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I'm familiar with these arguments but find them wanting. Trying to avoid Google and Facebook online is very difficult even for a knowledgeable, tech literate c
by mgreg 10y ago
I'm familiar with these arguments but find them wanting. Trying to avoid Google and Facebook online is very difficult even for a knowledgeable, tech literate consumer. These companies collect data nearly relentlessly from non google/facebook sites through "like" buttons, analytics tools, advertising placed on 3rd party sites etc. Trying to say that one willingly and with knowledge gives up privacy to google/facebook is naive at best and deceptive if said with integrity.
One could apply the same logic to ISPs, after all. If you don't like Verizon's privacy policy you're free to switch to Comcast, or ATT. Oh - they all have the same privacy sapping policy? Too bad.
Certainly it should not be too much to ask that a "normal" non-technical internet user should feel free to roam the open internet without every click and view being tracked. I cannot expect to train my grandmother avoid google/facebook, use privacy badger and/or ublock and know what to do when her video doesn't load or play because privacy badger has blocked some adobe tracker....
This is hacker news. Let's not accept cringeworthy arguments that could have been proudly published by lobbyists for Facebook here. If this audience cannot scale higher what hope do we have for society at large? So yes, we should have regulations to limit what ISPs can track. And yes, those policies should apply to extremely large internet ecosystems as well.
- jniles 10y agoIt might be difficult to avoid google and others for tech illiterate users, but in some areas, there isn't the choice to use a different ISP.
- mgreg 10y agoAbsolutely agree that there is not fierce competition in ISPs and that when they do compete it is more on price and speed than privacy so really no market driven factors to protect privacy. Of course I could offer a specious argument that there are satellite providers and dial-up so of course there's competition wink-wink. The argument is essentially the same for Google/Facebook et al. Try telling someone who has used gmail for the last 10 years before Google altered their privacy policy for Google's benefit that if they want to keep their email private they're free to switch to Yahoo or Outlook. And that's a case where consumers have a choice. Consumers have no voice in web sites use of Google Analytics or Doubleclick. Or Facebook's like button. Or Adbobe's audience tracking....