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"And until lawmakers, corporate leaders and citizens embrace obscurity and move to protect it, your freedom and opportunities to flourish will be in jeopardy."

"And until lawmakers, corporate leaders and citizens embrace obscurity and move to protect it, your freedom and opportunities to flourish will be in jeopardy." True! Look no further than NYT's initiatives to collect and sell their readerbase's emotional engagement to their content.[0] From their very own publisher: "People have little transparency into what is being gathered, where it’s being shared and how it’s being used — to follow their movements, to charge them more for health insurance or to manipulate them with political messages — and even less agency to do anything about it." Mr. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times [1] I don't mean to detract from the essay, but I'm pretty skeptical of NYT's "Privacy Project". NYT is the only publication that I read frequently that aggressively tries to prevent me from browsing in private mode with Firefox Focus and I wouldn't be surprised if they collect and sell the most reader information out of all major US publishers. I can only posit that though because they don't disclose any of that information. NYT's attempts at "data transparency"[1] are just excuses justifying the sale of reader information instead of answers regarding what information they collect, what information they sell, and who they sell this information to. How long until NYT writers start facing pressure to produce stories that will maximize "emotional engagement", even if they're divisive and inflammatory? How long until emotional engagement is inadvertently used to discriminate against certain groups based on their reactions to controversial topics? These outcomes are an inevitability when profit motives are involved because humans are incapable of exercising restraint and saying "That's enough information, we don't need to collect any more or expand our current profit levels." NYT is repeating the same mistakes they're currently criticizing tech companies for and, as usual, the individual will suffer. [0] https://investors.nytco.com/press/press-releases/press-release-details/2018/The-New-York-Times-Advertising--Marketing-Solutions-Group-Introduces-nytDEMO-A-Cross-Functional-Team-Focused-on-Bringing-Insights-and-Data-Solutions-to-Brands/default.aspx https://investors.nytco.com/press/press-releases/press-relea... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-york-times-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-yo...

consumer451 8y ago
Please post this comment on NYT’s site. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html#commentsContainer https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html...
- o10449366 8y ago
  I did submit a variant of the comment (to fit their character requirements), but I don't think it got approved because quite a few new comments have been posted since then. Perhaps they have a particularly long backlog, though; it's only been about two hours so I don't want to jump to any conclusions yet. Edit: Given the large stream of comments that have now been posted on the article I think I can safely conclude mine didn't pass the manual approval process. So much for "welcoming on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise."
joe_the_user 8y ago
Well, About the only way to get actual privacy is: individuals valuing privacy, individuals having the tools to protect their privacy, and states not actively removing those tools (which can mostly be prevented by protest and refusal). This isn't I think this will happen. Every indication is that you won't see individuals caring about privacy. Every day the attitude that there's something insincere about not being online with your real name seems to get more traction, along with the belief that "sharing your life with your friends" can somehow now be compatible with privacy. It's just that individual is about the only way this could happen. Because no institution wants to do more than protect your privacy from everyone else.
- o10449366 8y ago
  I understand your point and I agree that individuals need to value privacy, but I also think it's important to recognize that the average individual on HN is much more technologically literate than most. I would posit that most people do care about their privacy, but that most people aren't aware how exposed they really are. You could make the argument that being aware about what information you're exposing is the threshold for caring about your privacy, but the reality is that it's impossible to cover all of your bases and tech companies, and now NYT, are fully exploiting that to their advantage. The average individual isn't aware of how much specific information is collected when they use a credit card, when they connect to a cellular network, when they open a webpage with trackers, etc. Hell, Mr. Sulzberger in [1] admitted himself that NYT isn't even fully aware of what happens to the reader information they sell and whether it ends up in responsible hands. It's exhausting and impossible to care about privacy today. You can care about privacy today and still end up with all of the same information exposed as someone who couldn't care less. The responsibility doesn't fall on the individual, it falls on the companies that continuously scrape every piece of metadata possible. That's why I can't take NYT's Privacy Project seriously, because in [1] they justify their data collection methods by essentially saying "Well, everyone else is doing it, too! Look at these other publications and companies that also collect data!" instead of taking the opportunity to be transparent and setting a standard. It's disappointing and makes me question the motives behind the project.
  - 8y ago
tedunangst 8y ago
The signup for our newsletter about the erosion of privacy in the middle of the article was a nice touch.
- walterbell 8y ago
  A limited-run newsletter, even. Isn't that called a database?
gubbrora 8y ago
I'd rather hypocrites shit on each other than keep quiet.
matt4077 8y ago
They are not “collecting” emotional reactions. Reading comprehension: they used a training set to predict emotions, and sell ads based solely on content.
playpause 8y ago
The business side of a big news organisation is slow and sprawling, and intentionally separated from the editorial side. It’s a good thing that editorial teams are willing to question and debate the ethics of common business practices even when that means criticising their own respective corp/product/tech departments. Progress has to start somewhere.

