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California Eyes Data Privacy Measure
- jacquesm 8y agoExcellent news. Next step: reciprocal enforcement.
- xg15 8y agoIronically, this article is not available without opting in to their tracking. Could someone post the plaintext link?
- Smaug123 8y agoYou just need to decline to be tracked, and then follow the appropriate link on the text-only home page. https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=614419275 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=614419275
- pwg 8y agoWith uBlock origin in block all third party assets, the article was fully readable without opting in to anything.
- kinsomo 8y ago> Ironically, this article is not available without opting in to their tracking. Could someone post the plaintext link? What are you seeing? I didn't see any consent popups on Firefox or Chrome (even with uBlock & NoScript disabled).
- billysielu 8y agoI'm using Firefox + uBlockOrigin + DuckDuckGo. It's full page, not a popup or modal. Text: By choosing “I agree” below, you agree that NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This information is shared with social media services, sponsorship, analytics and other third-party service providers. Options: - Agree and continue - Decline and visit plain text site Decline takes you to the homepage, which is literally plain text. Apparently it was too hard for them to provide some css. You have to search around for the content you were going to, ultimately ending up at this plain text page: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=614419275 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=614419275
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- xg15 8y agoOne can manually assemble a text-only url by taking the long number at the end of a standard url and using it as the sId parameter in the text-only link. Apart from that, I've found no way of getting text-only links to articles that don't happen to be linked from the frontpage.
- trumped 8y agoI use uBlock Origin, uMatrix and Decentraleyes Firefox addons and had no trouble viewing it...
- csours 8y ago> If voters approve the measure, businesses will be required to have a "clear and conspicuous link" on their website's homepage titled "Do Not Sell My Personal Information." The link would take users to a page where they can opt out of having their data sold or shared. Ugh but why though? Why not just have a law that says you cannot sell or trade personal information.
- lisper 8y agoBecause some people might believe that allowing companies to sell their personal information could provide them with some benefits that outweigh the costs and risks. Not everyone attaches the same value to privacy.
- stephenr 8y agoNot everyone attaches the same value to protecting the general public from weapons designed to kill people but America has mandated gun safety laws.... oh.. right.
- simion314 8y agoBut why not force all sites to give you clear information so you are informed. So when I follow some link and land on a "intresting" site I should be informed that continuing navigating means I agree that Google,Facebook, other 20 companies will be informed about me opening this link. If I do not agree I will be forced to leave. The only work the site owners needs to do is to have a list of all the companies they sell the data too, show that list to you, and save your acceptance in a cookie. For more complex apps like Facebook that sell more data or mine your private messages/emails,purchases, music and movies you watch they should also display the exact thing they sell or share for free. My point, the companies would have just to inform, would not be forced to give you access.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoYou're basically reinventing European cookie law. I'm pointing it out for two reasons - one, for those wondering how this "stupid law" was created, this is how. Two, we ended up needing the GDPR anyway, since just informing is not enough.
- yuhong 8y agoThe fact that they require the name "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" is part of what I don't like in the bill.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- freehunter 8y agoAnd the fact that selling personal information isn't the only concern with personal information. I'm pretty sure that Facebook and Google don't sell my personal information to third party entities, but I still don't want them to have it unless I give it to them by choice.
- yuhong 8y ago"He asked a Google engineer at a cocktail party whether he should be worried about his privacy." Something similar is what led me to write my essay on ad tracking and Google that tried to trace it back to Larry and Sergey: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/04/google-doubleclick-mozilla-essay-final.html http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/04/google-doubleclick-mozi... Also see: https://twitter.com/berendjanwever/status/775366191078641664 https://twitter.com/berendjanwever/status/775366191078641664
- ralston 8y agoI actually just now took the time to read this. A good (20-30 min) read. +1
- woolvalley 8y agoYour essay is a bit of a wall of text, I would suggest adding headers and cutting up the paragraphs into smaller chunks to make it easier to read. Also I feel like the general essay format that is taught to you in grade school is actually a bad format. Grade school project style reports are usually easier to read and easier to write. Essays contorts most people's writing into a very awkward form. If people were allowed write without the restrictions of essays, they would usually be more clear. Better yet, try the typical medium or journalistic article format to get better reading comprehension.
- jacquesm 8y agoAnd maybe have it proofread by someone? I always do this and still end up with typos and grammar errors but a proofreading session will usually get rid of 90% or more of those.
- yuhong 8y agoYea, the essay has other problems I want to fix too. What I am interested in most is the points about Larry/Sergey BTW.
