8 ms·
Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data
- kylesellas 7y agoThis is honestly frustrating to see whenever massive corporations are responsible for creating a deal in which users will be given away data in order to receive a small compensation. Data, especially personal data should not be a means in which anyone can make any sort of financial compensation from. personal data is stolen every day and used against individuals - and by creating a means in which more people will give you their data, the larger target you have from individuals who are seeking to steal others data.
- benj111 7y agoOn the other hand you could sell them pretty useless data for $10. You only need to make one purchase to get the money. In some ways this seems like an error on Amazons part. They are telling people this data is worth $10, when most people think its worthless. How long before enough people cotton on and these companies start having to pay rates that reflect the actual value of the data.
- nl 7y agoData, especially personal data should not be a means in which anyone can make any sort of financial compensation from. Why? That seems a pretty extreme position.
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoPerhaps there should be law that makes is illegal to resell data that you collect. Almost like a first sale doctrine for user data.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoFirst sale doctrine allows the purchaser to resell their purchase, which is the opposite of what you are suggesting.
- michaelt 7y agoYou can resell a copyrighted book, but you can't make copies and sell those. Presumably kpU8efre7r is thinking of something similar - which would obviously make life hard for companies like Equifax.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kylesellas 7y agoLet me clarify - I think massive companies should not have the ability to sell data, i think data has already taken such a massive role on our lives that it is bound to lead to some major incident.
- sailfast 7y agoThanks for this clarification. My original read on your comment was "an individual should not be able to sell their data" which is clearly well within their rights. I wouldn't do it for $10, but if someone offered me enough to retire on they could probably have it. :)
- electrograv 7y agoYeah, I thought this was a popular idea around here: ”We should have to explicitly opt-in to data collection, and when we do we should be compensated for our data!” Then Amazon actually does it and people are angry? If anything, this is a great move in the right direction for both privacy and fair compensation: It’s opt-in (you’re opted out by default), AND you get monetary compensation! What more could you want? More money? Yeah, but that could actually start to happen if a competitive market of such things grew (though I doubt that will happen so long as it’s legal to collect data without compensation or permission; for that we probably need regulation). Regardless, $10 is far better than the $0 from others who take (and sell) your data without even asking first. IMO the creepy and dangerous privacy violations come from the always-on tracking systems pervasive throughout the web from Google, Facebook, and others. With those, not only are they on by default without your permission, but you can’t opt out, and you receive no compensation!
- jkaplowitz 7y agoGoogle actually does allow significant opting out, including for Google Analytics. I do have problems with their defaults in many of these areas (in my main Google account I have disabled much of the tracking) and also with how certain features (e.g. Google Assistant) tie more of the functionality than necessary to extra permissions with dark pattern nags to grant them all. But the opt-outs are generally there. (Disclosure: I used to work for Google, but I haven't in over 4 years, and I'm not speaking for them here.)
- electrograv 7y agoYou may be right that Google and others technically offer some tracking opt-out capability (mostly because they were required to by GDPR), but it doesn’t seem to work, because I still regularly receive targeted ads (relating to recent web activity): ... Despite having painstakingly turned off every available tracking switch from every service I’ve ever signed up to. ... Despite no longer using any services from Google, Facebook, and many others (except when I must via a link from someone else). ... Despite using privacy oriented browsers with all privacy features turned on. There are so many problems with the current “opt out” model: 1. They do not make it easy to find all these switches. (And it seems intentional, though I can’t prove it.) In addition to there being no global “off” switch, they nest countless switches behind deep hierarchical navigation graphs, where it is extremely difficult for a human to reach every node without missing some. 2. Even when you find the switch, it’s not always clear which choice is the “most off” position, and some switches do not have a “fully off” position. 3. Many switches use extortion to convince you to keep them on: For example, sometimes you’ll be shut entirely out of a service for turning off a tracking switch with dubious explanations as to why they can’t operate the service without it. 4. Many switches will automatically and silently turn back on if you so much as visit the wrong link to their service. Sometimes this happens silently, and sometimes it happens via confusing “dark pattern” prompts. 5. Google isn’t the only one. You have to repeat this whole process for every other service you use (if they even have the switches available). 6. Despite all this, you’ll still be tracked by trackers that don’t need or want you to have an account with them. The last item can perhaps be summed up by the fact that I still get very targeted ads for things I’ve been searching for on DuckDuckGo even despite all these efforts. Clearly trackers are still embedded into various endpoint web pages and are figuring out what I’m doing despite it all. It’s an interesting experiment to try yourself: try to actually not be tracked via a regular or even fairly privacy oriented browser. As far as I can tell, aside from getting into something like Tor, it really can’t be done: If companies can track you, they will. And they can. So they do.
