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To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. In the long term,

by netcan 8y ago

To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. In the long term, companies will gather and use what data they have access to. Companies will tailor their UI, product, etc. in order to keep that data flowing. A ruleset based on permission and consent is not practical, unless the goal is "better paperwork." The solution (imho) has to come from browser software or w3c. The browser should control permissions, in broadly the same way mobile OSs/appstore control permissions and login state. ATM Google de-anonymizes you. This should just be impossible, unless the browser tells it who you are. ^I know gdpr is popular with a lot of people here. I think it has some good parts, but I disagree with other parts. We can still be friends and disagree :)

ucaetano 8y ago
This isn't necessarily de-anonymizing, it is just taking your recent history into account. From 2009: For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I'm looking for news about Cornell University's sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others. Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser. It's completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in users).
craftyguy 8y ago
> To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. A significant percentage of HN content is posts about "facefriend does this with your data" or "google does that with your data." I suspect this might be why it feels especially silly and pointless, because currently the noise to signal ratio is quite high if you spend any time on HN. For the vast majority of the rest of the population, it's all noise and no signal. So here we are with one group that works "in the industry" that is largely desensitized to it, and another group that doesn't care, or know they should care.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
> To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. ... companies will gather and use what data they have access to Yet every time there's an equifax or quora data breach at the top of the front page the consensus is almost always that companies should get less data, should keep it for less time, and end users should push back against the constant data grab. How do we square that circle? How do we avoid FaceGooBook when it has its fingers everywhere? Even if you avoid their front end services there's countless sites using FaceGooBook for logins, captcha, fonts, frameworks that can't simply be uBlocked away without breaking something. Are we meant to simply trust FaceGooBook that data from those sources isn't added to the others? Without the pushback of things like GDPR (I think it has parts that won't go remotely far enough - mainly national budgets for ICO enforcement), end users seem to have neared a point of "tough, you lost".
- netcan 8y ago
  ... self reporting data leaks is "the good part" of gdpr that I mentioned in my caveat. :) I think that's important, effective and in bureaucratic. The attempt to increase formal contract making between website and user... that's the part I find frustrating.
- wtfstatists 8y ago
  Safety/Quality regulations reduces choices and quantity. This hits poor the most, as they can no longer buy inferior but cheap products and services. See China. Instead regulations should be focus on reducing scam and misleading offerings. If someone wants to buy/use despite knowing the risks, let him.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    > Safety/Quality regulations reduces choices and quantity. They also prevent people dying when they plug in their appliance, or dying because there's lead paint on the product, or buying flour that's adulterated with alum, plaster of Paris or chalk. The history of food and electrical regulations, on both sides of the Atlantic, are enough to convince me that rich and poor (I have been both) are better served by enough regulation to ensure basic standards are met. In the case of the US and food, prior to such regulation, adulteration was more common than not[0]. > If someone wants to buy/use despite knowing the risks, let him. This is never the case. The risks are hidden, the product masquerades as a genuine iPhone charger, or contains unsafe substances that cannot be known without laboratory testing. Data is taken "to provide a better service", without mention of the 206 places it's sold to, or other uses for which it is mined, or the fun psychological experiments staff might run on their users. To relate it back to the original discussion about data, I am fully in favour of regulations that demand adequate safeguards and protections of personal data, and high expectations of diligence from companies that must use such data. It goes without saying that I am in favour of severe penalties for egregious breach of such regulations. [0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-04/harvey-wiley-us-chemist-who-fought-to-ban-poison-from-food/10427832 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-04/harvey-wiley-us-chemi...
aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
>The solution (imho) has to come from browser software or w3c What is this “w3c”? I thought Web standards are written by browser vendors like Google, Apple, and ummm... there are some others too but I don’t remember their names.
gnode 8y ago
> wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. > The solution (imho) has to come from browser software or w3c. Generally in society when there is a natural motive for one party to wrong another, we use law to mitigate it. Technical solutions make sense, as there are always bad actors; people still lock their doors to deter burglars. But we don't expect to need to wear a suit of armour outside our houses, because highly motivated assailants act undeterred. Saying the solution rests entirely on the client side invites a kind of arms race, where wrongdoing is fair game.
- netcan 8y ago
  I'm not saying wrongdoing is fair game (obviously) or that laws are pointless. They just don't work for everything. Laws' side effects can be as important as the straightforward intention. For example, the gdpr reporting requirements for data leaks is a good idea. It's nice that people can know data about them has leaked, but the bigger reason is the side effect... the transparency will improve security. The side effect of consent/permission requirement is an army is of compliance lawyer and vendors. They make newspapers compliant by tweaking paperwork, popups and such... not by actually doing anything that improves privacy.
  - gnode 8y ago
    > They make newspapers compliant [...] That's debatable. Almost nothing actually meets the GDPR's requirements for freely given consent (that non-technically required consent can't be tied to / traded for the service, and is opt in; no pre-ticked boxes.)

