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> "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 Calla

by 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 ago
Stop using subjective terms like “creepy” and define exactly what you mean.
- machinesmachine 8y ago
  Not being clear enough about what, how and when they proceed in regards to data
- sorokod 8y ago
  As 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
  The subjective nature of the term creepy is exactly what is important here because it all depends on context. Most people would consider it creepy when Target knows their daughter is pregnant before they do. [1] I would also bet most people would be perfectly happy if Target figures out they have a new puppy and starts sending coupons for dog food. Those things are fundamentally the same when it comes to what data is collected and what process predicted it. However the human element of privacy makes those two situations worlds apart. That human context is what is important and why it is so hard to come up with universal algorithms or rules that can adequately handle any privacy situation. [1] - https://consumerist.com/2012/02/17/target-figures-out-teen-girl-is-pregnant-before-her-father-does-sends-helpful-coupons/ https://consumerist.com/2012/02/17/target-figures-out-teen-g...
  - nneonneo 8y ago
    Somewhat unrelated, but is anyone else having trouble loading that consumerist page? It keeps redirecting me off to https://consumerist.com/remote-login.php?login=... https://consumerist.com/remote-login.php?login=.... which 404s. Looks like a WordPress plugin (WPRemoteLogin) gone amok. EDIT: looks like this is because I'm logged into my own Wordpress blog. Weird that that should have any bearing on my ability to load this blog.
ovao 8y ago
Consumer perception of what is and isn’t “creepy” has somewhat shifted in light of recent issues, however. Many of the businesses to which this law would apply have established their business models in a time when privacy may have been less in the front of a consumer’s mind. Businesses just starting out have an easier time knowing which lines not to cross in their business models than those who began their journies sometimes over a decade ago.
- Silhouette 8y ago
  I think a lot of people have always considered some of the practices employed in the tech sector to be creepy and unwelcome. It's just that awareness has increased, and now there's a sense that you don't just have to put up with the intrusions and abuses to live a normal life any more.
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. In fact, a favorite pastime of HN is recommending all of the alternatives to use. Another example, you don't have to buy an Amazon Echo or Google Assistant. If you find cloud connected microphones in your home creepy, don't do it. Why is that not sufficient? Or do the people who are creeped out want to make the choice for other people and remove products from the market they'd like to use?
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. Sure, but it is increasingly the case that by doing so you are excluded from normal daily activities, because in some cases these technologies are now how our society communicates. For example, you can no longer park legally in many UK streets or public car parks without using a smartphone app, which means working with Apple or Google (Android) technology for the device, and working with a mobile network operator for the data connection. In theory, you can usually call or text from a feature phone instead, which means you only have to deal with the mobile network, but typically those facilities are among the worst user experience you will ever encounter, and taking upwards of 15 minutes to make a simple payment is not unusual, if you can even pay successfully at all. You no longer have any option to pay quickly, reliably and anonymously in cash the way we used to.
beaner 8y ago
Some companies don't sell ads or user data at all, but use related user information to detect things like scam rings on dating sites, spam rings on forums, and fraud rings on finance sites. If that information can just be deleted at the request of the user, say hello to way worse user experiences on sites like those, and many more you haven't yet thought of. The only way around it is to lock down signups, provide constricted service, or let the communities rot.
- dave5104 8y ago
  But why can't users be asked and given the option? If that's the result of their data being deleted, then I'm sure the company in question would make users well aware of the consequences of opting out.
  - czardoz 8y ago
    The problem is that even a few users opting out can create a bad experience for other users of the service.
  - beaner 8y ago
    I don't think you can expect users to be anything but selfishly motivated, and concerned with their own experience only. I don't think most will care about the experience of others. Certainly not if they're deleting their own account from the service. Plus the point is that in these cases, potentially the users who would most want to delete are the ones most motivated to do so: the scam/spam/fraud ringsters.
  - digitalzombie 8y ago
    > would make users well aware of the consequences of opting out. People don't even read the ToS (term of service). I'm pessimistic that they would even do this.
- sulam 8y ago
  If you read the article you would know that this is perfectly legal under the proposition. It's selling your data to third parties without user consent that it makes illegal.
mc32 8y ago
I think a fair number of people would agree that the Google pre-G+ is not the same Google post-G+. The businesses can survive and do well without needing to know every habit of everyone and target ads based on knowing everyone's predilections and peccadilloes. Sure it would be more like classical Newspaper ads and broadcast TV ads; which, while they worked, are acknowledged not to be as effective, but still effective enough to support the ad and consumerist economies. It's probably not to late to return to that business model, if people demand it enough and legislators don't cave-in to business demand.
cromwellian 8y ago
So the standard of illegality now is what people consider creepy or cringey? Maybe this is actually the solution to the Fermi Paradox, technological civilizations dwindle as they engage in navel gazing and precautionary restraints.
- sorokod 8y ago
  Yup, by and large societies determine the parameters in which they would like to operate. These take the form of social agreements, laws, constitutions etc... In the olden days it was normal and legal to own people. Then (most) societies "decided" that they are not comfortable with the idea anymore and the norms and laws changed.
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    That's a rather bad analogy, considering that slavery is an initiation of force against an individual, giving them no choice, over a physical good (their own body). Information is a non-rival good, someone's possession of it doesn't diminish your possession of it, unlike say, a slave master possessing you on a plantation. Philosophically, some of these regulations run afoul negative rights. When you interact with other people, or any entity, they will retain a memory of it. A lot of this data collection used to exist, but was informal, on pen and paper, or simply retained by the mind of the local establishments as their customers were locals. Saying that you own information that is by nature joint information like an entangled particle, and that another party must erase it, may be a pragmatic and utilitarian policy to deal with the increasing probability of bad actors (State or otherwise) misusing information, but the philosophy behind it rubs me the wrong way. Let's say a run a video arcade, and I keep track of which games everyone plays when they come in through the door. Though I hold no PII on the people, through some mechanism I can assign them a unique ID and recognize them on return (e.g. token card). Why should this joint information: what entities playing my arcade cabinets, be exclusively owned by you, especially if I'm not even providing the games for free? I'm asking this as a philosophical question, what's the moral justification that one side of a two sided exchange retains exclusivity to information? (and by exclusivity, I mean your right to ask me to delete it)
analog31 8y ago
I'm wondering if they did think of that, but were all rushing to cash out as much and as quickly as possible before the inevitable public backlash. A creepy-ness bubble, if you will.

