13 ms·

Imagine a world in which Experian or Equifax would only fix a mistake on your credit report if you had enough followers to embarrass them on social media. This

by nugget 8y ago

Imagine a world in which Experian or Equifax would only fix a mistake on your credit report if you had enough followers to embarrass them on social media. This is where appropriate consumer protection laws come into play. The whole idea feels intuitively like a silly overreach to me since I watched Twitter, Airbnb, and these other services grow from nothing and so I take them less seriously, whereas banks and credit bureaus have existed as giants since I was born. On the other hand, one could imagine GDPR adding a rule that users must be provided with a detailed explanation and an appeals process before accounts can be deleted, and it wouldn't seem too burdensome when compared with the rest of the regulation.

paulie_a 8y ago
To be fair that actually might be an improvement for those two companies.
FussyZeus 8y ago
People seem to be naturally anti-regulation, failing to see that those regulations don't exist purely upon the whims of bureaucrats, but chiefly to address previous issues brought to the regulator's attention. Sometime in the last century, this idea was implanted by big businesses in the media and therefore the thoughts of the citizenry that regulation is more than anything, just people who couldn't succeed in business bullying people who are, and that shit is so fucking dangerous that it makes me shake. Amazon, AirBNB, Google, Facebook, Apple, none of these companies give a FUCK about you any further than they are legally required to, not one iota further, and we constantly bemoan our politicians over having a "too regulated" business environment.
- aeorgnoieang 8y ago
  But who regulates the regulators? As bad as this example is, have you never heard of the nightmares people fall into dealing with government bureaucracies? If anything, they're much much worse than the worst that companies inflict. Regulatory capture is a real thing too. Regulation isn't obviously positive just because there are reasons people trot out to justify it. You're right, companies don't generally care about me. But neither does the Social Security Administration, the Department of Justice, my local police department, my local school board, or any post office in which I've ever found myself.
  - 394549 8y ago
    > But who regulates the regulators? As bad as this example is, have you never heard of the nightmares people fall into dealing with government bureaucracies? If anything, they're much much worse than the worst that companies inflict. I think that last sentence could only be honestly written by someone who's lived their whole life in a society protected by strong regulatory structures. The massive benefits of regulation are taken for granted and forgotten, but the problems of implementation that still exist are magnified out of proportion. Government bureaucracy is certainly not perfect, but lets not kid ourselves that it's worse than the alternative. And the answer to your question is: a functioning legislature that's accountable to its constituents, and competently exercises its oversight role. > Regulatory capture is a real thing too. But rather than a call for less regulation, it's really a call for better oversight of the regulators.
  - extralego 8y ago
    You know how sometimes a corporation buys all of it’s competitors but keeps them in business? And it creates a false facade of competition? What if they bought the government and did the same thing? Well, consider it done. And the joke is on you for as long as you let it. You, like most Americans tend to do, are failing to understand the democratic concept and the responsibilities it must entail. A healthy democracy is very possible. It requires 2 basic things: - An fair and flat electoral process with sufficient protections against financial and propagandistic inequalities. - An engaged and educated populace, elections produce politicians who serve the electorate. The second one is a catch-22. An educated populace requires quality education requires a healthy democracy. for that reason, when things go wrong, they are extremely hard to get right again. This is why public education and a focus on humanities has such a deep legacy in the history of building democracies. Without both, short-sighted and/or self-interested thinking like yours will doom the arrangement.
  - FussyZeus 8y ago
    > But who regulates the regulators? You and people like you talk as though the various regulatory bodies simply issue an edict and every corporation is obligated to oblige that very second, and it's ridiculous. 1. The regulations themselves are often based heavily upon opinions and trusted advice from people who actively are or who formerly were in the industry being regulated, not simply dreamed up and pulled from someone's ass 2. There is an entire months long process of discussion, meeting, decisions, appeals, revisions, etc. engaged in between experts on both sides, lawyers on both sides, etc. By the time a regulation becomes required law, it's likely been attended to by a few hundred if not thousand people from both private enterprise and Government over months if not YEARS of work. 3. Once a regulation becomes law, companies often have months of forewarning to get into compliance. In the event that a business is non-compliant with something, unless it's immediately life threatening, they are given warnings, written warnings, guidance, possible solutions, etc. Regulators