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No, "it's too complicated" also recoils on consumers. I don't think your proposal would change behaviors. Mass market customers don't read contracts and readi

No, "it's too complicated" also recoils on consumers. I don't think your proposal would change behaviors. Mass market customers don't read contracts and readily give out SSNs, credit card info, and other personal identifiers. As a law prof. at NYU said, >“For the most part [having read the contract] doesn’t matter,” she said. “Things don’t usually go wrong — except when they do. And then it matters.”[0] [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/your-money/novel-length-contracts-online-and-what-they-say.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/your-money/novel-length-c...

jakeogh 9y ago
Permissions are not long contracts, they fit in a single sentence. My super obvious suggestion further simplifies it. There's no reason a dep tree cant be made. The "people are too X" does not work.
- caminante 9y ago
  My point's intent was to argue that consumer behaviors (not just those of firms) also shape these outcomes. Do you have any studies or sources that support a permissions dependency tree approach for mass market customers? I like "just-in-time" permissions (i.e. This app wants to use your location. yes/no?) That way, you aren't faced with accepting or not using the service at all, at the outset. [0] [0] https://news.engin.umich.edu/2017/10/nobody-reads-privacy-policies-heres-how-to-fix-that/ https://news.engin.umich.edu/2017/10/nobody-reads-privacy-po...
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    RE studies: As far as I know it has never been tried. Dependency trees are common elsewhere in the software world. This "just in time" stuff is awful, in it's simple form, the user only has to click incorrectly once. The obvious way is a dep tree. Start with: "should any app be able to download your contact list?" if no (global!!) -> "can I have one contact right now" and tag that information for the provider "I don't expect you to keep this" or "please keep this info and use it to market to me". Really, it's mostly just excuses, there is no reason to upload the data 99% of the time, only the local software "needs" it for a instant, and even then, that's because the OS stack is designed wrong. I don't want new law to mandate this stuff, I want users to demand it with existing contract law. Making it "per app" instead of global settings with very deliberate and specific (one time unless instructed otherwise) exceptions is exactly what I would do if I wanted to design a system to maximize my user data snarf ability. Android is new, nothing is "great" at first, I'm not expecting it to be right yet, but ignoring obvious fixes like this going forward is (hopefully) going to give it's forks more power.

jakeogh 9y ago

Permissions are not long contracts, they fit in a single sentence. My super obvious suggestion further simplifies it. There's no reason a dep tree cant be made. The "people are too X" does not work.

caminante 9y ago
My point's intent was to argue that consumer behaviors (not just those of firms) also shape these outcomes. Do you have any studies or sources that support a permissions dependency tree approach for mass market customers? I like "just-in-time" permissions (i.e. This app wants to use your location. yes/no?) That way, you aren't faced with accepting or not using the service at all, at the outset. [0] [0] https://news.engin.umich.edu/2017/10/nobody-reads-privacy-policies-heres-how-to-fix-that/ https://news.engin.umich.edu/2017/10/nobody-reads-privacy-po...
- jakeogh 9y ago
  RE studies: As far as I know it has never been tried. Dependency trees are common elsewhere in the software world. This "just in time" stuff is awful, in it's simple form, the user only has to click incorrectly once. The obvious way is a dep tree. Start with: "should any app be able to download your contact list?" if no (global!!) -> "can I have one contact right now" and tag that information for the provider "I don't expect you to keep this" or "please keep this info and use it to market to me". Really, it's mostly just excuses, there is no reason to upload the data 99% of the time, only the local software "needs" it for a instant, and even then, that's because the OS stack is designed wrong. I don't want new law to mandate this stuff, I want users to demand it with existing contract law. Making it "per app" instead of global settings with very deliberate and specific (one time unless instructed otherwise) exceptions is exactly what I would do if I wanted to design a system to maximize my user data snarf ability. Android is new, nothing is "great" at first, I'm not expecting it to be right yet, but ignoring obvious fixes like this going forward is (hopefully) going to give it's forks more power.