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- ryanworl 8y agoThis law seems much more reasonable compared to GDPR. "(b) "Business" means: (1) a sole-proprietorship, partnership, limited-liability company, corporation, association, or other legal entity that is organized or operated for the profit or financial benefit of its shareholders or other owners, that collects consumers' personal information, that does business in the State of California, and that satisfies one or more of the following thresholds: (A) has annual gross revenues in excess of $50,000,000, as adjusted pursuant to paragraph (5) of subdivision (a) of section 1798.115; or (B) annually sells, alone or in combination, the personal information of 100,000 or more consumers or devices; or (C) derives 50 percent or more of its annual revenues from selling consumers' personal information; ..." And the definition of "selling" is also clearly defined. " (q)(l) "Sell," "selling," "sale," or "sold," means: (A) selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer's personal information by the business to a third party for valuable consideration; or (B) sharing orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer's personal information with a third party, whether for valuable consideration or for no consideration, for the third party's commercial purposes." [https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/17-0039%20%28Consumer%20Privacy%20V2%29.pdf https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/17-0039%20%...]
- blub 8y agoIt looks like it was designed to be useless, since neither Google nor Facebook sell info under the definition of selling you posted.
- yuhong 8y agoAnd yet they still lobbied against it.
- ryanworl 8y agoThere are many business that “sell” data under the second clause TO both Facebook and Google which could be impacted. The Facebook Pixel is definitely disclosing data to Facebook, even if they aren’t being paid for it. And they probably use data from the Facebook Pixel across many advertisers for Facebook’s own business purposes.
- newman8r 8y agothis is their homepage https://www.caprivacy.org/about https://www.caprivacy.org/about - they should at least implement the conspicuous "Do not sell my personal information" link on their own website. Just to get an idea about the extra work that they're asking millions of people to do. *Edit: under the proposed law, websites like this wouldn't actually be required to post the 'Do not Sell' link
- majewsky 8y agoTheir privacy policy states that they do not sell personal data at all. So what benefit would that button have? Source: https://www.caprivacy.org/privacy-policy https://www.caprivacy.org/privacy-policy
- newman8r 8y agoUpon closer inspection, it seems like this law would only apply to large business or businesses that actually sell personal information. If that's the case then it's more reasonable than I initially thought. I was concerned that every blog and startup might need to implement the functionality, but it seems like that might not be the case.
- simion314 8y agoBut what if the personal information is not sold but shared for free, will this law apply? I can see the big comnpanies finding so many loopholes in this.
- jkaplowitz 8y agoIf I'm reading the quoted portion correctly, it'd apply to large companies whether or not they sell personal information.
- woolvalley 8y agoBut if the large company doesn't sell, then it would be a blank page for the most part?
- whataretensors 8y agoCalifornia is jealous at the EU's expansion of power. Politicians(even in CA) don't care about privacy or people. Otherwise California wouldn't have the worst homeless problem in history. They care about expanding their power and reach. "One of the initiative's biggest backers is Alastair Mactaggart, a San Francisco real estate developer" SF real estate developer. You couldn't make this up.
- derefr 8y ago> Otherwise California wouldn't have the worst homeless problem in history. My understanding, from living in Vancouver BC (which also has quite the homeless problem) is that homeless people will migrate from other areas of a country to find the place with the best combination of 1. local weather amenable to living outdoors, and 2. social programs with high ROI (i.e. programs that give you the most benefits for the least bureaucratic folllowing-up.) No matter how quickly/effectively you deploy solutions for the local homeless problem in a city, of said city is the optimum place for people to live while homeless, you won’t see the end of the problem. (Unless you also have the lobbying power to make changes that solve homeless problems for the entire country.)
- 8077628 8y agoDon't bother trying to explain anything to dittoheads. You think he doesn't understand that homeless people migrate? Well actually he might not, since it would interfere with his anti-California narrative and why let reality get in the way of one's talking points? Or maybe he's just full of it. He probably doesn't even know himself.
- whataretensors 8y agoThat's not how you argue a point. California can have both migrating homeless and an uncaring political class.
- dahdum 8y agoThis concept was immortalized in this seminal work of lyrical prose by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zGFXaPn0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zGFXaPn0o
- dawhizkid 8y agoData privacy is great and all, but I just want one-click unsubscribe from paid subscriptions. I’m a practicalist.
- Someone1234 8y agoI'd love a law that says [paraphrasing] "You must allow unsubscription via the same medium as subscription." Problem is there are far too many loopholes and potential issues, there's no way you could make the text of the law both exact enough but vague enough to work in most circumstances. It would be better to just have a consumer watchdog that had the power to ask companies to change anti-consumer practices and use a jury to determine if something is anti-consumer (like dark patterns).
- dawhizkid 8y agoYes I’ve thought about this too - especially with cell phone/internet/cable/magazines - silly how you can subscribe online or in-store but need to call to cancel. With digital subscriptions it should be as easy as unsubscribing from an email list.