are not some comic book villain trying to fuck over mom and pop stores. They are attempting to ensure the safety, efficiency, and long life of everyone involved in a business. They want you to be compliant, not to file paperwork and shut you down. > As bad as this example is, have you never heard of the nightmares people fall into dealing with government bureaucracies? Oh I have, and for years and years I took them at face value but ANECDOTE IS NOT EVIDENCE. Almost every time you hear about some person who ended up on the wrong end of a regulator's pen, if you start digging you'll find a long history of shady ass behavior from that person which is conveniently omitted from their account of the events, for I'm sure totally-not-lying reasons. > Regulation isn't obviously positive just because there are reasons people trot out to justify it. The vast majority of regulations are written in the blood of the people who had to die to show us that storing some chemical in a break room gave every 3rd employee cancer, or every person who ate fish from a polluted river who didn't know that the chemicals in it would destroy their bodies. The fact that you personally don't understand whatever is behind a given regulation, does not make it unimportant or frivolous. > But neither does the Social Security Administration, the Department of Justice, my local police department, my local school board, or any post office in which I've ever found myself. Except you can affect those if you get off your dead ass and vote.
- 394549 8y ago
  > People seem to be naturally anti-regulation, failing to see that those regulations don't exist purely upon the whims of bureaucrats, but chiefly to address previous issues brought to the regulator's attention. I don't think that view is natural in common citizens, but rather it's the result of effective, long-term propaganda (a.k.a. public relations [1]) campaigns by those who the regulations typically protect against (businesses and their owners, mostly) and who therefor have to comply with them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- guntars 8y ago
  Preference for less regulation is a normal cultural and personal characteristic, nobody had to implant anything. I don’t view big business as some amorphous entity but rather a collection of people that will do what’s best for them. It’s the same as with politicians who will do ANYTHING to get elected - even pass solid laws that benefit everybody. As long as your goals are aligned, it’s not a problem that they don’t actually give a fuck about you. EDIT: Downvote if you disagree.
- everyone 8y ago
  People? This seems to be a cultural trend in the US in particular. In many other countries the value of laws, social services, anti-trust and anti-corruption regulations, and so on, are rightly seen as necessary and desirable. Unfortunately the US is very influential globally, in various ways. eg trade agreements, or just brutally implementing neo-liberal economics on weak countries they can coerce economically and/or militarily. The US has also (having effectively no anti-trust for decades) has let many corporations based or founded there grow to unprecedented sizes and power. Theres also other countries /areas (Jersey, Cayman Islands, etc.) that make a business of tailoring their laws to allow corporations to avoid paying taxes, pollute, hide data, censor journalists etc.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - FussyZeus 8y ago
    > People? This seems to be a trend in the US. In many other countries the value of laws, social services, anti-trust and anti-corruption regulations, and so on are rightly seen as necessary and desirable. That's fair. Should've been more specific about that, it's a very American thing.
  - gwright 8y ago
    I think you are generalizing a bit too much and also injecting a false dichotomy that you are either for or against regulation as a concept. Regulation in the abstract is neither good nor bad, the particulars of the regulation are what is important. You can be critical and suspicious of onerous government regulations while still appreciating that there are many reasonable uses for regulations.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      I dunno, I think there is a significant sentiment in the US that regulation is bad, period. There was the idea that Trump floated that was quite popular with his base that they would blanket eliminate 2 regulations for every one enacted.
- tripzilch 8y ago
  > Amazon, AirBNB, Google, Facebook, Apple, none of these companies give a FUCK about you any further than they are legally required to, not one iota further You'd think this be common knowledge, right? But only yesterday I saw someone here arguing that Tesla is somehow an exception to this rule and really does and will care about us and the planet. I remember believing similar good things about Google in the very early 2000s (that did not last long for me).
jdietrich 8y ago
>imagine GDPR adding a rule that users must be provided with a detailed explanation and an appeals process before accounts can be deleted Arguably, that's already the case. The combined rights given in articles 15, 16 and 22 make it very difficult to legally justify a policy of banning people without explanation or appeal, especially if that process is automated. At the very least, you have the right to see any data used in that decision-making process and to have any inaccurate data corrected. https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-16-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-16-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/
