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What contract did I sign agreeing to let ad companies access my eyeballs, let alone surveil me, in exchange for looking at a webpage? If they want to block me,
by monochromatic 8y ago
What contract did I sign agreeing to let ad companies access my eyeballs, let alone surveil me, in exchange for looking at a webpage? If they want to block me, they’re welcome to (or at least welcome to try), but I will cry zero tears over their lost spying opportunities.
- cm2012 8y agoWhen you order food at a restaurant, there's no contract either. Just an implicit understanding by the restaurant owner and society that you'll pay at the end.
- JackCh 8y agoWhen somebody walks out of a restaurant without paying, the restaurant is free to call the cops. I therefore invite all website operators to call 911 when I use an adblocker!
- cm2012 8y agoSo the only reason you pay at restaurants is to not break the law?
- JackCh 8y agoI also pay at restaurants because I want to. I don't watch ads because I don't want to. When I was a kid my family would flip through magazines and violently tear out the ads before bothering to sit down and read the articles. When watching television we would change the channel or mute the audio during commercial breaks on television (I don't even bother to download television shows with the advertisements edited out, because I've found product placement to be rampant.) Without calling for state violence to enforce your will on me, you will never stop me. You seem to have a very dim view of me because I refuse to willingly subject myself to advertisements. Let me assure you, this feeling is mutual. I look down on people who choose to submit themselves to corporate propaganda. Sometimes when I'm visiting people I see them watch television and they stare at the commercials with rapt attention; it disgusts me.
- axedwool 8y agoWhy else would you?
- JackCh 8y agoAppreciation of food service workers in particular, and/or a desire to see local businesses thrive. (Neither of which would ever motivate me to subject myself to advertisements.)
- monochromatic 8y agoThere’s probably an implied contract there.
- cortesoft 8y agoNo, it is a contract. There are prices on the menu, and you are agreeing to that price when you ask for the item. Not all contracts need to be signed, but they have to be somehow agreed to.
- cm2012 8y agoEvery website you visit has TOS. Facebook in particular has extremely clear TOS, written in plain English, that everyone consents to. In Europe, most websites explicitly ask for consent now. Doesn't seem very different to me.
- gsich 8y agono need to accept those.
- ubernostrum 8y agoAnd all of those sites track you before you've even had a chance to see their terms. Facebook infamously tracked people who'd never had Facebook accounts (and therefore had never agreed to Facebook's ToS), and now claims not to, but who knows?
- crtasm 8y agoAs I understand it contracts fall under law, TOS fall under nothing except maybe getting kicked off the platform.
- GW150914 8y agoThey can take my use of ad and script blocking as implicit rejection of the terms of their contract, and they’re free to deny me service. If they don’t, I’m not obliged to do it for them.
- cortesoft 8y agoYeah, I kinda feel it is all fair. I am just sending some request for data over the internet to you. You are free to return whatever you want to me, including ads and code to try and track me. At the same time, I am allowed to block that code and not display those ads. We aren't entering into any contract when I ask for some bits over a wire. We both can do what we want.
- waterhouse 8y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20150106051404/http://www.ycombinator.com/legal http://web.archive.org/web/20150106051404/http://www.ycombin... Terms of Use When you click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page. Unfortunately the terms have now changed.