblank 16y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJl9EEcsoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJl9EEcsoE

4 ms·

I'm genuinely curious -- I've never been particularly concerned about privacy on the internet, and it seems like the author's main concern is better ad targetin

by toby 16y ago

pyre 16y ago
In order to create this 'targeted advertising,' they create huge databases of information on people. People called this creepy when the FBI was doing it, but it's ok when a private corporation does it? It's not like the FBI/CIA/MI6/etc doesn't just send a request to the company and get your data anyways... So I'm not really seeing the difference between any company having access to this information and the government having access to it. In some cases, it may be that the government has better controls over who can internally access the data. Not that I necessarily trust the government to create such oversight, but the sheer amount of bureaucracy can prevent things from happening. On the other hand, there are plenty of companies that have 'organically' grown from a point were everyone was trusted, and now they have poor controls in place or they just have the bare minimum 'government mandated' controls in place to comply with the law. In general though, I don't really think that anyone can be trusted with that sort of information.
- dhimes 16y ago
  To your point is the Beverly Dennis v. Metromail case. A company had a bad idea for outsourcing some of the tasks they performed with the data they had. It's covered here http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ftc-info_mktpl.htm http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ftc-info_mktpl.htm (buried deep in the page)
jodrellblank 16y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJl9EEcsoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJl9EEcsoE