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The saying isn't meant to be an excuse for companies, it's a reminder to end users to pay attention what they're signing up for. Situations like this one are e

The saying isn't meant to be an excuse for companies, it's a reminder to end users to pay attention what they're signing up for. Situations like this one are exactly why the saying became popular.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
Like i said below, the most obvious expectation was thinking that they would monetize with ads, which is why people didn't think twice about this. There's a difference between ad supported businesses and business that actually directly sell user data behind the scenes. Equating all the ad-supported businesses with this case is not really fair because the types of businesses you're talking about here are not actually literally selling you out. They are simply pushing you ads on THEIR platform which YOU agreed to use. Sure there are lots of shady things going on in this department as well, but it's a completely different game than what this looks like. Based on this article it looks like they took your data and actually sold it to a third party, this is different from simply displaying ads on their platform. They literally sold you. And it happened OFF of the platform you signed up for.
- paep3nguin 10y ago
  You're describing my assumptions exactly! I incorrectly assumed that the occasional ads for Dashlane, HelloFresh, etc. in the "Daily Rollup" were how they monetized their service. But hey, turns out they're straight up selling my emails to third-parties. I've deleted my account and revoked their access on my Google account.
kristianc 10y ago
It's trite, and aside from belonging in the big dustbin of Hacker News cliches like linking to XKCD Standards, 'Just because you can doesn't mean you should' and 'Conflating Causation and Correlation' in this case it obscures more than it illuminates. A product may be free - and you may still be happy to be the product if you think your attention is being sold, or that they plan to upsell you onto a premium plan. 'If you're not a paying user' doesn't immediately lead you to 'They're going to scan my email and sell the data to fucking Uber' and shouldn't require the user to scan the ToS / rack their brains for every nefarious bit of fuckery the company might conceivably use the data for.
- gdulli 10y ago
  How is it nefarious for Uber to use anonymized data to come to conclusions like: 1. Emails with subject [xxx] are opened more often than emails with subject [yyy]. 2. Lyft does more business in Scottsdale than we expected. 3. 25% of people who use ridesharing use multiple services and 75% are loyal to one service. 4. 33% of people who don't use ridesharing services also don't use traditional taxi services. "Nefarious" is a strong word.
- CodeMage 10y ago
  > 'If you're not a paying user' doesn't immediately lead you to 'They're going to scan my email and sell the data to fucking Uber' and shouldn't require the user to scan the ToS / rack their brains for every nefarious bit of fuckery the company might conceivably use the data for. I agree with the first half of what you said and disagree with the second. That's precisely the value of the original saying: it's not there to be an excuse for a company, it's there to spread awareness and remind people that they should get informed about just _how_ they're being productized _before_ they have cause to regret using the service. If more of us scanned the ToS carefully, we might catch the nefarious bits of fuckery on time and pressure the company to change. Does the privacy policy say your data will be sold to third parties? Great, find out what data, to what third parties and questions like that.

The saying isn't meant to be an excuse for companies, it's a reminder to end users to pay attention what they're signing up for. Situations like this one are exactly why the saying became popular.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

Like i said below, the most obvious expectation was thinking that they would monetize with ads, which is why people didn't think twice about this. There's a difference between ad supported businesses and business that actually directly sell user data behind the scenes. Equating all the ad-supported businesses with this case is not really fair because the types of businesses you're talking about here are not actually literally selling you out. They are simply pushing you ads on THEIR platform which YOU agreed to use. Sure there are lots of shady things going on in this department as well, but it's a completely different game than what this looks like. Based on this article it looks like they took your data and actually sold it to a third party, this is different from simply displaying ads on their platform. They literally sold you. And it happened OFF of the platform you signed up for.

paep3nguin 10y ago
You're describing my assumptions exactly! I incorrectly assumed that the occasional ads for Dashlane, HelloFresh, etc. in the "Daily Rollup" were how they monetized their service. But hey, turns out they're straight up selling my emails to third-parties. I've deleted my account and revoked their access on my Google account.

kristianc 10y ago

It's trite, and aside from belonging in the big dustbin of Hacker News cliches like linking to XKCD Standards, 'Just because you can doesn't mean you should' and 'Conflating Causation and Correlation' in this case it obscures more than it illuminates. A product may be free - and you may still be happy to be the product if you think your attention is being sold, or that they plan to upsell you onto a premium plan. 'If you're not a paying user' doesn't immediately lead you to 'They're going to scan my email and sell the data to fucking Uber' and shouldn't require the user to scan the ToS / rack their brains for every nefarious bit of fuckery the company might conceivably use the data for.

gdulli 10y ago
How is it nefarious for Uber to use anonymized data to come to conclusions like: 1. Emails with subject [xxx] are opened more often than emails with subject [yyy]. 2. Lyft does more business in Scottsdale than we expected. 3. 25% of people who use ridesharing use multiple services and 75% are loyal to one service. 4. 33% of people who don't use ridesharing services also don't use traditional taxi services. "Nefarious" is a strong word.
CodeMage 10y ago
> 'If you're not a paying user' doesn't immediately lead you to 'They're going to scan my email and sell the data to fucking Uber' and shouldn't require the user to scan the ToS / rack their brains for every nefarious bit of fuckery the company might conceivably use the data for. I agree with the first half of what you said and disagree with the second. That's precisely the value of the original saying: it's not there to be an excuse for a company, it's there to spread awareness and remind people that they should get informed about just _how_ they're being productized _before_ they have cause to regret using the service. If more of us scanned the ToS carefully, we might catch the nefarious bits of fuckery on time and pressure the company to change. Does the privacy policy say your data will be sold to third parties? Great, find out what data, to what third parties and questions like that.