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoAgreed. It's almost like a perfect storm. I feel like many of these issues are worsened by economic conditions in America or poor education. You have people hurting for money who don't realize what they're giving away. Due to this they are vulnerable to being exploited by powerful entities like Amazon. I think this also contributes to a lot of what we see on the web or on mobile. You have multitudes of free apps that suck and sell your data and blast you with ads but they're free. You have multitudes of free online "news" sources that are basically billionaire backed propaganda but they're free. Good sources usually cost money- better to get your news from Facebook. Free wins almost every time. I don't care if people are opting into this, Amazon knows exactly what they're doing. They're benefiting hugely from the uneducated and poor. The thing is I'm not sure there is anything that can be done. It's a symptom of poor education and economic factors.
- peteretep 7y agoI am A-OK with this. I don't want random companies using my data for whatever nefarious purpose they want, silently, without my consent. However, given a price, a user (of the data), and a choice, works for me.
- purduekenny 7y agoA one time $10 off of a $50 purchase by the beginning of August and through that application should be such a low price point we laugh at it.
- peteretep 7y ago> should be such a low price point we laugh at it Let the market decide the price
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y agoAt least they're transparent about it and you're getting paid for your data.
- kylesellas 7y agoThats true but I still think it is ridiculous how loosely data is given
- Permit 7y agoYes, but you should acknowledge that you don't get to make that decision for me.
- kylesellas 7y agoI am not, just shared my perspective on the matter
- r3bl 7y agoJust a casual reminder that a portion of Amazon workers are on a strike during the Prime Days. Support them by not visiting any Amazon property for the next two days. No Amazon purchases, no Audible, no Goodreads, no Twitch. AWS is kinda unavoidable, but the rest is not. We can do without them for two days, and show our support for the workers that are protesting inhumane conditions.
- inetknght 7y ago> AWS is kinda unavoidable, but the rest is not. Even AWS is avoidable. The cloud hosting market is competitive if you'd only look around.
- Zhenya 7y agoI thing op meant that you as a internet traveler can't really avoid websites calling aws (unless you block them with something like pi-hole or no script).
- laumars 7y ago> unless you block them with something like pi-hole or no script Even that wouldn't work if anyone is using custom domain names (which the vast majority of published endpoints will be). The best you can do is black list Amazon owned IPs. But you should expect half the web (figure made up) to break and potentially in unexpected ways). Not to mention plenty of other internet based infra like IoT devices, smart TVs, etc
- bfrydl 7y agoI mean that's all well and good but I can't switch over my company's infrastructure to GCE for the next two days.
- wlesieutre 7y agoSure but good luck not visiting anyone else's website who uses it (and then pays Amazon for serving that to you). Prime-day wise I saw other sites suggesting that you shouldn't avoid shopping there - a warehouse strike can't make its point of orders piling up and not shipping on time if there aren't orders to pile up.
- cameronehrlich 7y agoYou get to choose, and they are actually offering to pay you... I thought this is what we wanted people...
- hyayz 7y agoThey complain when they take your data in exchange for a service. They complain when they pay you money for your data. They just want to complain. Thus their complaints are simply worthless.
- peeters 7y agoOr they just don't think it should be normal for companies to spy on you, regardless of how it's compensated.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoSpying indicates lack of consent, which does not apply here.
- ionised 7y agoAny opinion looks worthless when you deliberately mischaracterise it like this.
- markkanof 7y agoWhat are the parameters around this? Can you install the assistant make your purchase and then uninstall it, or does it have to stay installed for some specified period of time?