by netcan 8y ago

ucaetano 8y ago

This isn't necessarily de-anonymizing, it is just taking your recent history into account. From 2009: For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I'm looking for news about Cornell University's sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others. Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser. It's completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in users).

craftyguy 8y ago

> To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. A significant percentage of HN content is posts about "facefriend does this with your data" or "google does that with your data." I suspect this might be why it feels especially silly and pointless, because currently the noise to signal ratio is quite high if you spend any time on HN. For the vast majority of the rest of the population, it's all noise and no signal. So here we are with one group that works "in the industry" that is largely desensitized to it, and another group that doesn't care, or know they should care.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

> To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. ... companies will gather and use what data they have access to Yet every time there's an equifax or quora data breach at the top of the front page the consensus is almost always that companies should get less data, should keep it for less time, and end users should push back against the constant data grab. How do we square that circle? How do we avoid FaceGooBook when it has its fingers everywhere? Even if you avoid their front end services there's countless sites using FaceGooBook for logins, captcha, fonts, frameworks that can't simply be uBlocked away without breaking something. Are we meant to simply trust FaceGooBook that data from those sources isn't added to the others? Without the pushback of things like GDPR (I think it has parts that won't go remotely far enough - mainly national budgets for ICO enforcement), end users seem to have neared a point of "tough, you lost".

netcan 8y ago
... self reporting data leaks is "the good part" of gdpr that I mentioned in my caveat. :) I think that's important, effective and in bureaucratic. The attempt to increase formal contract making between website and user... that's the part I find frustrating.
wtfstatists 8y ago
Safety/Quality regulations reduces choices and quantity. This hits poor the most, as they can no longer buy inferior but cheap products and services. See China. Instead regulations should be focus on reducing scam and misleading offerings. If someone wants to buy/use despite knowing the risks, let him.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  > Safety/Quality regulations reduces choices and quantity. They also prevent people dying when they plug in their appliance, or dying because there's lead paint on the product, or buying flour that's adulterated with alum, plaster of Paris or chalk. The history of food and electrical regulations, on both sides of the Atlantic, are enough to convince me that rich and poor (I have been both) are better served by enough regulation to ensure basic standards are met. In the case of the US and food, prior to such regulation, adulteration was more common than not[0]. > If someone wants to buy/use despite knowing the risks, let him. This is never the case. The risks are hidden, the product masquerades as a genuine iPhone charger, or contains unsafe substances that cannot be known without laboratory testing. Data is taken "to provide a better service", without mention of the 206 places it's sold to, or other uses for which it is mined, or the fun psychological experiments staff might run on their users. To relate it back to the original discussion about data, I am fully in favour of regulations that demand adequate safeguards and protections of personal data, and high expectations of diligence from companies that must use such data. It goes without saying that I am in favour of severe penalties for egregious breach of such regulations. [0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-04/harvey-wiley-us-chemist-who-fought-to-ban-poison-from-food/10427832 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-04/harvey-wiley-us-chemi...

aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago

>The solution (imho) has to come from browser software or w3c What is this “w3c”? I thought Web standards are written by browser vendors like Google, Apple, and ummm... there are some others too but I don’t remember their names.

gnode 8y ago

> wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. > The solution (imho) has to come from browser software or w3c. Generally in society when there is a natural motive for one party to wrong another, we use law to mitigate it. Technical solutions make sense, as there are always bad actors; people still lock their doors to deter burglars. But we don't expect to need to wear a suit of armour outside our houses, because highly motivated assailants act undeterred. Saying the solution rests entirely on the client side invites a kind of arms race, where wrongdoing is fair game.

netcan 8y ago
I'm not saying wrongdoing is fair game (obviously) or that laws are pointless. They just don't work for everything. Laws' side effects can be as important as the straightforward intention. For example, the gdpr reporting requirements for data leaks is a good idea. It's nice that people can know data about them has leaked, but the bigger reason is the side effect... the transparency will improve security. The side effect of consent/permission requirement is an army is of compliance lawyer and vendors. They make newspapers compliant by tweaking paperwork, popups and such... not by actually doing anything that improves privacy.
- gnode 8y ago
  > They make newspapers compliant [...] That's debatable. Almost nothing actually meets the GDPR's requirements for freely given consent (that non-technically required consent can't be tied to / traded for the service, and is opt in; no pre-ticked boxes.)