- Silhouette 8y agoIt's a tough issue to get right, because unfortunately some customers are clueless and some customers can be abusive. I have some experience running online subscriptions, and my policy has always been that you can unsubscribe straightforwardly. Typically it takes a couple of clicks clicks, one to start and one to confirm, and the whole process is immediate and fully automated. In some cases, maybe there's also a brief and optional exit survey, but never anything deceptive or that significantly obstructs someone who wants to cancel. Like not using some conversion optimisation techniques that cross a line into invading privacy, I just see this as treating our customers how we'd like to be treated ourselves. Many people have used these facilities with no trouble and those services have generally received few complaints, but you do still get the special people who instead of taking ten seconds to do that would rather send a page-long email about how they demand that we cancel their subscription right now and if we charge them again they'll dispute it, and they'll literally send that email 5 minutes before their next renewal fee goes through. When you're dealing with that kind of person, you want it to be stated very clearly and in writing that their subscription continues until cancelled in the proper way, that merely emailing is not sufficient to cancel and may not take effect immediately even if we do honour the request, etc. Of course, that doesn't stop us from being friendly and helpful if someone sends a polite cancellation request by email, even though it's an irritating waste of time to deal with those requests manually, but you can't be too casual about cancellations or, sadly, some people will exploit that.
- kinsomo 8y ago> But Callahan [VP of a tech industry group] doesn't think a privacy law should be written by advocates like Mactaggart and put on the ballot. > "Without any sort of process ... the proponents came up with this law," Callahan says. "[Mactaggart is] suggesting [this] should be the law of the land without any sort of public vetting or scrutiny and we think that's irresponsible and dangerous." Isn't the ballot initiative process the "public vetting or scrutiny" this guy is talking about? Seems like he's unhappy his group didn't get a chance to water down or kill the measure behind the scenes.
- Arainach 8y agoThe public aren't lawyers. One of the points of representative democracy is supposed to be that legislators are more experienced with the practice of writing effective laws - laws that will have their intended effect and stand up in court. With the initiative process, it's easy to find text that sounds nice when you describe it in 30 seconds to people on the street but is either ineffective or has awful unexpected consequences. That's not to say that there's no place for the initiative process, but it's not without its problems.
- tunareter 8y agoIf laws can't be easily written and understood, that's a problem with the legal system (and the media explaining said laws and initiatives). The CA implementation seems terrible, but in general direct democracies end up with better laws, and the populace in such democracies ends up being better than a bunch of self selected politicians (who happen to not be experts anyway). US and UK lawmaking processes are a perfect example of why you need to give citizens more control (but you still want legislative bodies to do the grunt work).
- _o_ 8y agoI think that the basic issue here regarding privacy is that only the ones breaking it are writting. There are literally millions that wont give upvote but want it. Google and Facebook already launched their lobbyists there and are trying to undermine it, I wonder what they will do to Japan.
- jadedhacker 8y agoThe is great and all, but it requires individual action on the part of the consumer. I'd like to see a US version of GDPR and soon.
- spodek 8y ago> "Every industry sector [that] has looked at this initiative considers it a very serious threat to the ability to do business in California," says Robert Callahan, vice president of state government affairs for the Internet Association. The group represents major tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Netflix. It's not hard if you don't base your businesses doing what many people consider creepy. Maybe they should have thought of that before doing so.
- matte_black 8y agoStop using subjective terms like “creepy” and define exactly what you mean.
- machinesmachine 8y agoNot being clear enough about what, how and when they proceed in regards to data
- sorokod 8y agoAs well as being quite clear that they know much more about your life than you are comfortable with.
- carapace 8y ago> Mactaggart recalls the moment about four years ago that turned him into a privacy advocate. He asked a Google engineer at a cocktail party whether he should be worried about his privacy. "He said, 'Oh if you just knew how much we knew about you, you'd be really worried,' " recalls Mactaggart. It's not like we don't know that they don't know but if they did know they would not like it, and we know that too. Creepy: doing something to someone that you know they would not like if they knew about it but doing it anyway. What the tech industry et. al. is doing is deeply creepy and the only reason we're not up against the wall is that people haven't quite understood yet what's going on. It's so egregious that people are incredulous, but as they start to get a clue it will eventually be pitchforks and torches time. (Ahem, GDPR...)
- slg 8y ago
- newman8r 8y agoThe article fails to mention that the proposed law doesn't actually impact the majority of startups and small businesses, so calling it 'sweeping' might be a bit much.
- hedora 8y agoThis is broken in so many ways, it's ridiculous. There needs to be a programmatic opt out (at least something a browser extension can do on each page visit), or, better, a manual opt-in. Also, opting out won't actually prevent any of the big data abuses people are actually concerned about...
- dmode 8y agoAlthough I agree with the sentiment that we need more privacy protections, I don't believe that a ballot measure is the right way to do this. There have been several poorly written ballot intiatives that have led to various unintended consequences.