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I 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 reduct

I 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.

bbmario 7y ago
If you value privacy, pay for it.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Privacy was the default. Not a privilege. There is currently a shift towards it being one. That's the problem people are having with these issues.
- godelski 7y ago
  Privacy should be the default. It should continue to be a right.
  - geofft 7y ago
    In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. You have the right to life, but if you get sick, you need to figure out how to pay for it, and if you can't, you might not be able to exercise that right. You have the right to liberty, but if someone infringes your liberty, nobody is going to give you a lawyer for free and you have slim chances of succeeding without representation. (If you are accused, you have the right to an overworked public defender who has little incentive to fight for you, or you can pay for your own lawyer; if you're the accuser there aren't public prosecutors.) You have the right to property, but only what you can afford. You have the right to pursue happiness, but if your happiness requires a college education, let's hope you were born to parents who could afford it. You have the right to marry whoever you like, regardless of gender - as long as you write a check for $30 or so to the appropriate local government office.
    - blub 7y ago
      In a capitalist society that doesn't respect human rights, like the USA this may happen. It also happens in poor societies that can't afford to enforce these rights. But there are countries out there which strive to uphold these rights, no matter if one affords to pay for various services or not.
      - geofft 7y ago
        I wouldn't call those capitalist, I think. Perhaps market socialist.
    - Brain_Thief 7y ago
      This is correct and one of the best high-level descriptions I've read recently of why American-style capitalism's ultimate conclusion is pernicious social rot.
    - peeters 7y ago
      > In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. Right, which is why there are no purely capitalist societies in the world. Every "capitalist" society in the world regulates "free" enterprise in some way to protect that society from the consequences of unbridled capitalism. Edit: Am I wrong? FDA doesn't just say "let the free market decide what risk is acceptable for a drug", or "you can just pay more for food that doesn't have a high chance of making you violent ill". The FAA doesn't just say "oh consumers can decide whether they want to fly on an unproven jet". They recognize that the damage will probably be done long before the free market reacts to it. I don't see how protecting privacy is logically different.
    - godelski 7y ago
      I think very few Americans would agree with you (maybe the far left?). But I lived in the South for awhile and I don't know a single person there than believes certain rights should be inalienable. Even the most hard core libertarians believe in inalienable rights. You should hear what they believe with guns. I'm not trying to get into a capitalism vs socialism debate, but just like there's no "true" socialist there's really no "true" capitalism. In fact I'd doubt the Scottish exist at all. It's always the middle area. But because we live in the middle area, just like with democracy, it is us who decide where we are in that. Not the system itself. The system is what we make of it and how we use or abuse it. I guarantee you that if you talk to almost any American they will agree with you that the system is broken and needs fixing. But as long as we quibble about who's a real Scotsman we can't work together to fix it. TLDR: don't blame the Scottish, they don't even exist.
- blub 7y ago
  Privacy is a human right specified in the ICCPR article 17: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_C... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Ci...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
geofft 7y ago
Privacy becomes worth what the market will bear. If that's unaffordable, that's just because it's valuable. There's all sorts of other premiums on the exercise of your rights in a private context. It's very hard to get a job in information sectors that lets you retain copyright of your creative work, or in general a job that lets you exercise your freedom of speech without potentially risking your job. If you have physical handicaps, it's more expensive to get a house and a car that are accessible (because there are fewer opinions on the market), you can't necessarily use public transit, and your choice of jobs is also quite limited. Medication and treatment for chronic conditions, whether physical or mental, often exceeds what your insurance will pay. Having a child is quite expensive. If someone has wronged you, depending on the issue, getting a lawyer may be very pricy. If we think that the market should not set a price for certain desirable basic things, it seems like the fault is on society for allowing and encouraging the market to do so in general, not on the market participants for taking rational advantage of it in particular cases. Personally, I'm of the opinion that everyone should get privacy for free, but I'm also of the opinion that everyone should get health care for free.
- blub 7y ago
  In societies which enforce human rights, privacy is upheld through laws, not left to the market. Leaving it to the market leads to horror scenarios like the one we have to live through right now: the USA's banana republic privacy laws are hurting all of us.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  > If we think that the market should not set a price for certain desirable basic things, it seems like the fault is on society for allowing and encouraging the market to do so in general, not on the market participants for taking rational advantage of it in particular cases. It can be both.
- peeters 7y ago
  > it seems like the fault is on society for allowing and encouraging the market to do so in general I agree, but there's no underlying constant that humans act rationally or in their own best interest. I don't think the market can protect rights, period. And putting a price on them marginalizes the poor even more.
behringer 7y ago
It won't become unaffordable, it'll just be like cable tv did to commercials. Once they started airing them, they didn't go away, and now you can't get cable without commercials.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
The other side of this is people paying a premium to subsidize other unsafe drivers.
- jkaplowitz 7y ago
  Well, more precisely, people who care about privacy more than price paying a premium to subsidize anyone with the opposite priority. That only loosely correlates with driver safety, especially since a bad claims history has an independent impact on price.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Assuming it only loosely correlates, then the premium difference between a driver opting into tracking will be small compared to those opting out.
rando444 7y ago
I would say this is only tangentially related to the real issue, which is how collected data is used. There is a huge difference between the scenario you describe, where a company is using your data in an attempt to help you improve your life (save money). vs. A company who takes your data and uses it for profit-generating endeavors that you did not willfully consent to.

bbmario 7y ago

If you value privacy, pay for it.