- hrnnnnnn 8y ago
  This is great, thanks for the links!
- tripzilch 8y ago
  I'd expect as much--since you can't refuse service to someone for the stated reason of having the wrong skin colour or religion, you of course also can't refuse service without stating any reason at all. That rule doesn't exist just to protect consumers only from being discriminated to their face. I'm kind of surprised that this is in the GDPR, I thought it had been part of consumer protection regulations for much longer. Maybe that was only in specific EU jurisdictions.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gnode 8y ago
> GDPR From the article: > ...have exercised our discretion under our Terms of Service to disable your account(s) The language here implies that the account still exists in a suspended state, and is not deleted. If you're a european, under the GDPR they must give you all your data if you ask for it. Maybe this would include the reason they banned the account. Otherwise, you can at least demand that they erase the data they're holding only to your disadvantage.
- gwright 8y ago
  It isn't clear to me that the GDPR requires disclosure of data that is related to a person but was not created by or provided by that person. So complaints from user1 about user2 or customer service notes about user2 wouldn't be considered personal data of user2 and thus wouldn't fall under GDPR rules. If this isn't the correct interpretation, I would appreciate a pointer to something in the GDPR that elaborates on this.
  - M2Ys4U 8y ago
    >It isn't clear to me that the GDPR requires disclosure of data that is related to a person but was not created by or provided by that person. Why wouldn't it? If it's data about an identifiable individual then - by definition - it is personal data. Furthermore, in the ICO's recent report into political parties' use of personal data[0], they expressed the following view: "Our investigation found that political parties did not regard inferred data as personal information as it was not factual information. However, the ICO’s view is that as this information is based on assumptions about individuals’ interests and preferences and can be attributed to specific individuals, then it is personal information and the requirements of data protection law apply to it." [0] https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2259369/democracy-disrupted-110718.pdf https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2259369/democracy... p29
    - gwright 8y ago
      There is a difference between the interpretation of the phrase "personal data" within the context of the GDPR and outside the context of GDPR. At least I think there is a difference. For example, consider a website that maintains a collection of birthdays for public figures derived from public sources (historical documents, news accounts, social media posts from the public figures themselves, etc.). In many jurisdictions the birth dates might even be available via public record searches. Clearly the birth dates are "personal data" in the colloquial sense of the phrase, but I don't think that the data as held by the website operator would be subject to the GDPR provisions, right?
benologist 8y ago
I think we will actually see the right to have an account be instated and the right to permanently ban people taken away from websites, now that we can see their lifespan may actually be decades and the banning becomes profoundly disproportionate for non-criminal activity. It's analogous to the MPAA/RIAA demanding to disconnect people for piracy, except it might have already been in effect for over 2 decades for some people and websites.
ahoy 8y ago
I'd rather imagine a world where Experian or Equifax don't have a credit report on me, but I agree with the crux of your message.
- emaginniss 8y ago
  What would that world look like? When you wanted to borrow money, how would the lender expect that they have a good idea of your risk profile? You could tell them all of the companies with which you've had a good relationship, but ignore the ones where you've failed to pay them. If you could default or discharge your obligations without any repercussions, that would essentially end the ability for people to get loans without collateral. Apartment rental companies wouldn't know whether you had broken leases in the past. This would make the entire world much more conservative with their money because they'd have to treat everyone as the same risk profile. There would be no benefit for good economic behavior.
  - brianpgordon 8y ago
    By statute, credit agencies can only keep 7 years of credit history on you. Wouldn't lenders be even better served without that 7-year limit? Yet the limit remains in place, because ultimately the point of all of this is to serve consumers and society at large, not just lenders. It's about finding a balance where economic value is maximized while reasonably protecting consumers. And given the Equifax breach it's not unreasonable to question whether the appropriate balance involves this system continuing to exist at all in its current form.
  - lxxxvi 8y ago
    No credit score in Slovenia. The country still functions...
tomjen3 8y ago
As others had said that is almost the case already, and it does give you the right to know the basis for an automated decision and have a human review it.
wuliwong 8y ago
What if you don't have enough people voting the same way as you and the government ignores your request for regulations that benefit you?

