11 ms·
ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws
- sqdbps 9y agoSo does the news industry.
- walshemj 9y ago"Oh dear how sad" hand back your licence then :-)
- scottie_m 9y agoSilicon Valley needs new laws, accept that, and make the fight about ensuring those laws aren’t burdensome, anticompetitive, and downright stupid. If you spend your energy trying to make those laws not happen at all, they’ll be done to us and not with us. It’s time to accept that a significant (more than 65%) of people want regulations in the tech space, and calmly, patiently explain what kinds of regulations can be helpful and which would be disastrous. Accept that it will be a matter of compromise (at best) and that means no one will be entirely happy.
- sambull 9y agoSilicon Valley doesn't need new laws that's bullshit. People and privacy need strong laws that protect them. Irregardless of who's doing it.
- rbranson 9y agoI don’t think they mean literally SV the place. It’s like how “Wall Street” is used as a stand-in for the high finance industry in the US.
- jtmcmc 9y agoright but things like privacy and security are aimed at the entirety of companies that have an online presence. For instance like laws around privacy requirements affect all major companies not just tech companies.
- DanielBMarkham 9y agoThat's a great point. I need the protection. We don't need to go and start creating huge regulatory bodies around various industries, pitting one against the other. Make it so my information can't be captured -- or it can't be shared. Or make it so that keeping any information of mine past 30 days is a felony. Then no matter who the businesses are, people can sue them and owners can go to jail. Instead of trying to figure out exactly where the tech is right now, and how things might change? Bullshit. Protect me. With enough protections, the rest of it will work itself out.
- scottie_m 9y agoThat’s one position, and you should strenuously fight to see it represented in Congress. By the same token you should accept that it’s almost certainly not going to work out that way, but it might be possible to reach a compromise with your points as central tenants. The argument that regulation should focus on areas where individual protections could fail, and the bulk of legislation should address privacy and data protection is a good idea. Having said that, try to avoid phrases like, “the rest will work itself out,” which will turn off virtuallly everyone who doesn’t think exactly like you. Remember that this is now an issue the public at large is very interested in, and shape your words for public consumption.
- state_less 9y agoI think the problem is the roll back of net neutrality for ISPs and at the same time calling for regulation on content providers. It doesn't seem like these interests are protecting the citizens. Anyhow, I do agree we should be protecting peoples right to privacy and unfettered access to the internet.
- DanielBMarkham 9y agoYou're right, of course, but as scottie_m points out, the main issue here is one around messaging. The enemy of getting this fixed is complexity. Once we start targeting individual companies, types of internet connections, or hardware devices? We've lost. It's all over. It's not these things don't need fixing, it's that we have about ten words or so to put into a slogan. That slogan needs to be repeated over and over again. I am a firm believer in Net Neutrality -- but that's not the right slogan to march under. If we get Net Neutrality and everything else stays the same, it's a complete loss. By shifting the focus to each user, we can talk more directly about benefits. And by making penalties perhaps draconian, we can leave the management of the complexities to the vendors, where it belongs, instead of the public debate, where the lawyers win. Privacy and anonymity are much bigger fish to fry than whether YouTube costs more than Instagram. If we could come up with a simple slogan to cover both of them, sign me up. Otherwise? We gotta stop everybody from putting telemetry on every detail of our lives. Before the 60s in the U.S., there was pervasive and deeply-held racism, but most people didn't see it, even those who wanted to be morally superior to everybody else. (See the movie "The Help"). Many times I think of what that issue is for us. What will we look back on in 50 years as being barbaric and evil? What is our current equivalent to the Civil Rights campaigns? It's storing tracking data about the minute parts of people's lives. We will either morally overcome this or we will enter a new Dark Ages. There's no middle ground. Here. Here is the moral battle.
- wgerard 9y agoI think people are understandably wary of new regulations, namely because: * The US isn't immune at all to regulatory capture [0] * It's highly likely there are already existing regulations and laws that cover this but merely aren't being enforced (in which case, why would these new regulations be enforced either?) * ISPs undoubtedly have a huge conflict of interest here Which isn't to say that new laws are always a bad idea, more that they should be a measured response and not a knee-jerk reaction spawned by bad actors. It's also far easier to point out badly crafted and/or ill-intentioned law proposals than it is to create effective and fair legislation, but both are necessary for the process to move forward. That is, I think many people would agree with you (one need only read the comments on any of the threads about Equifax), but think this is basically an untenable place to start from. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture#United_States_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture#United_Stat...
- TAForObvReasons 9y agoEvery single regulation starts from an "untenable place", almost by definition. What happens in every industry is "abuse" -> "collective realization that there's a problem" -> "close the hole that allowed the abuse to happen". Self-regulation is only a solution if the industry at large addresses the concerns early and acts in good faith. That did not and is currently not happening with SV and data privacy. The fact that FB can't give a straight answer, and it has to be dragged out with revelations of increasing scale, is a big part of why public sentiment favors more external regulation.
