28 ms·

Well, say that I want to know if you are interested in golf. Do you prefer me asking if you can fill in a questionnaire, or should I just pop where you live and

Well, say that I want to know if you are interested in golf. Do you prefer me asking if you can fill in a questionnaire, or should I just pop where you live and take pictures from inside your house? You really don't have to play devil's advocate, one of them is illegal. If a company has no viable way forward, and has to resort to what the rest of us deemed illegal, it should stop existing. Not all companies should survive at any cost, that's not utilitiatian or desirable.

akersten 7y ago
Certainly, spying on someone's domicile is illegal. But it wasn't really the analogy I was going for. I'm going to be purposefully obtuse and set up a contrived hypothetical, but to me it's really more like: you came to my store today, but I saw you at the golf shop yesterday. Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. I happen to also sell golf things and maybe I want to peddle them to you. So I really go all in on my sales pitch and single you out while you're shopping. That's legal in meatspace. What makes "the same thing, but do it on a computer" illegal and unethical? I think it's a real important question for legislators to answer. Is it the scale? The fact that it can be automated? That we're really not actually comfortable with the meatspace example but didn't have a good way to ban it before? Just food for thought. I'm mostly neutral on the GDPR, I appreciate the intention but I think we as a society need to define consistent expectations about privacy.
- buckminster 7y ago
  > Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. If creepy shopkeepers following you round was a thing I suspect it would be illegal already.
  - akersten 7y ago
    That's the precipice of the argument though, right? It's not illegal to observe interactions that you witness, or take notes about customers you saw shopping your competition. You could even hire someone to wander around your competing stores and take lots of notes about the people they saw. "Red shirt guy shopping around for slim fit pants". Unlikely scenario, but legal to do and to use that information. My whole thing is - what makes the scenarios different enough that one is prohibited and one is allowed? Certainly if we told folks they must forget their observations about others upon request, that would face some baseline rebuttal about their own autonomy.
    - earthboundkid 7y ago
      It wasn't necessary to make this behavior illegal before because it was impractical, but now that computers have made mass surveillance practical, it should be illegal.
    - buckminster 7y ago
      The difference is that one is an actual problem and the other isn't. That's it. There isn't some deep legal theory driving lawmaking.
- karoofish 7y ago
  Following me around all over town like you did yesterday is considered stalking in my books.
  - akersten 7y ago
    I was careful to say only that I saw you at the other store rather than implying I followed everywhere, since that's a fair line to draw and I wanted to avoid that particular connotation. But even still, hiring a private investigator is not illegal - it's just observational.
  - judge2020 7y ago
    Google isn't following you, they're just in every store you walk into no matter what. Imagine almost every store in your city installed something facial recognition (a la Amazon Go). This system, given to owners literally for free, was created by one company - Google - and allowed them to automatically see what products most people were looking at, what time they were doing so, and their demographic. As payment, Google also gets this data and is able to use it for their means. Note: i'm just making this analogy. Google Analytics (probably) isn't being used for ad targeting.
- llukas 7y ago
  What you describe is not what actually happens. What actually happens is that your behavior (in store or not) is permanently observed all the time and ads are served whether you want it or not. Imagine if in all shops, always you'd get jumped on by attendant trying to sell you things. And sometimes shop attendant would appear out of the blue. What you're describing you can have today - just convince user to make account in your shop and give you permission to send offers. You can chase him any time you want.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    > Imagine if in all shops, always you'd get jumped on by attendant trying to sell you things. And sometimes shop attendant would appear out of the blue. As opposed to the half of them where it currently happens?
    - llukas 7y ago
      50% better than on internet and they do not have my data.

akersten 7y ago

Certainly, spying on someone's domicile is illegal. But it wasn't really the analogy I was going for. I'm going to be purposefully obtuse and set up a contrived hypothetical, but to me it's really more like: you came to my store today, but I saw you at the golf shop yesterday. Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. I happen to also sell golf things and maybe I want to peddle them to you. So I really go all in on my sales pitch and single you out while you're shopping. That's legal in meatspace. What makes "the same thing, but do it on a computer" illegal and unethical? I think it's a real important question for legislators to answer. Is it the scale? The fact that it can be automated? That we're really not actually comfortable with the meatspace example but didn't have a good way to ban it before? Just food for thought. I'm mostly neutral on the GDPR, I appreciate the intention but I think we as a society need to define consistent expectations about privacy.

buckminster 7y ago
> Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. If creepy shopkeepers following you round was a thing I suspect it would be illegal already.
- akersten 7y ago
  That's the precipice of the argument though, right? It's not illegal to observe interactions that you witness, or take notes about customers you saw shopping your competition. You could even hire someone to wander around your competing stores and take lots of notes about the people they saw. "Red shirt guy shopping around for slim fit pants". Unlikely scenario, but legal to do and to use that information. My whole thing is - what makes the scenarios different enough that one is prohibited and one is allowed? Certainly if we told folks they must forget their observations about others upon request, that would face some baseline rebuttal about their own autonomy.
  - earthboundkid 7y ago
    It wasn't necessary to make this behavior illegal before because it was impractical, but now that computers have made mass surveillance practical, it should be illegal.
  - buckminster 7y ago
    The difference is that one is an actual problem and the other isn't. That's it. There isn't some deep legal theory driving lawmaking.
karoofish 7y ago
Following me around all over town like you did yesterday is considered stalking in my books.
- akersten 7y ago
  I was careful to say only that I saw you at the other store rather than implying I followed everywhere, since that's a fair line to draw and I wanted to avoid that particular connotation. But even still, hiring a private investigator is not illegal - it's just observational.
- judge2020 7y ago
  Google isn't following you, they're just in every store you walk into no matter what. Imagine almost every store in your city installed something facial recognition (a la Amazon Go). This system, given to owners literally for free, was created by one company - Google - and allowed them to automatically see what products most people were looking at, what time they were doing so, and their demographic. As payment, Google also gets this data and is able to use it for their means. Note: i'm just making this analogy. Google Analytics (probably) isn't being used for ad targeting.
llukas 7y ago
What you describe is not what actually happens. What actually happens is that your behavior (in store or not) is permanently observed all the time and ads are served whether you want it or not. Imagine if in all shops, always you'd get jumped on by attendant trying to sell you things. And sometimes shop attendant would appear out of the blue. What you're describing you can have today - just convince user to make account in your shop and give you permission to send offers. You can chase him any time you want.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > Imagine if in all shops, always you'd get jumped on by attendant trying to sell you things. And sometimes shop attendant would appear out of the blue. As opposed to the half of them where it currently happens?
  - llukas 7y ago
    50% better than on internet and they do not have my data.