52-6F-62 7y ago
Privacy was the default. Not a privilege. There is currently a shift towards it being one. That's the problem people are having with these issues.
godelski 7y ago
Privacy should be the default. It should continue to be a right.
- geofft 7y ago
  In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. You have the right to life, but if you get sick, you need to figure out how to pay for it, and if you can't, you might not be able to exercise that right. You have the right to liberty, but if someone infringes your liberty, nobody is going to give you a lawyer for free and you have slim chances of succeeding without representation. (If you are accused, you have the right to an overworked public defender who has little incentive to fight for you, or you can pay for your own lawyer; if you're the accuser there aren't public prosecutors.) You have the right to property, but only what you can afford. You have the right to pursue happiness, but if your happiness requires a college education, let's hope you were born to parents who could afford it. You have the right to marry whoever you like, regardless of gender - as long as you write a check for $30 or so to the appropriate local government office.
  - blub 7y ago
    In a capitalist society that doesn't respect human rights, like the USA this may happen. It also happens in poor societies that can't afford to enforce these rights. But there are countries out there which strive to uphold these rights, no matter if one affords to pay for various services or not.
    - geofft 7y ago
      I wouldn't call those capitalist, I think. Perhaps market socialist.
  - Brain_Thief 7y ago
    This is correct and one of the best high-level descriptions I've read recently of why American-style capitalism's ultimate conclusion is pernicious social rot.
  - peeters 7y ago
    > In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. Right, which is why there are no purely capitalist societies in the world. Every "capitalist" society in the world regulates "free" enterprise in some way to protect that society from the consequences of unbridled capitalism. Edit: Am I wrong? FDA doesn't just say "let the free market decide what risk is acceptable for a drug", or "you can just pay more for food that doesn't have a high chance of making you violent ill". The FAA doesn't just say "oh consumers can decide whether they want to fly on an unproven jet". They recognize that the damage will probably be done long before the free market reacts to it. I don't see how protecting privacy is logically different.
  - godelski 7y ago
    I think very few Americans would agree with you (maybe the far left?). But I lived in the South for awhile and I don't know a single person there than believes certain rights should be inalienable. Even the most hard core libertarians believe in inalienable rights. You should hear what they believe with guns. I'm not trying to get into a capitalism vs socialism debate, but just like there's no "true" socialist there's really no "true" capitalism. In fact I'd doubt the Scottish exist at all. It's always the middle area. But because we live in the middle area, just like with democracy, it is us who decide where we are in that. Not the system itself. The system is what we make of it and how we use or abuse it. I guarantee you that if you talk to almost any American they will agree with you that the system is broken and needs fixing. But as long as we quibble about who's a real Scotsman we can't work together to fix it. TLDR: don't blame the Scottish, they don't even exist.
blub 7y ago
Privacy is a human right specified in the ICCPR article 17: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_C... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Ci...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

geofft 7y ago

Privacy becomes worth what the market will bear. If that's unaffordable, that's just because it's valuable. There's all sorts of other premiums on the exercise of your rights in a private context. It's very hard to get a job in information sectors that lets you retain copyright of your creative work, or in general a job that lets you exercise your freedom of speech without potentially risking your job. If you have physical handicaps, it's more expensive to get a house and a car that are accessible (because there are fewer opinions on the market), you can't necessarily use public transit, and your choice of jobs is also quite limited. Medication and treatment for chronic conditions, whether physical or mental, often exceeds what your insurance will pay. Having a child is quite expensive. If someone has wronged you, depending on the issue, getting a lawyer may be very pricy. If we think that the market should not set a price for certain desirable basic things, it seems like the fault is on society for allowing and encouraging the market to do so in general, not on the market participants for taking rational advantage of it in particular cases. Personally, I'm of the opinion that everyone should get privacy for free, but I'm also of the opinion that everyone should get health care for free.

blub 7y ago
In societies which enforce human rights, privacy is upheld through laws, not left to the market. Leaving it to the market leads to horror scenarios like the one we have to live through right now: the USA's banana republic privacy laws are hurting all of us.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> If we think that the market should not set a price for certain desirable basic things, it seems like the fault is on society for allowing and encouraging the market to do so in general, not on the market participants for taking rational advantage of it in particular cases. It can be both.
peeters 7y ago
> it seems like the fault is on society for allowing and encouraging the market to do so in general I agree, but there's no underlying constant that humans act rationally or in their own best interest. I don't think the market can protect rights, period. And putting a price on them marginalizes the poor even more.

behringer 7y ago

It won't become unaffordable, it'll just be like cable tv did to commercials. Once they started airing them, they didn't go away, and now you can't get cable without commercials.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

The other side of this is people paying a premium to subsidize other unsafe drivers.

jkaplowitz 7y ago
Well, more precisely, people who care about privacy more than price paying a premium to subsidize anyone with the opposite priority. That only loosely correlates with driver safety, especially since a bad claims history has an independent impact on price.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Assuming it only loosely correlates, then the premium difference between a driver opting into tracking will be small compared to those opting out.

rando444 7y ago

I would say this is only tangentially related to the real issue, which is how collected data is used. There is a huge difference between the scenario you describe, where a company is using your data in an attempt to help you improve your life (save money). vs. A company who takes your data and uses it for profit-generating endeavors that you did not willfully consent to.