by nugget 8y ago

paulie_a 8y ago

To be fair that actually might be an improvement for those two companies.

FussyZeus 8y ago

People seem to be naturally anti-regulation, failing to see that those regulations don't exist purely upon the whims of bureaucrats, but chiefly to address previous issues brought to the regulator's attention. Sometime in the last century, this idea was implanted by big businesses in the media and therefore the thoughts of the citizenry that regulation is more than anything, just people who couldn't succeed in business bullying people who are, and that shit is so fucking dangerous that it makes me shake. Amazon, AirBNB, Google, Facebook, Apple, none of these companies give a FUCK about you any further than they are legally required to, not one iota further, and we constantly bemoan our politicians over having a "too regulated" business environment.

aeorgnoieang 8y ago
But who regulates the regulators? As bad as this example is, have you never heard of the nightmares people fall into dealing with government bureaucracies? If anything, they're much much worse than the worst that companies inflict. Regulatory capture is a real thing too. Regulation isn't obviously positive just because there are reasons people trot out to justify it. You're right, companies don't generally care about me. But neither does the Social Security Administration, the Department of Justice, my local police department, my local school board, or any post office in which I've ever found myself.
- 394549 8y ago
  > But who regulates the regulators? As bad as this example is, have you never heard of the nightmares people fall into dealing with government bureaucracies? If anything, they're much much worse than the worst that companies inflict. I think that last sentence could only be honestly written by someone who's lived their whole life in a society protected by strong regulatory structures. The massive benefits of regulation are taken for granted and forgotten, but the problems of implementation that still exist are magnified out of proportion. Government bureaucracy is certainly not perfect, but lets not kid ourselves that it's worse than the alternative. And the answer to your question is: a functioning legislature that's accountable to its constituents, and competently exercises its oversight role. > Regulatory capture is a real thing too. But rather than a call for less regulation, it's really a call for better oversight of the regulators.
- extralego 8y ago
  You know how sometimes a corporation buys all of it’s competitors but keeps them in business? And it creates a false facade of competition? What if they bought the government and did the same thing? Well, consider it done. And the joke is on you for as long as you let it. You, like most Americans tend to do, are failing to understand the democratic concept and the responsibilities it must entail. A healthy democracy is very possible. It requires 2 basic things: - An fair and flat electoral process with sufficient protections against financial and propagandistic inequalities. - An engaged and educated populace, elections produce politicians who serve the electorate. The second one is a catch-22. An educated populace requires quality education requires a healthy democracy. for that reason, when things go wrong, they are extremely hard to get right again. This is why public education and a focus on humanities has such a deep legacy in the history of building democracies. Without both, short-sighted and/or self-interested thinking like yours will doom the arrangement.
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  > But who regulates the regulators? You and people like you talk as though the various regulatory bodies simply issue an edict and every corporation is obligated to oblige that very second, and it's ridiculous. 1. The regulations themselves are often based heavily upon opinions and trusted advice from people who actively are or who formerly were in the industry being regulated, not simply dreamed up and pulled from someone's ass 2. There is an entire months long process of discussion, meeting, decisions, appeals, revisions, etc. engaged in between experts on both sides, lawyers on both sides, etc. By the time a regulation becomes required law, it's likely been attended to by a few hundred if not thousand people from both private enterprise and Government over months if not YEARS of work. 3. Once a regulation becomes law, companies often have months of forewarning to get into compliance. In the event that a business is non-compliant with something, unless it's immediately life threatening, they are given warnings, written warnings, guidance, possible solutions, etc. Regulators are not some comic book villain trying to fuck over mom and pop stores. They are attempting to