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Devil's advocate: what is harmful about using anonymised data this way? In an actual "this is how it will negatively affect you" sense? I ask because while I s
by untog 9y ago
Devil's advocate: what is harmful about using anonymised data this way? In an actual "this is how it will negatively affect you" sense?
I ask because while I share your concerns (perhaps not to the extent you do) sitting on HN agreeing with each other does little, and neither does cancelling our accounts. What you'd need to do is explain to a vast number of users why this is problematic in very clear terms, and I'm yet to see anyone actually do that.
- 0x0 9y agoThings like this can happen when corporations know more about you than you think: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
- mort96 9y agoAnonymized data generally is not very anonymous. You can only trust that data is actually anonymous if there exists no non-anonymous dataset with which you can cross reference the anonymized data, and you can guarantee that no such database will ever exist. I'm willing to bet that many "anonymized" datasets are of the kind which could relatively easily be deanonymized, especially datasets which are frivolously used to make ads "funny".
- disgusting_guy 9y agoThat's an incredibly broad statement; we are talking about what movies people have watched on netflix. What possible non-anonymous dataset could you be cross referencing to de-anonymize it? Even if you could, who cares?
- mort96 9y agoI just responded to my parent comment's premise: > what is harmful about using anonymised data this way? Whether it's harmful to use such data when it's not anonymous is a different discussion.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Spivak 9y agoSure, but what is harmful about the statement. Dear person, who watched $show $number of times in one $time, $snarky_comment? Netflix themselves might know who this person is, but there's no way anyone reading the tweet is going to be able to link it back to a specific person. Are you concerned that Netflix can query their own data?
- alloyed 9y agoWhat if you were the person who watched that show N times, and then saw that ad? It'd be a weird feeling, right?
- tomjen3 9y agoBecause they are using them to single out individuals (even if those are anonymous) - people expect them to at most use that data privately (ie to see what you probably like) and to have aggregate things (ie this is the most popular $ITEM on weeknights). And to that that Netflix was condescending and quite frankly rude.