9 ms·

Pitchfork mobs dictating policy, that is why you don't elect an ex state attorney general to the legislative branch: prosecution and grandstanding is all they k

by srkmno 8y ago

Pitchfork mobs dictating policy, that is why you don't elect an ex state attorney general to the legislative branch: prosecution and grandstanding is all they know. Also the principle concept of "stealing your data" is more ludicrous than "stealing" in the copyright sense; that data is meta data and it's not yours, it was generated by machines you don't own and have no claim over.

crooked-v 8y ago
> that data is meta data and it's not yours, it was generated by machines you don't own and have no claim over I'm pretty sure that, for example, the list of grocery brands someone buys using a store loyalty card isn't "metadata", and while "stealing" is hyperbole, I'm pretty sure most people would be upset upon realizing how far and wide that information is being sold.
- smsm42 8y ago
  People might be upset about a lot of things, the question is whether you have legal ownership on the knowledge about the facts about you. Can you sue somebody for disclosing true information about you as "theft"? Is writing a Wikipedia article about you means "stealing" your life facts? Does making your photo steal your soul? I'm pretty sure the only reason to use "steal" in this context is to hopelessly confuse the matter.
  - eftychis 8y ago
    Still it is worth thinking the effects of disclosing meta-data that a legal entity has collected about another entity (here an individual). Is it not abetting to disclose when you are away from your house and what alarm system you have to a burglar? What if you do that via wikipedia? I think even if you have no ownership of the data and stealing is not involved, that does not give the collecting or managing party the right to sell or publicize or share that data, necessarily. There have been studies about the value (and impact) of inferences from metadata e.g. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/20/5536.short https://www.pnas.org/content/113/20/5536.short . ((Edit) Agreeing with you, steal is incorrect term in a lot of cases, however I am not sure if we can say it is not applicable in general.)
    - smsm42 8y ago
      Disclosing certain information (like, your banking account password) would certainly harm you. But this is not the kind of information we're discussing here, are we? We are discussing kind of information that is already either public or semi-public (i.e. known to some - potentially wide - circle of unknown people) but aggregation and concentration of which may lead to knowledge about you that you'd prefer not to be public. I am not sure we have an adequate legal model now to deal with it. We should probably get to developing one real soon. But roping in emotional terms from the different field - like calling it "stealing" or "robbery" or "piracy" or "stampeding cattle through Vatican" is not very helpful. It makes it look as if it's simple - if it's stealing, stealing is already banned, just use the same laws here - but it's not and those laws won't work. Real work is needed here, not wordplay.
- srkmno 8y ago
  Zealots would be upset sure but I'd argue most people won't. A shopping list is metadata and the issue here is data ownership, you can't own a shopping list, you can't even copyright one, if you don't want it to be associated with you, you should be able to opt out, but no one should be burned at the stake for it.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    > you should be able to opt out Why should it be "opted in" automatically in the first place?
    - srkmno 8y ago
      Because if you really care about it you have the option, otherwise it's a valuable resource that should be put to use.
rayiner 8y ago
I’m really enjoying watching tech transform before my eyes from regulatory optimism to hardened regulatory pessimism.
- srkmno 8y ago
  Yeah let's restrict, ban and kill every new idea in it's crib, that'll surly make the world a better place, I'm happy you're enjoying your time in this entrepreneur community. Let's also make sure all future gains are made by the lawyers and other middle men so that world peace will finally be at hand.
  - pfisch 8y ago
    Can you elaborate on the sum of facebooks contributions being positive? Not disagreeing here, I just don’t know what contributions you are referring to.
    - betterunix2 8y ago
      It's not about Facebook, it is about some startup you have never heard of that actually is doing something positive for the world and suddenly finds its business smothered by poorly thought out regulations. Considering that we have powerful congressmen who do not even understand Facebook's business model (and whose staff failed to explain it to them) does not give me confidence in Congress' ability to craft constructive regulation.
      - Apocryphon 8y ago
        That's a terrifying possibility. Are there any actual case studies and examples of tech startups being killed by regulation? Or is this a campfire story that is retold whenever the possibility of regulation is mentioned.
        fzeroracer 8y ago
        The inherent nature of regulations mean there is always going to be a 'winner' and a 'loser'. For example I have no doubts that regulations removing lead from gasoline resulted in lost profits and hurt businesses, but we can also believe that the societal gains were far greater than the losses. Similarly regulations in favor of privacy for citizens is going to naturally result in some companies, somewhere, having to adapt or take a hit or possibly not survive the transition. That doesn't mean we shouldn't implement those regulations because ultimately the larger monopolistic companies pose a far greater problem than the smaller startups can solve.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"it was generated by machines" No it wasn't.
fzeroracer 8y ago
Let's say someone really hates Facebook. What exactly is their recourse for them to say 'I don't want you to keep a shadow profile and I don't want you to sell or use that in any way shape for form'. In that case, they're directly monetizing data about me as a person.
- throw23421 8y ago
  That person can simply choose not to use Facebook.
  - betterunix2 8y ago
    "Shadow Profile" https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-...
  - uberman 8y ago
    Really? What about non-users shadow profiles? "In a line of questioning from Rep. Ben Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, Zuckerberg allowed that his company creates profiles on people who don’t actually use Facebook — what are sometimes referred to as “shadow profiles.”" https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-collects-data-on-non-facebook-users-if-they-want-to-delete-it-they-have-to-sign-up.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-collects-data-...
- smsm42 8y ago
  Let's say person A really hates person B. Does A have a legal right to ban B from recognizing A on the street? There are laws against stalking in the US, which define stalking as: engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to: (A) fear for his or her safety or the safety of others; (B) suffer substantial emotional distress. If you succeed in proving that Facebook tracking causes you substantial emotional distress, and that would be the case for a reasonable person too, you might have a case here.
- boudin 8y ago
  I wonder if it is possible to licence myself, the same way a software, for example, is licenced. Meaning that any company like facebook monetizing data whithout any agreement between me and them would fall under my licence. I have absolutly no legal knowledge and i have no idea what could be enforced this way. I'm also sure that nothing could be done by one person because of the need to lawyer up to enforce anything... But if it could be possible and would gain enough momentum, I'm thinking it could be quite an interesting thing to do.
chatmasta 8y ago
I really love the simplicity of this argument. If you generate the metadata, you own it, no questions asked.
- ajkjk 8y ago
  It's a simple principle, but since it makes the world shittier, let's not adopt it.
- sperm 8y ago
  This would enable a black market for the data, at which point good luck regulating
  - timonovici 8y ago
    Are you saying that this doesn't already exist? There are tons of people selling passwords, profiles, credit cards info, social security numbers et cetera. Or are you trying to say that legit companies will begin doing that? Aren't they already doing that too? Facebook and Cambridge Analytica being just one example that we know about.
- AlexandrB 8y ago
  What does "you generate the metadata" mean? If an app on my phone "generates metadata" I own it under this principle. Likewise for code running on my computer.
  - 1ta 8y ago
    Your phone/os generate raw inputs (eg touch events in the format of: posx, posy, pressure). Each app then make use of these raw inputs in its own way. SwiftKey will give you some words. Piano app will pay a sound. And So on. Interpreting and converting these raw inputs into what a user wants, is literally what an app gets paid for.

