4 ms·

It's funny that when corporations track users to provide customers with content they find useful, people are up in arms about privacy violations; but when gover

It's funny that when corporations track users to provide customers with content they find useful, people are up in arms about privacy violations; but when governments set up 24 hour city or nation-wide video surveillance, people are much more receptive. Given the relative risks involved (companies want to make it easier for you to buy stuff; governments can send you to prison) one would think it should be the other way around.

zajd 8y ago
The governments have access to Google's data and Google will be more than happy to help send you to prison.
trumped 8y ago
maybe because people don't want to become victims of crimes but they don't care as much if they buy the "best" TV.... but either way, the government has access of all the data ...
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
While I'm also not fond of the government side of surveillance, I think there is one major difference here for many people. And that is artificial creation of demand. Effective advertising can manipulate your wants and desires to convince you to desire things you really have no need or want of. And they go through every possible method to try to achieve this, including psychological manipulation. The reason I'm not fond of advertising is because I'm not arrogant enough to believe I'm immune to it. Collect enough data on me and you can probably create campaigns that would artificially push my interests towards things I would otherwise have 0 interest in. When the government collects data on you the fundamental reason is to protect and grow itself, not to try to empty your wallet. Some of these data may end up getting, let's say, "leaked" and used for more self serving purposes by individual politicians or political parties, but that's at least a technically illegitimate use of the data, whereas such self-serving exploitative functions by corporations are the primary use of the data.
- skybrian 8y ago
  I wonder what really counts as manipulation? Maybe you walk by an ice cream store and you think "I should get some ice cream". If the ice cream store wasn't there, you wouldn't have thought that. I'm sure someone could talk this up as "convincing you to want things that you otherwise wouldn't have wanted." Maybe this is more of a problem for some people and a liquor store? But the advertising can just be: the store is there. So much of advertising is attempting to remind people to think of things they already like, even when it's not physically present. It's a much easier sell than getting someone to try something new. I can just mention Twitter and some people will think about checking to see what's new on Twitter.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I only used manipulation in reference to psychology. And there I meant it quite literally. Most recently an internal memo at Facebook indicated something literally described as a "psychological trick" to get teen users to use the platform. It relied on actively micro-targeting and misleading teens. Real classy stuff. The word I used for general market targeting was exploitation. And no, in general the mere presence of stores is not exploiting individuals. However, if I see there is a large alcoholics anonymous group at a location and decide to build a liquor store right there because of that, this would certainly be exploiting individuals. But we need not just stick with moral platitudes. The issue is not the morality, in my opinion, but the active targeting of individuals. Want to advertise deals on nails beside a hammer display? Sure, makes sense. Want to try to turn as large of swaths of the internet as possible into data collection nodes to try to siphon off each and every detail of individuals, trade these details among companies to build even greater profile collections, and then micro-target as finely as possible while appealing to everything you know your profile indicates drives this individual's decisions? I consider this exploitative. I'd say everything is then a sliding scale in between, but we're already far enough to the extreme end that it's not especially far off to assign many of the major American tech companies to what should be the hyperbolic extreme end of that scale. ------- EDIT: Coincidentally enough, somebody just shared this [1] link. It's extremely related to this very line of discussion. Though again it relies on moral platitudes in that targeting children is somehow the heinous act. No, that may be particularly heinous but the fundamental problem is the way they actively target everybody. This is a quite demented industry we've created. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17750959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17750959

zajd 8y ago

The governments have access to Google's data and Google will be more than happy to help send you to prison.

trumped 8y ago

maybe because people don't want to become victims of crimes but they don't care as much if they buy the "best" TV.... but either way, the government has access of all the data ...

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

While I'm also not fond of the government side of surveillance, I think there is one major difference here for many people. And that is artificial creation of demand. Effective advertising can manipulate your wants and desires to convince you to desire things you really have no need or want of. And they go through every possible method to try to achieve this, including psychological manipulation. The reason I'm not fond of advertising is because I'm not arrogant enough to believe I'm immune to it. Collect enough data on me and you can probably create campaigns that would artificially push my interests towards things I would otherwise have 0 interest in. When the government collects data on you the fundamental reason is to protect and grow itself, not to try to empty your wallet. Some of these data may end up getting, let's say, "leaked" and used for more self serving purposes by individual politicians or political parties, but that's at least a technically illegitimate use of the data, whereas such self-serving exploitative functions by corporations are the primary use of the data.

skybrian 8y ago
I wonder what really counts as manipulation? Maybe you walk by an ice cream store and you think "I should get some ice cream". If the ice cream store wasn't there, you wouldn't have thought that. I'm sure someone could talk this up as "convincing you to want things that you otherwise wouldn't have wanted." Maybe this is more of a problem for some people and a liquor store? But the advertising can just be: the store is there. So much of advertising is attempting to remind people to think of things they already like, even when it's not physically present. It's a much easier sell than getting someone to try something new. I can just mention Twitter and some people will think about checking to see what's new on Twitter.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I only used manipulation in reference to psychology. And there I meant it quite literally. Most recently an internal memo at Facebook indicated something literally described as a "psychological trick" to get teen users to use the platform. It relied on actively micro-targeting and misleading teens. Real classy stuff. The word I used for general market targeting was exploitation. And no, in general the mere presence of stores is not exploiting individuals. However, if I see there is a large alcoholics anonymous group at a location and decide to build a liquor store right there because of that, this would certainly be exploiting individuals. But we need not just stick with moral platitudes. The issue is not the morality, in my opinion, but the active targeting of individuals. Want to advertise deals on nails beside a hammer display? Sure, makes sense. Want to try to turn as large of swaths of the internet as possible into data collection nodes to try to siphon off each and every detail of individuals, trade these details among companies to build even greater profile collections, and then micro-target as finely as possible while appealing to everything you know your profile indicates drives this individual's decisions? I consider this exploitative. I'd say everything is then a sliding scale in between, but we're already far enough to the extreme end that it's not especially far off to assign many of the major American tech companies to what should be the hyperbolic extreme end of that scale. ------- EDIT: Coincidentally enough, somebody just shared this [1] link. It's extremely related to this very line of discussion. Though again it relies on moral platitudes in that targeting children is somehow the heinous act. No, that may be particularly heinous but the fundamental problem is the way they actively target everybody. This is a quite demented industry we've created. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17750959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17750959