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I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted i

I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted is one that does send any network requests to the stalking company until consent is given. That's the same reason why you wouldn't want to ask an alcoholic to guard a warehouse full of vodka at night, as you'd probably find a few empty bottles the next day. Same thing with an advertising company, even if they claim to respect your privacy, nothing guarantees they're not secretly looking at it anyway (and using it to adjust their ad tracking in a way that's undetectable from the outside, as to not be sued for it). It's even worse, because at least with alcohol you can count the bottles and find the empty ones. With data collection, if they're careful, you have no way to know whether your privacy has been violated.

fatjokes 8y ago
Unless you let that alcoholic guard two warehouses, and allow him to have a few bottles from one of them. In that case, he'd be stupid to take from the one where's he not suppose to.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Man, there must be the really good stuff in that other warehouse. Won't do any harm to go look...
  - busterarm 8y ago
    I hear so-and-so's private stash is in that warehouse. A lot of people can get in that warehouse. They'll never know it was me.
- kabouseng 8y ago
  I assume you are extending the analogy by implying that one "warehouse" would be paying users, and the other "warehouse" is free to use / advertising / giving up private data users. This analogy falls flat, because unlike an alcoholic which can be satiated at some point, FAANG can never be satiated. More information is always good. Thus taking data from both warehouses is better than restricting yourself to only one. Secondly it also falls flat because your paying users is often the more juicy targets (from an advertising point of view), since they are already well enough off to pay for ad-free internet services, thus also well enough off to target for more lucrative advertising. Getting back to the analogy, it is like an alcoholic guards two warehouses, one stocked with free budweiser beer, and the other stocked with the finest scotch, and hoping he wont take a swig from the scotch.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Unless the alcoholic is the only employee that will do the job (zero competition), which means he can steal from both warehouses and still not get fired. Same situation with Google/Facebook/etc, they're too big to fail and can do nasty things without any consequences.
antpls 8y ago
Google is a corporation responsible for thousands people job (so your analogy is irrelevant) that complies with the European Union laws. If Google does things under the hood, it will be noticed, and it will be exposed to a potential 4% fine of global revenue. By the law, opt-out is the default. They are proposing an industrialized solution for new and old businesses to transition to EU regulations more easily. Trust Google or not, but in the meantime, they are proposing new services to answer businesses and legals needs.
tinco 8y ago
And who is going to build that illegal feature into Google's services? And how much are that person, and the other persons that know about it, going to be paid for them to not be a liability? Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do. I have no doubt individuals within corporations break laws whenever they feel like they can get away with it, but leaving trails like checked-in source code, and operating services that other services depend on, that just sounds like too much of a liability to me..
- badestrand 8y ago
  > Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do Did you already forget the VW diesel scandal? That was exactly that - a huge corporation systematically breaking the law with lots of people even in the highest ranks aware of and supporting it.
  - tinco 8y ago
    Well yeah, and it was ridiculously dumb, lots of people go to jail and big fines were levied. I suppose that you have a point and corporations might do it. At the same time I like to believe it's just not worth it for them.
    - contravariant 8y ago
      I can find a few small fines, but as far as I can tell nobody went to jail for that one.
      - consumer451 8y ago
        > A Volkswagen AG compliance executive who pleaded guilty in the U.S. for his role in the company’s $30 billion emissions cheating scandal was sentenced to 7 years in prison. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/vw-executive-sentenced-to-7-years-in-prison-for-diesel-role https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/vw-execut...
yuhong 8y ago
I actually mentioned "opt-out" links in spam in the essay.

fatjokes 8y ago

Unless you let that alcoholic guard two warehouses, and allow him to have a few bottles from one of them. In that case, he'd be stupid to take from the one where's he not suppose to.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Man, there must be the really good stuff in that other warehouse. Won't do any harm to go look...
- busterarm 8y ago
  I hear so-and-so's private stash is in that warehouse. A lot of people can get in that warehouse. They'll never know it was me.
kabouseng 8y ago
I assume you are extending the analogy by implying that one "warehouse" would be paying users, and the other "warehouse" is free to use / advertising / giving up private data users. This analogy falls flat, because unlike an alcoholic which can be satiated at some point, FAANG can never be satiated. More information is always good. Thus taking data from both warehouses is better than restricting yourself to only one. Secondly it also falls flat because your paying users is often the more juicy targets (from an advertising point of view), since they are already well enough off to pay for ad-free internet services, thus also well enough off to target for more lucrative advertising. Getting back to the analogy, it is like an alcoholic guards two warehouses, one stocked with free budweiser beer, and the other stocked with the finest scotch, and hoping he wont take a swig from the scotch.
Rjevski 8y ago
Unless the alcoholic is the only employee that will do the job (zero competition), which means he can steal from both warehouses and still not get fired. Same situation with Google/Facebook/etc, they're too big to fail and can do nasty things without any consequences.

antpls 8y ago

Google is a corporation responsible for thousands people job (so your analogy is irrelevant) that complies with the European Union laws. If Google does things under the hood, it will be noticed, and it will be exposed to a potential 4% fine of global revenue. By the law, opt-out is the default. They are proposing an industrialized solution for new and old businesses to transition to EU regulations more easily. Trust Google or not, but in the meantime, they are proposing new services to answer businesses and legals needs.

tinco 8y ago

And who is going to build that illegal feature into Google's services? And how much are that person, and the other persons that know about it, going to be paid for them to not be a liability? Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do. I have no doubt individuals within corporations break laws whenever they feel like they can get away with it, but leaving trails like checked-in source code, and operating services that other services depend on, that just sounds like too much of a liability to me..

badestrand 8y ago
> Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do Did you already forget the VW diesel scandal? That was exactly that - a huge corporation systematically breaking the law with lots of people even in the highest ranks aware of and supporting it.
- tinco 8y ago
  Well yeah, and it was ridiculously dumb, lots of people go to jail and big fines were levied. I suppose that you have a point and corporations might do it. At the same time I like to believe it's just not worth it for them.
  - contravariant 8y ago
    I can find a few small fines, but as far as I can tell nobody went to jail for that one.
    - consumer451 8y ago
      > A Volkswagen AG compliance executive who pleaded guilty in the U.S. for his role in the company’s $30 billion emissions cheating scandal was sentenced to 7 years in prison. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/vw-executive-sentenced-to-7-years-in-prison-for-diesel-role https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/vw-execut...

yuhong 8y ago

I actually mentioned "opt-out" links in spam in the essay.