by srkmno 8y ago

crooked-v 8y ago

> that data is meta data and it's not yours, it was generated by machines you don't own and have no claim over I'm pretty sure that, for example, the list of grocery brands someone buys using a store loyalty card isn't "metadata", and while "stealing" is hyperbole, I'm pretty sure most people would be upset upon realizing how far and wide that information is being sold.

smsm42 8y ago
People might be upset about a lot of things, the question is whether you have legal ownership on the knowledge about the facts about you. Can you sue somebody for disclosing true information about you as "theft"? Is writing a Wikipedia article about you means "stealing" your life facts? Does making your photo steal your soul? I'm pretty sure the only reason to use "steal" in this context is to hopelessly confuse the matter.
- eftychis 8y ago
  Still it is worth thinking the effects of disclosing meta-data that a legal entity has collected about another entity (here an individual). Is it not abetting to disclose when you are away from your house and what alarm system you have to a burglar? What if you do that via wikipedia? I think even if you have no ownership of the data and stealing is not involved, that does not give the collecting or managing party the right to sell or publicize or share that data, necessarily. There have been studies about the value (and impact) of inferences from metadata e.g. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/20/5536.short https://www.pnas.org/content/113/20/5536.short . ((Edit) Agreeing with you, steal is incorrect term in a lot of cases, however I am not sure if we can say it is not applicable in general.)
  - smsm42 8y ago
    Disclosing certain information (like, your banking account password) would certainly harm you. But this is not the kind of information we're discussing here, are we? We are discussing kind of information that is already either public or semi-public (i.e. known to some - potentially wide - circle of unknown people) but aggregation and concentration of which may lead to knowledge about you that you'd prefer not to be public. I am not sure we have an adequate legal model now to deal with it. We should probably get to developing one real soon. But roping in emotional terms from the different field - like calling it "stealing" or "robbery" or "piracy" or "stampeding cattle through Vatican" is not very helpful. It makes it look as if it's simple - if it's stealing, stealing is already banned, just use the same laws here - but it's not and those laws won't work. Real work is needed here, not wordplay.
srkmno 8y ago
Zealots would be upset sure but I'd argue most people won't. A shopping list is metadata and the issue here is data ownership, you can't own a shopping list, you can't even copyright one, if you don't want it to be associated with you, you should be able to opt out, but no one should be burned at the stake for it.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > you should be able to opt out Why should it be "opted in" automatically in the first place?
  - srkmno 8y ago
    Because if you really care about it you have the option, otherwise it's a valuable resource that should be put to use.