ensure the safety, efficiency, and long life of everyone involved in a business. They want you to be compliant, not to file paperwork and shut you down. > As bad as this example is, have you never heard of the nightmares people fall into dealing with government bureaucracies? Oh I have, and for years and years I took them at face value but ANECDOTE IS NOT EVIDENCE. Almost every time you hear about some person who ended up on the wrong end of a regulator's pen, if you start digging you'll find a long history of shady ass behavior from that person which is conveniently omitted from their account of the events, for I'm sure totally-not-lying reasons. > Regulation isn't obviously positive just because there are reasons people trot out to justify it. The vast majority of regulations are written in the blood of the people who had to die to show us that storing some chemical in a break room gave every 3rd employee cancer, or every person who ate fish from a polluted river who didn't know that the chemicals in it would destroy their bodies. The fact that you personally don't understand whatever is behind a given regulation, does not make it unimportant or frivolous. > But neither does the Social Security Administration, the Department of Justice, my local police department, my local school board, or any post office in which I've ever found myself. Except you can affect those if you get off your dead ass and vote.
394549 8y ago
> People seem to be naturally anti-regulation, failing to see that those regulations don't exist purely upon the whims of bureaucrats, but chiefly to address previous issues brought to the regulator's attention. I don't think that view is natural in common citizens, but rather it's the result of effective, long-term propaganda (a.k.a. public relations [1]) campaigns by those who the regulations typically protect against (businesses and their owners, mostly) and who therefor have to comply with them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
guntars 8y ago
Preference for less regulation is a normal cultural and personal characteristic, nobody had to implant anything. I don’t view big business as some amorphous entity but rather a collection of people that will do what’s best for them. It’s the same as with politicians who will do ANYTHING to get elected - even pass solid laws that benefit everybody. As long as your goals are aligned, it’s not a problem that they don’t actually give a fuck about you. EDIT: Downvote if you disagree.
everyone 8y ago
People? This seems to be a cultural trend in the US in particular. In many other countries the value of laws, social services, anti-trust and anti-corruption regulations, and so on, are rightly seen as necessary and desirable. Unfortunately the US is very influential globally, in various ways. eg trade agreements, or just brutally implementing neo-liberal economics on weak countries they can coerce economically and/or militarily. The US has also (having effectively no anti-trust for decades) has let many corporations based or founded there grow to unprecedented sizes and power. Theres also other countries /areas (Jersey, Cayman Islands, etc.) that make a business of tailoring their laws to allow corporations to avoid paying taxes, pollute, hide data, censor journalists etc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  > People? This seems to be a trend in the US. In many other countries the value of laws, social services, anti-trust and anti-corruption regulations, and so on are rightly seen as necessary and desirable. That's fair. Should've been more specific about that, it's a very American thing.
- gwright 8y ago
  I think you are generalizing a bit too much and also injecting a false dichotomy that you are either for or against regulation as a concept. Regulation in the abstract is neither good nor bad, the particulars of the regulation are what is important. You can be critical and suspicious of onerous government regulations while still appreciating that there are many reasonable uses for regulations.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    I dunno, I think there is a significant sentiment in the US that regulation is bad, period. There was the idea that Trump floated that was quite popular with his base that they would blanket eliminate 2 regulations for every one enacted.
tripzilch 8y ago
> Amazon, AirBNB, Google, Facebook, Apple, none of these companies give a FUCK about you any further than they are legally required to, not one iota further You'd think this be common knowledge, right? But only yesterday I saw someone here arguing that Tesla is somehow an exception to this rule and really does and will care about us and the planet. I remember believing similar good things about Google in the very early 2000s (that did not last long for me).