- askl 7y agoYes, you can uninstall it after you received your 10$ off. But the average user will probably just leave it installed.
- bostik 7y agoWhat a sneaky wording. > fetches Amazon’s price for products that users see on Walmart.com, Target.com and elsewhere. To me that reads: "we will turn your computer to a node in our scraping botnet". I would guess the internal documents they have will refer to this as market research, but the fact remains that this sounds like a botnet under construction.
- user17843 7y agoIt doesn't sound like scraping. What they do is they fetch the prices for their own products when the users browses a competitor. The prices of their competitors' products are already in the open, they won't need them. What they need is the browsing history of their customers in order for whaterver they want to better understand about the shopping process.
- zwaps 7y agoI think it is a step forward to pay users for data. Of course, amazon still collects everything it can anyway, for free. But in principle, this is good. But two things. 1. What is the correct price? Amazon is doing this to better discriminate customers on offerings, price and quality. It's essentially the sophisticated version of what econ 101 calls "siphoning off the consumer surplus by price discrimination". At this stage, it is highly doubtful that the fixed 10 bucks actually represents the true value that the consumer's data. 2. Externalities. Especially considering that amazon can classify you by other means, people that are like you getting these 10 bucks means that amazon increases its discriminatory power toward you - whether you have gotten the money or not. This is a negative externality - one that the market simply can not solve because we fundamentally lack information and this behavior essentially induces a prisoners dilemma among consumers. Amazon is going to know everything anyway, so I might as well take the 10 bucks.
- peeters 7y agoI don't find it a step forward at all. It's a move toward pricing out the privacy-conscious. Right now, auto insurers in Canada will give you a premium reduction if you let them spy on you as you drive. But what happens when that becomes the norm? People end up paying a premium to not be spied on. Eventually privacy becomes unaffordable.
- ourmandave 7y agoThis go around, "Hey, it's not like it's a total body scan." Next year, "I did a total body scan at the Amazon Outlet and Care Center and got a free year of Amazon Prime." Next next year, "The Amazon chip implant was totally painless and I got an account credit of 100 Bezos Bucks." Next decade, "Alabama is the only state I'm not allowed to marry Alexa."
- gourou 7y ago> The deal is for new installations of the Amazon Assistant, a comparison-shopping tool that customers can add to their web browsers. It fetches Amazon’s price for products that users see on Walmart.com, Target.com and elsewhere. Shoptimate extension has been doing that for 9 years without selling your data. http://www.shoptimate.fr/about/privacy/ http://www.shoptimate.fr/about/privacy/
- TorKlingberg 7y agoI still question the idea that "peoples data" is very valuable. I think Amazon is paying $10 for the opportunity to pop up "Hey, buy this on Amazon instead!" ads when you browse other sites.
- ryanmercer 7y agoSounds like a deal for me "he visits us, reddit - where he uses his real name, hacker news -where he uses his real name and YouTube where he uses his real name, he's incredibly boring"
- rolltiide 7y agoWhat is missing, compared to other platforms, is that there is no revocable consent to prevent and deter third parties from using the collected data in this transaction, no dynamic market based pricing of your data, and no immutable record of the revoked consent or violation on the revoked consent would love to see Amazon push toward those goals
- tsumnia 7y agoSince this is causing such an uproar over privacy, instead I'd like to pose some ethical questions: - Would you be willing to receive a basic living wage for sharing your information? - Do you think some people's information is valued at more or less than your own and why? - Would you be willing to receive payment for sharing your information that is valued at what the market dictates? Why? - Based on the previous question, does your opinion change if the payment was enough to be a living wage (though still varying based on market demands)?
- ggg3 7y agoprime-day-boycott: the day all tech companies realized amazon had them in their pockets with AWS the day everyone woke up and realize the lies of multi-cloud. Everyone's architecture is naked, and tied to one particular provider. if you can't flip a button and serve from other provider for the strike, you will also not be able to change when aws crashes, get slow or too expensive. Or what is more likely, slow unless you pay the aws-prime subscription ;)