rayiner 8y ago

I’m really enjoying watching tech transform before my eyes from regulatory optimism to hardened regulatory pessimism.

srkmno 8y ago
Yeah let's restrict, ban and kill every new idea in it's crib, that'll surly make the world a better place, I'm happy you're enjoying your time in this entrepreneur community. Let's also make sure all future gains are made by the lawyers and other middle men so that world peace will finally be at hand.
- pfisch 8y ago
  Can you elaborate on the sum of facebooks contributions being positive? Not disagreeing here, I just don’t know what contributions you are referring to.
  - betterunix2 8y ago
    It's not about Facebook, it is about some startup you have never heard of that actually is doing something positive for the world and suddenly finds its business smothered by poorly thought out regulations. Considering that we have powerful congressmen who do not even understand Facebook's business model (and whose staff failed to explain it to them) does not give me confidence in Congress' ability to craft constructive regulation.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      That's a terrifying possibility. Are there any actual case studies and examples of tech startups being killed by regulation? Or is this a campfire story that is retold whenever the possibility of regulation is mentioned.
      - fzeroracer 8y ago
        The inherent nature of regulations mean there is always going to be a 'winner' and a 'loser'. For example I have no doubts that regulations removing lead from gasoline resulted in lost profits and hurt businesses, but we can also believe that the societal gains were far greater than the losses. Similarly regulations in favor of privacy for citizens is going to naturally result in some companies, somewhere, having to adapt or take a hit or possibly not survive the transition. That doesn't mean we shouldn't implement those regulations because ultimately the larger monopolistic companies pose a far greater problem than the smaller startups can solve.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"it was generated by machines" No it wasn't.

fzeroracer 8y ago

Let's say someone really hates Facebook. What exactly is their recourse for them to say 'I don't want you to keep a shadow profile and I don't want you to sell or use that in any way shape for form'. In that case, they're directly monetizing data about me as a person.

throw23421 8y ago
That person can simply choose not to use Facebook.
- betterunix2 8y ago
  "Shadow Profile" https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-...
- uberman 8y ago
  Really? What about non-users shadow profiles? "In a line of questioning from Rep. Ben Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, Zuckerberg allowed that his company creates profiles on people who don’t actually use Facebook — what are sometimes referred to as “shadow profiles.”" https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-collects-data-on-non-facebook-users-if-they-want-to-delete-it-they-have-to-sign-up.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-collects-data-...
smsm42 8y ago
Let's say person A really hates person B. Does A have a legal right to ban B from recognizing A on the street? There are laws against stalking in the US, which define stalking as: engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to: (A) fear for his or her safety or the safety of others; (B) suffer substantial emotional distress. If you succeed in proving that Facebook tracking causes you substantial emotional distress, and that would be the case for a reasonable person too, you might have a case here.
boudin 8y ago
I wonder if it is possible to licence myself, the same way a software, for example, is licenced. Meaning that any company like facebook monetizing data whithout any agreement between me and them would fall under my licence. I have absolutly no legal knowledge and i have no idea what could be enforced this way. I'm also sure that nothing could be done by one person because of the need to lawyer up to enforce anything... But if it could be possible and would gain enough momentum, I'm thinking it could be quite an interesting thing to do.

chatmasta 8y ago

I really love the simplicity of this argument. If you generate the metadata, you own it, no questions asked.

ajkjk 8y ago
It's a simple principle, but since it makes the world shittier, let's not adopt it.
sperm 8y ago
This would enable a black market for the data, at which point good luck regulating
- timonovici 8y ago
  Are you saying that this doesn't already exist? There are tons of people selling passwords, profiles, credit cards info, social security numbers et cetera. Or are you trying to say that legit companies will begin doing that? Aren't they already doing that too? Facebook and Cambridge Analytica being just one example that we know about.
AlexandrB 8y ago
What does "you generate the metadata" mean? If an app on my phone "generates metadata" I own it under this principle. Likewise for code running on my computer.
- 1ta 8y ago
  Your phone/os generate raw inputs (eg touch events in the format of: posx, posy, pressure). Each app then make use of these raw inputs in its own way. SwiftKey will give you some words. Piano app will pay a sound. And So on. Interpreting and converting these raw inputs into what a user wants, is literally what an app gets paid for.