- wgerard 9y ago> Every single regulation starts from an "untenable place", almost by definition. I guess I'd disagree with that. Many environmental regulations are highly defensible, for example, especially when they arise in light of new evidence. I could also be wrong, but I don't believe most environmental regulations are proposed by powerful, monopolistic competitors of oil companies (which is a big part of what makes this proposed regulation untenable). > Self-regulation is only a solution if the industry at large addresses the concerns early and acts in good faith I don't think anyone's really proposing this as an alternative. The point's more that repealing a bad law is significantly harder than creating it in the first place, so it makes sense to be diligent.
- carlmcqueen 9y agoCan we please lump the data leaks of Equifax and the like in with the need for these new laws that shift user data from something companies are mining to something they are protecting and disclosing?
- lithos 9y agoISPs are planning to get into the data game. They aim to have laws that limit SV type startups, rather than increase their future liability.
- 908087 9y agoISPs are going to have a hard time competing with the data gathered by Google Analytics and similar services given the accelerating push towards most sites being encrypted. If DNS encryption becomes more prevalent (edit: and users start taking advantage of privacy-conscious DNS providers outside of the control of their ISPs), they'll have an even harder time still. <User> connected to <IP> and transferred <this much data> at <date/time> just isn't that valuable compared to the highly detailed usage and interaction data gathered by GA and similar services. Even if you ignore the DNS point and add "<User> looked up <hostname>" to the above, it still doesn't come close to what GA/etc are able to collect. Edit: Why the downvotes? Isn't this supposed to be a site full of technically skilled people (many of whom work in "ad tech") who should know that what I said is accurate? Would any of the downvoters care to explain themselves instead of using downvotes as an "I don't like this post" button? This site is starting to feel more and more like Reddit.
- testvox 9y agoBecause it doesn't make sense. Why would they ISPs care that you are encrypting your dns requests in transit? The vast majority of people still use whatever DNS servers their ISPs tell them to use. So the ISP controls the other side of the encrypted communication, making the encryption useless for preventing them from reading it.
- 9y ago
- 908087 9y agoTechdirt really doesn't live up to its name. When that site isn't actively avoiding major stories that make Silicon Valley megacorps look bad, they're busily defending the Surveillance Valley business model outright. The "ISPs are bad, therefore Silicon Valley should be allowed to continue running roughshod over users' privacy" narrative is really idiotic. It tries to present this as a situation where we have a choice of either regulating ISPs, or regulating privacy-invading Silicon Valley surveillance corporations, but not both. Edit: I just read the full article, and yes maybe my assumption wasn't charitable. That said, I had just got done reading this article where Mike Masnick encourages us to continue giving the benefit of the doubt to someone who has repeatedly violated trust for more than a decade, which left me assuming it would just be more of the same. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180408/22400539590/facebook-derangement-syndrome-company-has-problems-must-we-read-worst-into-absolutely-everything.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180408/22400539590/faceb...
- jklinger410 9y agoYour comment reflects a bad faith reading of the article and actually doesn't reflect the content of what was written. Maybe read the article next time and not make such a low-effort comment.
- 908087 9y agoMost of what I've read on techdirt over the past couple years seems to represent a bad faith effort to frame the current situation as "ISPs vs. Silicon Valley and the users", where the reality of the situation is "ISPs and Silicon Valley vs. the users" (and there's a recent situation in California where the ISPs teamed up with Silicon Valley to prove that point). It's hard to give the benefit of the doubt to that site at this point. ..and I say this as someone who used to be a big fan of that site. It's disappointing.
- hulton 9y agoI agree with you. It is too bad that the white-knights on this forum are elitist af.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoThe people who make up the tech industry been a huge proponent of regulating all sorts of things at all scales, from individual actions to small businesses to large corporations. The use of the FB/CA "scandal" to promote knee jerk legislation that burdens the tech industry is just tech being on the receiving end of something they have no qualms about advocating for when it happens to a different industry.
- Consultant32452 9y agoThis is a bit like the old adage about noticing how bad news reporting is in areas you're an expert, but then just blindly swallowing all other news. In this case it's regulation rather than news coverage.
- mtgx 9y agoSilicon Valley brought this to itself. I used to warn of this before, too, that they can't continue to do "evil stuff" and expect to have people's backing when the governments will come after them to regulate them for whatever reason. But they continued because they saw that nobody leaves them over the crap they pull so they thought there must be no consequences to their anti-consumer moves. The only downside I see is that governments will use this excuse to bring more censorship and anti-encryption laws, too, and I hate that Silicon Valley companies put is in a position where we have to either put up with their crap or side with governments and get some bad internet laws passed. But right now, I think it's time to rein in on the Silicon Valley companies over their abuse of user data. Then we can deal with the abuse of user data by ISPs, data brokers, and everyone else. Ideally, this would be solved with a GDPR-like law, so that even ISPs "lose" in this scenario, and the consumers win. If we're lucky we may be able to stave off the government from trying to put an anti-encryption bill into the whole thing.
