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> operating under the radar The privacy policy is clear and easy to find and understand. You can be annoyed with yourself for not reading it. You can decide th

by gdulli 10y ago

> operating under the radar The privacy policy is clear and easy to find and understand. You can be annoyed with yourself for not reading it. You can decide the service isn't worth the tradeoffs. You can be annoyed with yourself for being naive about how free products work. But it's illogical and disingenuous to call this "under the radar" or blame the service for your own surprise about how it works. We have free will and a responsibility to understand the agreements we enter into. Admitting so casually that we can't handle those things is a scary thought.

noja 10y ago
> You can be annoyed with yourself for not reading it. Do how do you spend reading every click-wrap agreement you accept? We condition users not to read these things, so we can't be surprised when they don't read them.
- gdulli 10y ago
  > Do how do you spend reading every click-wrap agreement you accept? No, but I don't complain about the consequences. If I agreed to terms that gave my house to unroll.me, they'd never be able to enforce it because it's egregiously inappropriate. I take that much for granted. The actual unroll.me terms are not egregiously inappropriate. They may be distasteful to most people here, but it's not offensive or inappropriate that the terms are allowed to exist.
  - noja 10y ago
    So "do as I say, not as I do"
    - gdulli 10y ago
      That does not apply here. That's obtuse. It would be hypocritical for me to criticize not reading terms and then complaining about those terms if I was doing both those things. Everyone's free to do as I say and do, accept terms and then accept their consequences.
mikeash 10y ago
Few people read privacy policies. Everybody knows this. The people making this product know this. If the only place they explain it is in the privacy policy, then they are knowingly and intentionally putting it in a place where most of their users will not see it.
- gdulli 10y ago
  > Few people read privacy policies. People have free will and that's their choice. I'm not surprised that most don't. I rarely do. But it doesn't make sense that the people who have strong feelings about privacy aren't reading them. You can't give up what's clearly your own personal responsibility and then blame someone else for the consequences.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I agree that blame should go to people who care about privacy and then don't read privacy policies. However, blame should also go to companies that hide important privacy info in privacy policies, with the full knowledge that most of their users will never see it. Given that the company here is a single entity, while their users are a disorganized mass, I think the company should bear much more responsibility for fixing the situation. They can unilaterally fix it for everybody, while their users can't. The company also exists with the sole purpose of running its business. That is all they do. Their users, on the other hand, are quite busy doing many other things and dedicate perhaps 0.1% of their time to doing business with this company. In a relationship that's this lopsided, we should not hold both sides to the same standard. The company should bear far more responsibility for hiding important information where nobody will read it than their users should bear for not hunting it down. Edit: it occurs to me that this is basically like getting conned. Somebody spins a story at a gas station about how they're trying to get to Cincinnati and they just spent their last $5 on money for their sick kid and can you just help a guy out, and they manage to con some poor sucker, do we focus our ire on the con artist or on the sucker? I'm OK with telling the sucker that they should be more careful and they shouldn't have fallen for the story, but they are ultimately the victim here, and the culprit is the scammer.
throwaway4job 10y ago
We've all agreed to things we didn't expect, because none of us are willing to invest thousands of dollars worth of our time to check the side effects of trivial transactions. Instead we make the rational decision to trust our counterparties and to hope they don't disappoint us too often. This situation sucks, and is a new problem, which deserves a solution. Contracts have always existed, but bespoke contracts for each minor transaction are a new development. Long-term, we have two choices. The first is that industry devises reasonable standards that simplify the process for end-users. The second is that government will devise standards and impose restrictions on us. I suggest we acknowledge the issue and work on a solution, instead of just insulting those who correctly identify the problem.
klaustopher 10y ago
In Germany there's actually a law[1] (Google Translate[2]) that prohibits companies from putting "suprising" statements into their terms of services. For example, you cannot put the fact that the user is signing up for a subscription service into the fine print or the terms of services when it is not stated anywhere else on the website. Even if the customer clicks the "yes, I have read the terms and totally agree with everything that's in there"-button. I think most EU countries have similar rules[3]. [1] https://dejure.org/gesetze/BGB/305c.html [2] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fdejure.org%2Fgesetze%2FBGB%2F305c.html [3] http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-contract-terms/index_en.htm
actsasbuffoon 10y ago
> The privacy policy is clear and easy to find and understand I disagree. A casual reading of the privacy policy gives the impression that they are not selling the contents of your inbox. There's one long, awkward sentence that technically covers it, but I don't think it's obvious what they're talking about. This is what a clear statement would look like: We make our money by selling the contents of the emails you receive. We will make our best effort to scrub personally identifying information from your emails, though this process is difficult and maybe even impossible in some circumstances.

