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the information that Google stores about me on their servers I've not seen anyone address this, but reading between the lines, many people seem to hold a view

the information that Google stores about me on their servers I've not seen anyone address this, but reading between the lines, many people seem to hold a view that the existence of these finely-grained personal data profiles at this massive scale is fine so long as they exist only on the servers of fb and goog, but why? What makes that acceptable or reasonable, besides the persuasiveness of large amounts of money? I think the clearest path forward is that no one should be creating these kinds of data profiles. I don't think a bot learning my route to work, or a doctor's appt(along with a swath of more "monetizable" personal info) so it can alert me to potential traffic delays is a reasonable trade-off for the massive societal problems the behaviour of creating these data profiles poses. If this data is such a monumental danger when it escapes the permeable confines of the fbs and the googs, then it shouldn't exist within these companies either, not just because as we've seen the confines are quite permeable, but also because the potential for negative use of the data doesn't change depending on who has access to it. It can be persuasively argued that simply creating and collecting these data profiles is itself a negative use of the data.

skybrian 9y ago
It might not be okay but it is different. At least in a technical discussion, we should be able to make distinctions rather than treating all data or all breaches the same.
leggomylibro 9y ago
I don't think it's acceptable, I just realize that I am powerless to stop it beyond supporting sweeping new regulatory frameworks, which I write to my Congresspeople about but what do you think they're going to do about it? Nothing. And for now, Google's services are worth the data they collect. Facebook's value proposition is comparatively laughable, which might be why so many people are so upset with the scope of how their data was used. And don't even get me started on how users, including those who have not signed up for the service, get tracked on massive swaths of 3rd-party sites if they don't take pains to prevent it - that's downright sinister.

skybrian 9y ago

It might not be okay but it is different. At least in a technical discussion, we should be able to make distinctions rather than treating all data or all breaches the same.

leggomylibro 9y ago

I don't think it's acceptable, I just realize that I am powerless to stop it beyond supporting sweeping new regulatory frameworks, which I write to my Congresspeople about but what do you think they're going to do about it? Nothing. And for now, Google's services are worth the data they collect. Facebook's value proposition is comparatively laughable, which might be why so many people are so upset with the scope of how their data was used. And don't even get me started on how users, including those who have not signed up for the service, get tracked on massive swaths of 3rd-party sites if they don't take pains to prevent it - that's downright sinister.