5 ms·

Part of the problem I think is that these people don't actually comprehend what is happening and the possible consequences. To them it's just a magic black box.

fingerlocks 7y ago
Maybe I’m one of these people. What exactly are the consequences? So far, the most damaging consequence of overreaching customer privacy is the famous teenage pregnancy leak when Target sent out coupon mailers to expecting moms based on shopping history. That’s a really weirdly specific issue, and hard to imaging a similar scenario that would affect my life in some equally horrible way. Am I missing something? Why should I be so afraid of Home Depot or whatever knowing a little bit about me?
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  It's not that you should necessarily be afraid of it but rather that you should be more aware of it. Advertising is now weaponized to the point that companies can take advantage of people through psychological tricks to get them to disadvantage themselves just to make a sale. Imagine the housing crisis amped up to an order of magnitude. Transactions, theoretically, should be based on good faith from both parties. If a business has far more insight into you than you have into them, though, then nearly every transaction has the potential to be predatory.
- LamaOfRuin 7y ago
  As a more serious and well-known concrete threat, this type of data is regularly aggregated by data brokers, and then used by stalkers and domestic abusers to commit crimes. I imagine it being available and cheaply for sale is also a boon for various financial crimes/fraud. It's not home depot specifically to be worried about knowing a little about you, but about them not being competent to control that data and everyone's little bit becoming a lot more significant and dangerous when combined. edit: Also, the same type of information can easily be used later by government. I imagine if Uyghurs were not being specifically targeted by the Chinese government for cultural extermination there would be little trouble in their cultural identity being discernible from certain purchasing profiles. Once they are rounded up into camps, the last 15 years of detailed surveillance about them becomes very troublesome for them.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Never heard of them selling to individuals but it wouldn't surprise me if they do. At the very least a record should be kept of who they sold the data to in case it is used for a purpose like stalking someone.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  My wife got a box of Enfamil Fedexed to our door as a promotion on what would have been the due date of our baby. Unfortunately, she miscarried at 3 months. They knew this because marketers get near real-time access to prescriptions, hospital admissions and other things. You should care because your information will be sold or traded, and behaviors can be correlated against medical and other outcomes. Are you a divorced dad who has moved within 90 days and play daily fantasy sports? I can buy a list that will find you for $250. You are a risk for opioid addiction and may get denied service in the future for medical issues. Or you may attract advertising tailored to get you to gamble or drink more, when you are at your most vulnerable.
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    If what you are saying is true (I'm genuinely asking), that sounds like behavior that should absolutely be made illegal and severely punished. I try to maintain a "lite" internet footprint (no facebook, only social media is LinkedIn, I use a VPN when I can) ... it's a little disturbing to think that someone can just purchase my buying history and use it as, essentially, an attack vector to serve me ads or gaslight me into buying stuff I don't really want or need. Am I'm being naive?
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      Yes, you are. The events surrounding what happened to my wife was very painful (an ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed her), and a thoughtless reminder was very unwelcome. I still feel violated and betrayed. In our case, I found out the marketing list from Enfamil and bought it for my zip code. I complained to the hospitals’ privacy officer and the state regulator and found that everything was legal. There is a lot of data on the topic... Prescriptions: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/medical-data-multibillion-dollar-business-report-warns https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/medical-d... Linkage to lifestyle data: https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/18/health-insurers-personal-details-raise-rates/ https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/18/health-insurers-personal... In our case, the hospital pharmacy issued drugs to her indicative of a pregnancy. The pharmacy or insurer provides that information in real time to data brokers. The pharmaceutical companies assign quotas and send salespeople for certain drugs. There are other ways for data to get out that we’re not certain of. Perhaps the insurer “anonymizes” and sells subrogation information. Or the lab. In any case, they knew that my wife was admitted to an OB floor of a hospital, but didn’t know the outcome. It’s not going away. The US government uses these same techniques with companies like Google to combat extremism or terrorist conversions — they actually use factors like this to target potential recruits with counter-information via ads.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jsemrau 7y ago
  I work in credit scoring and you should be afraid of what you will not be eligible / priced systematically for in the future. What will employers find when they use this for background checks? If you regularly buy alcohol a drinks_alcohol flag could be set or a health_indicator could increase.
  - peteretep 7y ago
    This feels like it should be better dealt with via legislation. Already sounds like health data, which is legislated to high-heaven in the US, and also sounds like the juiciest ever GDPR suit waiting to happen in the EU.
    - jsemrau 7y ago
      Well the example was now around health data, but you can easily make up other more innocuous examples that will discriminate enough to give you a disadvantage.
      - peteretep 7y ago
        But the more innocuous, the less I care...
    - prirun 7y ago
      Health data may be legislated to high heaven, but it's easy to get around: they can give it to "partners", in other words, anyone they want.
  - ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
    I feel like this could also be used in the hiring process to discriminate against women who are pregnant or are trying for a baby
dpkonofa 7y ago
This is, in general, the problem with America and other countries, in my opinion. Technical literacy is extremely low for the level of technical sophistication present in everyone's everyday life. I know it's not great in other countries but I think America has it worse in a lot of ways because our society encourages companies to take advantage of people in every way imaginable and lawmakers are possibly even less tech savvy than the majority of the population. People don't actually understand the consequences of their actions (agreeing to ToS, giving Facebook their data, using Amazon Echo/Google Home, etc.) and so they can't actually make an informed decision. The EU, at the very least, has attempted to make this conversation more public through the GDPR, but America is too self-involved to even consider educating the populace.
- social_quotient 7y ago
  Agreed. I feel like if I had to classify the issue “technical literacy” would be the root problem and solution.
lstroud 7y ago
Is there a concise, well written, summary of the types of things that are likely to happen to folks because of data collection? Would be nice to have something to give people that don’t understand.