jdietrich 8y ago

>imagine GDPR adding a rule that users must be provided with a detailed explanation and an appeals process before accounts can be deleted Arguably, that's already the case. The combined rights given in articles 15, 16 and 22 make it very difficult to legally justify a policy of banning people without explanation or appeal, especially if that process is automated. At the very least, you have the right to see any data used in that decision-making process and to have any inaccurate data corrected. https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-16-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-16-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/

hrnnnnnn 8y ago
This is great, thanks for the links!
tripzilch 8y ago
I'd expect as much--since you can't refuse service to someone for the stated reason of having the wrong skin colour or religion, you of course also can't refuse service without stating any reason at all. That rule doesn't exist just to protect consumers only from being discriminated to their face. I'm kind of surprised that this is in the GDPR, I thought it had been part of consumer protection regulations for much longer. Maybe that was only in specific EU jurisdictions.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

gnode 8y ago

> GDPR From the article: > ...have exercised our discretion under our Terms of Service to disable your account(s) The language here implies that the account still exists in a suspended state, and is not deleted. If you're a european, under the GDPR they must give you all your data if you ask for it. Maybe this would include the reason they banned the account. Otherwise, you can at least demand that they erase the data they're holding only to your disadvantage.

gwright 8y ago
It isn't clear to me that the GDPR requires disclosure of data that is related to a person but was not created by or provided by that person. So complaints from user1 about user2 or customer service notes about user2 wouldn't be considered personal data of user2 and thus wouldn't fall under GDPR rules. If this isn't the correct interpretation, I would appreciate a pointer to something in the GDPR that elaborates on this.
- M2Ys4U 8y ago
  >It isn't clear to me that the GDPR requires disclosure of data that is related to a person but was not created by or provided by that person. Why wouldn't it? If it's data about an identifiable individual then - by definition - it is personal data. Furthermore, in the ICO's recent report into political parties' use of personal data[0], they expressed the following view: "Our investigation found that political parties did not regard inferred data as personal information as it was not factual information. However, the ICO’s view is that as this information is based on assumptions about individuals’ interests and preferences and can be attributed to specific individuals, then it is personal information and the requirements of data protection law apply to it." [0] https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2259369/democracy-disrupted-110718.pdf https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2259369/democracy... p29
  - gwright 8y ago
    There is a difference between the interpretation of the phrase "personal data" within the context of the GDPR and outside the context of GDPR. At least I think there is a difference. For example, consider a website that maintains a collection of birthdays for public figures derived from public sources (historical documents, news accounts, social media posts from the public figures themselves, etc.). In many jurisdictions the birth dates might even be available via public record searches. Clearly the birth dates are "personal data" in the colloquial sense of the phrase, but I don't think that the data as held by the website operator would be subject to the GDPR provisions, right?

benologist 8y ago

I think we will actually see the right to have an account be instated and the right to permanently ban people taken away from websites, now that we can see their lifespan may actually be decades and the banning becomes profoundly disproportionate for non-criminal activity. It's analogous to the MPAA/RIAA demanding to disconnect people for piracy, except it might have already been in effect for over 2 decades for some people and websites.

ahoy 8y ago

I'd rather imagine a world where Experian or Equifax don't have a credit report on me, but I agree with the crux of your message.

emaginniss 8y ago
What would that world look like? When you wanted to borrow money, how would the lender expect that they have a good idea of your risk profile? You could tell them all of the companies with which you've had a good relationship, but ignore the ones where you've failed to pay them. If you could default or discharge your obligations without any repercussions, that would essentially end the ability for people to get loans without collateral. Apartment rental companies wouldn't know whether you had broken leases in the past. This would make the entire world much more conservative with their money because they'd have to treat everyone as the same risk profile. There would be no benefit for good economic behavior.
- brianpgordon 8y ago
  By statute, credit agencies can only keep 7 years of credit history on you. Wouldn't lenders be even better served without that 7-year limit? Yet the limit remains in place, because ultimately the point of all of this is to serve consumers and society at large, not just lenders. It's about finding a balance where economic value is maximized while reasonably protecting consumers. And given the Equifax breach it's not unreasonable to question whether the appropriate balance involves this system continuing to exist at all in its current form.
- lxxxvi 8y ago
  No credit score in Slovenia. The country still functions...

tomjen3 8y ago

As others had said that is almost the case already, and it does give you the right to know the basis for an automated decision and have a human review it.

wuliwong 8y ago

What if you don't have enough people voting the same way as you and the government ignores your request for regulations that benefit you?