by spodek 8y ago

matte_black 8y ago

Stop using subjective terms like “creepy” and define exactly what you mean.

machinesmachine 8y ago
Not being clear enough about what, how and when they proceed in regards to data
sorokod 8y ago
As 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
The subjective nature of the term creepy is exactly what is important here because it all depends on context. Most people would consider it creepy when Target knows their daughter is pregnant before they do. [1] I would also bet most people would be perfectly happy if Target figures out they have a new puppy and starts sending coupons for dog food. Those things are fundamentally the same when it comes to what data is collected and what process predicted it. However the human element of privacy makes those two situations worlds apart. That human context is what is important and why it is so hard to come up with universal algorithms or rules that can adequately handle any privacy situation. [1] - https://consumerist.com/2012/02/17/target-figures-out-teen-girl-is-pregnant-before-her-father-does-sends-helpful-coupons/ https://consumerist.com/2012/02/17/target-figures-out-teen-g...
- nneonneo 8y ago
  Somewhat unrelated, but is anyone else having trouble loading that consumerist page? It keeps redirecting me off to https://consumerist.com/remote-login.php?login=... https://consumerist.com/remote-login.php?login=.... which 404s. Looks like a WordPress plugin (WPRemoteLogin) gone amok. EDIT: looks like this is because I'm logged into my own Wordpress blog. Weird that that should have any bearing on my ability to load this blog.

ovao 8y ago

Consumer perception of what is and isn’t “creepy” has somewhat shifted in light of recent issues, however. Many of the businesses to which this law would apply have established their business models in a time when privacy may have been less in the front of a consumer’s mind. Businesses just starting out have an easier time knowing which lines not to cross in their business models than those who began their journies sometimes over a decade ago.