fingerlocks 7y ago

Maybe I’m one of these people. What exactly are the consequences? So far, the most damaging consequence of overreaching customer privacy is the famous teenage pregnancy leak when Target sent out coupon mailers to expecting moms based on shopping history. That’s a really weirdly specific issue, and hard to imaging a similar scenario that would affect my life in some equally horrible way. Am I missing something? Why should I be so afraid of Home Depot or whatever knowing a little bit about me?

dpkonofa 7y ago
It's not that you should necessarily be afraid of it but rather that you should be more aware of it. Advertising is now weaponized to the point that companies can take advantage of people through psychological tricks to get them to disadvantage themselves just to make a sale. Imagine the housing crisis amped up to an order of magnitude. Transactions, theoretically, should be based on good faith from both parties. If a business has far more insight into you than you have into them, though, then nearly every transaction has the potential to be predatory.
LamaOfRuin 7y ago
As a more serious and well-known concrete threat, this type of data is regularly aggregated by data brokers, and then used by stalkers and domestic abusers to commit crimes. I imagine it being available and cheaply for sale is also a boon for various financial crimes/fraud. It's not home depot specifically to be worried about knowing a little about you, but about them not being competent to control that data and everyone's little bit becoming a lot more significant and dangerous when combined. edit: Also, the same type of information can easily be used later by government. I imagine if Uyghurs were not being specifically targeted by the Chinese government for cultural extermination there would be little trouble in their cultural identity being discernible from certain purchasing profiles. Once they are rounded up into camps, the last 15 years of detailed surveillance about them becomes very troublesome for them.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Never heard of them selling to individuals but it wouldn't surprise me if they do. At the very least a record should be kept of who they sold the data to in case it is used for a purpose like stalking someone.
Spooky23 7y ago
My wife got a box of Enfamil Fedexed to our door as a promotion on what would have been the due date of our baby. Unfortunately, she miscarried at 3 months. They knew this because marketers get near real-time access to prescriptions, hospital admissions and other things. You should care because your information will be sold or traded, and behaviors can be correlated against medical and other outcomes. Are you a divorced dad who has moved within 90 days and play daily fantasy sports? I can buy a list that will find you for $250. You are a risk for opioid addiction and may get denied service in the future for medical issues. Or you may attract advertising tailored to get you to gamble or drink more, when you are at your most vulnerable.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  If what you are saying is true (I'm genuinely asking), that sounds like behavior that should absolutely be made illegal and severely punished. I try to maintain a "lite" internet footprint (no facebook, only social media is LinkedIn, I use a VPN when I can) ... it's a little disturbing to think that someone can just purchase my buying history and use it as, essentially, an attack vector to serve me ads or gaslight me into buying stuff I don't really want or need. Am I'm being naive?
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Yes, you are. The events surrounding what happened to my wife was very painful (an ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed her), and a thoughtless reminder was very unwelcome. I still feel violated and betrayed. In our case, I found out the marketing list from Enfamil and bought it for my zip code. I complained to the hospitals’ privacy officer and the state regulator and found that everything was legal. There is a lot of data on the topic... Prescriptions: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/medical-data-multibillion-dollar-business-report-warns https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/medical-d... Linkage to lifestyle data: https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/18/health-insurers-personal-details-raise-rates/ https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/18/health-insurers-personal... In our case, the hospital pharmacy issued drugs to her indicative of a pregnancy. The pharmacy or insurer provides that information in real time to data brokers. The pharmaceutical companies assign quotas and send salespeople for certain drugs. There are other ways for data to get out that we’re not certain of. Perhaps the insurer “anonymizes” and sells subrogation information. Or the lab. In any case, they knew that my wife was admitted to an OB floor of a hospital, but didn’t know the outcome. It’s not going away. The US government uses these same techniques with companies like Google to combat extremism or terrorist conversions — they actually use factors like this to target potential recruits with counter-information via ads.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jsemrau 7y ago
I work in credit scoring and you should be afraid of what you will not be eligible / priced systematically for in the future. What will employers find when they use this for background checks? If you regularly buy alcohol a drinks_alcohol flag could be set or a health_indicator could increase.
- peteretep 7y ago
  This feels like it should be better dealt with via legislation. Already sounds like health data, which is legislated to high-heaven in the US, and also sounds like the juiciest ever GDPR suit waiting to happen in the EU.
  - jsemrau 7y ago
    Well the example was now around health data, but you can easily make up other more innocuous examples that will discriminate enough to give you a disadvantage.
    - peteretep 7y ago
      But the more innocuous, the less I care...
  - prirun 7y ago
    Health data may be legislated to high heaven, but it's easy to get around: they can give it to "partners", in other words, anyone they want.
- ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
  I feel like this could also be used in the hiring process to discriminate against women who are pregnant or are trying for a baby

dpkonofa 7y ago

This is, in general, the problem with America and other countries, in my opinion. Technical literacy is extremely low for the level of technical sophistication present in everyone's everyday life. I know it's not great in other countries but I think America has it worse in a lot of ways because our society encourages companies to take advantage of people in every way imaginable and lawmakers are possibly even less tech savvy than the majority of the population. People don't actually understand the consequences of their actions (agreeing to ToS, giving Facebook their data, using Amazon Echo/Google Home, etc.) and so they can't actually make an informed decision. The EU, at the very least, has attempted to make this conversation more public through the GDPR, but America is too self-involved to even consider educating the populace.

social_quotient 7y ago
Agreed. I feel like if I had to classify the issue “technical literacy” would be the root problem and solution.

lstroud 7y ago

Is there a concise, well written, summary of the types of things that are likely to happen to folks because of data collection? Would be nice to have something to give people that don’t understand.