by gdulli 10y ago

noja 10y ago

> You can be annoyed with yourself for not reading it. Do how do you spend reading every click-wrap agreement you accept? We condition users not to read these things, so we can't be surprised when they don't read them.

gdulli 10y ago
> Do how do you spend reading every click-wrap agreement you accept? No, but I don't complain about the consequences. If I agreed to terms that gave my house to unroll.me, they'd never be able to enforce it because it's egregiously inappropriate. I take that much for granted. The actual unroll.me terms are not egregiously inappropriate. They may be distasteful to most people here, but it's not offensive or inappropriate that the terms are allowed to exist.
- noja 10y ago
  So "do as I say, not as I do"
  - gdulli 10y ago
    That does not apply here. That's obtuse. It would be hypocritical for me to criticize not reading terms and then complaining about those terms if I was doing both those things. Everyone's free to do as I say and do, accept terms and then accept their consequences.

mikeash 10y ago

Few people read privacy policies. Everybody knows this. The people making this product know this. If the only place they explain it is in the privacy policy, then they are knowingly and intentionally putting it in a place where most of their users will not see it.

gdulli 10y ago
> Few people read privacy policies. People have free will and that's their choice. I'm not surprised that most don't. I rarely do. But it doesn't make sense that the people who have strong feelings about privacy aren't reading them. You can't give up what's clearly your own personal responsibility and then blame someone else for the consequences.
- mikeash 10y ago
  I agree that blame should go to people who care about privacy and then don't read privacy policies. However, blame should also go to companies that hide important privacy info in privacy policies, with the full knowledge that most of their users will never see it. Given that the company here is a single entity, while their users are a disorganized mass, I think the company should bear much more responsibility for fixing the situation. They can unilaterally fix it for everybody, while their users can't. The company also exists with the sole purpose of running its business. That is all they do. Their users, on the other hand, are quite busy doing many other things and dedicate perhaps 0.1% of their time to doing business with this company. In a relationship that's this lopsided, we should not hold both sides to the same standard. The company should bear far more responsibility for hiding important information where nobody will read it than their users should bear for not hunting it down. Edit: it occurs to me that this is basically like getting conned. Somebody spins a story at a gas station about how they're trying to get to Cincinnati and they just spent their last $5 on money for their sick kid and can you just help a guy out, and they manage to con some poor sucker, do we focus our ire on the con artist or on the sucker? I'm OK with telling the sucker that they should be more careful and they shouldn't have fallen for the story, but they are ultimately the victim here, and the culprit is the scammer.

throwaway4job 10y ago

We've all agreed to things we didn't expect, because none of us are willing to invest thousands of dollars worth of our time to check the side effects of trivial transactions. Instead we make the rational decision to trust our counterparties and to hope they don't disappoint us too often. This situation sucks, and is a new problem, which deserves a solution. Contracts have always existed, but bespoke contracts for each minor transaction are a new development. Long-term, we have two choices. The first is that industry devises reasonable standards that simplify the process for end-users. The second is that government will devise standards and impose restrictions on us. I suggest we acknowledge the issue and work on a solution, instead of just insulting those who correctly identify the problem.

klaustopher 10y ago

In Germany there's actually a law[1] (Google Translate[2]) that prohibits companies from putting "suprising" statements into their terms of services. For example, you cannot put the fact that the user is signing up for a subscription service into the fine print or the terms of services when it is not stated anywhere else on the website. Even if the customer clicks the "yes, I have read the terms and totally agree with everything that's in there"-button. I think most EU countries have similar rules[3]. [1] https://dejure.org/gesetze/BGB/305c.html [2] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fdejure.org%2Fgesetze%2FBGB%2F305c.html [3] http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-contract-terms/index_en.htm

actsasbuffoon 10y ago

> The privacy policy is clear and easy to find and understand I disagree. A casual reading of the privacy policy gives the impression that they are not selling the contents of your inbox. There's one long, awkward sentence that technically covers it, but I don't think it's obvious what they're talking about. This is what a clear statement would look like: We make our money by selling the contents of the emails you receive. We will make our best effort to scrub personally identifying information from your emails, though this process is difficult and maybe even impossible in some circumstances.