consumer451 8y ago

Please post this comment on NYT’s site. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html#commentsContainer https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html...

o10449366 8y ago
I did submit a variant of the comment (to fit their character requirements), but I don't think it got approved because quite a few new comments have been posted since then. Perhaps they have a particularly long backlog, though; it's only been about two hours so I don't want to jump to any conclusions yet. Edit: Given the large stream of comments that have now been posted on the article I think I can safely conclude mine didn't pass the manual approval process. So much for "welcoming on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise."

joe_the_user 8y ago

Well, About the only way to get actual privacy is: individuals valuing privacy, individuals having the tools to protect their privacy, and states not actively removing those tools (which can mostly be prevented by protest and refusal). This isn't I think this will happen. Every indication is that you won't see individuals caring about privacy. Every day the attitude that there's something insincere about not being online with your real name seems to get more traction, along with the belief that "sharing your life with your friends" can somehow now be compatible with privacy. It's just that individual is about the only way this could happen. Because no institution wants to do more than protect your privacy from everyone else.

o10449366 8y ago
I understand your point and I agree that individuals need to value privacy, but I also think it's important to recognize that the average individual on HN is much more technologically literate than most. I would posit that most people do care about their privacy, but that most people aren't aware how exposed they really are. You could make the argument that being aware about what information you're exposing is the threshold for caring about your privacy, but the reality is that it's impossible to cover all of your bases and tech companies, and now NYT, are fully exploiting that to their advantage. The average individual isn't aware of how much specific information is collected when they use a credit card, when they connect to a cellular network, when they open a webpage with trackers, etc. Hell, Mr. Sulzberger in [1] admitted himself that NYT isn't even fully aware of what happens to the reader information they sell and whether it ends up in responsible hands. It's exhausting and impossible to care about privacy today. You can care about privacy today and still end up with all of the same information exposed as someone who couldn't care less. The responsibility doesn't fall on the individual, it falls on the companies that continuously scrape every piece of metadata possible. That's why I can't take NYT's Privacy Project seriously, because in [1] they justify their data collection methods by essentially saying "Well, everyone else is doing it, too! Look at these other publications and companies that also collect data!" instead of taking the opportunity to be transparent and setting a standard. It's disappointing and makes me question the motives behind the project.
- 8y ago

tedunangst 8y ago

The signup for our newsletter about the erosion of privacy in the middle of the article was a nice touch.

walterbell 8y ago
A limited-run newsletter, even. Isn't that called a database?

gubbrora 8y ago

I'd rather hypocrites shit on each other than keep quiet.

matt4077 8y ago

They are not “collecting” emotional reactions. Reading comprehension: they used a training set to predict emotions, and sell ads based solely on content.

playpause 8y ago

The business side of a big news organisation is slow and sprawling, and intentionally separated from the editorial side. It’s a good thing that editorial teams are willing to question and debate the ethics of common business practices even when that means criticising their own respective corp/product/tech departments. Progress has to start somewhere.