Silhouette 8y ago
I think a lot of people have always considered some of the practices employed in the tech sector to be creepy and unwelcome. It's just that awareness has increased, and now there's a sense that you don't just have to put up with the intrusions and abuses to live a normal life any more.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. In fact, a favorite pastime of HN is recommending all of the alternatives to use. Another example, you don't have to buy an Amazon Echo or Google Assistant. If you find cloud connected microphones in your home creepy, don't do it. Why is that not sufficient? Or do the people who are creeped out want to make the choice for other people and remove products from the market they'd like to use?
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. Sure, but it is increasingly the case that by doing so you are excluded from normal daily activities, because in some cases these technologies are now how our society communicates. For example, you can no longer park legally in many UK streets or public car parks without using a smartphone app, which means working with Apple or Google (Android) technology for the device, and working with a mobile network operator for the data connection. In theory, you can usually call or text from a feature phone instead, which means you only have to deal with the mobile network, but typically those facilities are among the worst user experience you will ever encounter, and taking upwards of 15 minutes to make a simple payment is not unusual, if you can even pay successfully at all. You no longer have any option to pay quickly, reliably and anonymously in cash the way we used to.

beaner 8y ago

Some companies don't sell ads or user data at all, but use related user information to detect things like scam rings on dating sites, spam rings on forums, and fraud rings on finance sites. If that information can just be deleted at the request of the user, say hello to way worse user experiences on sites like those, and many more you haven't yet thought of. The only way around it is to lock down signups, provide constricted service, or let the communities rot.

dave5104 8y ago
But why can't users be asked and given the option? If that's the result of their data being deleted, then I'm sure the company in question would make users well aware of the consequences of opting out.
- czardoz 8y ago
  The problem is that even a few users opting out can create a bad experience for other users of the service.
- beaner 8y ago
  I don't think you can expect users to be anything but selfishly motivated, and concerned with their own experience only. I don't think most will care about the experience of others. Certainly not if they're deleting their own account from the service. Plus the point is that in these cases, potentially the users who would most want to delete are the ones most motivated to do so: the scam/spam/fraud ringsters.
- digitalzombie 8y ago
  > would make users well aware of the consequences of opting out. People don't even read the ToS (term of service). I'm pessimistic that they would even do this.
sulam 8y ago
If you read the article you would know that this is perfectly legal under the proposition. It's selling your data to third parties without user consent that it makes illegal.

mc32 8y ago

I think a fair number of people would agree that the Google pre-G+ is not the same Google post-G+. The businesses can survive and do well without needing to know every habit of everyone and target ads based on knowing everyone's predilections and peccadilloes. Sure it would be more like classical Newspaper ads and broadcast TV ads; which, while they worked, are acknowledged not to be as effective, but still effective enough to support the ad and consumerist economies. It's probably not to late to return to that business model, if people demand it enough and legislators don't cave-in to business demand.

cromwellian 8y ago

So the standard of illegality now is what people consider creepy or cringey? Maybe this is actually the solution to the Fermi Paradox, technological civilizations dwindle as they engage in navel gazing and precautionary restraints.

sorokod 8y ago
Yup, by and large societies determine the parameters in which they would like to operate. These take the form of social agreements, laws, constitutions etc... In the olden days it was normal and legal to own people. Then (most) societies "decided" that they are not comfortable with the idea anymore and the norms and laws changed.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  That's a rather bad analogy, considering that slavery is an initiation of force against an individual, giving them no choice, over a physical good (their own body). Information is a non-rival good, someone's possession of it doesn't diminish your possession of it, unlike say, a slave master possessing you on a plantation. Philosophically, some of these regulations run afoul negative rights. When you interact with other people, or any entity, they will retain a memory of it. A lot of this data collection used to exist, but was informal, on pen and paper, or simply retained by the mind of the local establishments as their customers were locals. Saying that you own information that is by nature joint information like an entangled particle, and that another party must erase it, may be a pragmatic and utilitarian policy to deal with the increasing probability of bad actors (State or otherwise) misusing information, but the philosophy behind it rubs me the wrong way. Let's say a run a video arcade, and I keep track of which games everyone plays when they come in through the door. Though I hold no PII on the people, through some mechanism I can assign them a unique ID and recognize them on return (e.g. token card). Why should this joint information: what entities playing my arcade cabinets, be exclusively owned by you, especially if I'm not even providing the games for free? I'm asking this as a philosophical question, what's the moral justification that one side of a two sided exchange retains exclusivity to information? (and by exclusivity, I mean your right to ask me to delete it)

analog31 8y ago

I'm wondering if they did think of that, but were all rushing to cash out as much and as quickly as possible before the inevitable public backlash. A creepy-ness bubble, if you will.