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>Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook’s Data-Mining Profit Machine?... Probably not. But an anti - "data sharing" law can. A HIPAA like law for personal data wo

>Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook’s Data-Mining Profit Machine?... Probably not. But an anti - "data sharing" law can. A HIPAA like law for personal data would stop, not only FB, but all of these companies in their tracks. Just make it illegal to sell access, in any fashion, to a user's personal data. To get the government on your side, just make it like HIPAA. Law enforcement can still access your data, if they have a warrant, and demonstrate an urgent need. Everyone else is SOL. Any violations should be punished in the same draconian fashion that HIPAA violations are punished. (This will make the business of selling data unprofitable in the extreme.)

citrablue 8y ago
In your opinion, have HIPAA laws been a success? I've worked in 2 roles where I was the part of the technical implementations of compliance... and man, the stories I could tell.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  They have. I made FDA regulated medical imaging software. (Diagnostic and treatment software.) And HIPAA was always front and center with us, as it was with any such business or healthcare delivery organization that wished to continue as a going concern. We have to instill the same urgency on the personal data side, that HIPAA has instilled on the healthcare data side.
- chillacy 8y ago
  Like it was a bureaucratic nightmare or it wasn't properly implemented?
  - citrablue 8y ago
    it was a checkbox in a training ledger that nobody else cared about. People were passing around unencrypted csvs on flash disks, sending them to their gmail accounts via email. Parent company at one place (healthcare provider) couldn't even reconcile how many patients they had each year. (It was under 15k, so we're not talking like millions of patients)
closeparen 8y ago
HIPAA would prevent a doctor from telling a drug company which patients might want its products, but not from recommending drugs to patients according to their symptoms. Facebook's ad-targeting business model is entirely consistent with a HIPAA-style regulation. The data are not for sale; the eyeballs are.

citrablue 8y ago

In your opinion, have HIPAA laws been a success? I've worked in 2 roles where I was the part of the technical implementations of compliance... and man, the stories I could tell.

bilbo0s 8y ago
They have. I made FDA regulated medical imaging software. (Diagnostic and treatment software.) And HIPAA was always front and center with us, as it was with any such business or healthcare delivery organization that wished to continue as a going concern. We have to instill the same urgency on the personal data side, that HIPAA has instilled on the healthcare data side.
chillacy 8y ago
Like it was a bureaucratic nightmare or it wasn't properly implemented?
- citrablue 8y ago
  it was a checkbox in a training ledger that nobody else cared about. People were passing around unencrypted csvs on flash disks, sending them to their gmail accounts via email. Parent company at one place (healthcare provider) couldn't even reconcile how many patients they had each year. (It was under 15k, so we're not talking like millions of patients)

closeparen 8y ago

HIPAA would prevent a doctor from telling a drug company which patients might want its products, but not from recommending drugs to patients according to their symptoms. Facebook's ad-targeting business model is entirely consistent with a HIPAA-style regulation. The data are not for sale; the eyeballs are.