- Reedx 9y agoThat's like what the game industry went through in the early 90s. When Mortal Kombat and the like were generating controversy and getting the attention of regulators, the industry proactively created the ESRB.
- cavanasm 9y agoIn that particular instance they had a clear playbook to follow, which was the film industry. I don't know there's quite as direct a parallel between game content and user data sharing / selling as there was between game content and film content.
- jerf 9y agoThere's a big difference though. "The video game industry" wasn't really in the business of creating video games that offended cultural norms. It had a subcomponent of that industry that did it, sure, but even that subcomponent would have survived by making different games with regulation. There is a lot of Silicon Valley right now whose core business is doing the things that are very likely to be regulated out of existence. So I'd say self-regulation isn't an option at this point, as "self-regulation" is asking Facebook to return to unprofitability with no prospect of profit in the future, the destruction of huge swathes of the ad industry, any number of other companies based around data mining and selling and abusing information asymmetries... there's no way the wolves are going to self-regulate themselves into dogs.
- mkirklions 9y agoAs someone that is programming a finance tech app, every regulation is bad for the future. I am not afraid of regulation but its an annoying burden to keep big players big, and small players non-existent. Most people do not have the money or motivation I have, and those people lose out because of regulations. Never let a good tragedy go to waste.
- s73v3r_ 9y agoI mean, if people are deterred by regulation from making apps that don't respect people's data and privacy, I'd consider that a win. For far, far too long, the ethos has been to not worry or care about your users; to not protect their privacy, and to just vacuum up all their data so you can sell it. I'll be more than happy to see those days go away.
- moate 9y agoIf you don't regulate you allow bad players to keep doing bad things. If you do regulate you force bad players to work harder to keep doing bad things. I understand that regulation has negative side effects and unintended consequences. But truly free markets lead to child labor and depressed worker wages. It's impossible to craft perfect regulations, but it's implausible to assume "everything will just sort itself out if we let the free market be completely free" since that has literally never happened on a broad scale.
- drawkbox 9y agoThe ISPs are in an all out attack on competitors like Facebook/Google/Netflix/others. ISPs bought their way into the market with the ISP privacy protections being removed [1][2] and net neutrality being killed rather than innovating. The privacy protections being removed helped lessen the FCC grip on privacy and helped their case, with legislators not the people, to remove FCC net neutrality protections. It is obvious everywhere that massive PR pushes are going on and astroturfing to a heavy degree everywhere ISP competitors on the advertising/privacy/data space are. Instead of innovating their way in with products people want and improving their networks so people pay more, the ISPs are trying to win this via bribing for legislation and mud slinging. They bought their way in with the ISP privacy protections being removed under the FCC to the FTC because they have more leverage there. It is sad ISPs have resorted to this instead of innovating and creating products people want by improving them rather than trying to slow down competitors via bribing and lobbying. ISPs were once a beacon of innovation bringing in broadband, now they are in the milking it phase. [1] https://eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-creepy-things-your-isp-could-do-if-congress-repeals-fccs-privacy-protections https://eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-creepy-things-your-is... [2] https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/op-ed-for-the-wall-street-journal https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/op-ed-f...
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago> ISPs were once a beacon of innovation bringing in broadband I don't remember this time period. Any examples?
- deelowe 9y agoLate 90s/early 2000s when there were tons of smaller isps offering a variety of solutions. This was back when operating a CLEC was a viable option before the incumbents found a way to fix that issue.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoI really miss these days. Sure the internet speeds were painfully slow, but I knew my ISP. I could go have lunch with them. I could borrow compute resources during slow times. I think when the cable companies started monopolizing the internet and the web because commercialized, that's when we lost a lot of computing's early "innocence". I'm sure someone will say I'm romanticizing that period, but darnit, just let me.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoWish Silicon Valley had followed good old time tested laws like Free Speech. They deserve crappy new laws.
- simion314 9y agoIF there is a war between ISPs and social networks maybe we get some benefits like the practices of ISPs and social networks getting more public for the regular person.
- bitrazor123 9y agoFrankly as an end-user , one has to choose between bad and worse. Consumers are a true product now, readily available for exploitation
- quantized1 9y agoAnd to worsen the legal system doesn't come to rescue. Infact they joined hand with business and created a bible size EULA with legal jargon, which end-user have to accept and move forward.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- macspoofing 9y agoISPs and traditional media outlets (old media).
- Gargoyle 9y agoHN users have been pounding loudly on the anti-Facebook wardrums. Where did you imagine that going?
- cwyers 9y agoThis article feels so slanted it's unreadable. Conceding that Facebook and Google probably actually do need to be regulated happens near the very bottom of the article; until then you'd be forgiven for thinking that the ISPs made all their concerns about those companies up.
- _bxg1 9y agoAgreed. Silicon Valley could frankly use some "crappy new laws". Of course, so could ISP's, and that didn't happen.
- hulton 9y agoFuck google. Fuck facebook.
- yalogin 9y agoIs there any website that documents who all the ISPs sell our data to? Or at least can we know how much they earn from our data?