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New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Location Data
- tombert 7y agoStuff like this makes me glad to live in NYC, but it does kind of depress me that it has to come to an explicit law, and moreover even more annoyed that it was ever legal to do that in the first place.
- save_ferris 7y agoTrying to beat/get ahead of regulation is a fairly significant aspect of many businesses. So many startups exist that either outright break laws (Uber, Airbnb) or try to find gray areas that are difficult to enforce from a regulatory standpoint. We don't like to think of businesses as behaving this way, and certainly many don't, but this is feature of capitalism, not a bug.
- frutiger 7y agoYou’re surprised it needs a law but wasn’t illegal already? How could it be illegal without a law?
- tombert 7y agoI said "explicit" law, since I would have hoped it was covered under previous law. Clearly I didn't word this correctly, so I apologize for any confusion.
- raverbashing 7y agoIt might have been as it's an invasion of privacy. Barring that, Civil Law 101
- josephorjoe 7y agoHonestly without laws and regulations capitalist organizations would eventually just straight out rob and/or blackmail people and claim that doing anything less would be unfair to their shareholders. I hate bad and onerous regulations as much as the next person, but I'm always amazed by how ingrained the `regulations == bad` sentiment has become in society. Regulations are the rules that make systems stable. Without them we'd just cycle between abuse and violent revolution...
- wccrawford 7y agoThey're also the rope that strangles innovation and progress. There's a balance to be struck here, and we're always working on finding it. The US seems to tend to come down on the side of "legal until proven it shouldn't be" and the EU seems to lean a little more towards "prevent bad things" than the US. Personally, I prefer the US version, and I'm glad I live in the US.
- kerkeslager 7y ago> They're also the rope that strangles innovation and progress. I'd love to understand why you think allowing people to do bad things is necessary for innovation and progress.
- haasteagle 7y agoI think you're being uncharitable here. He was clearly referring to the effect regulations generally have (reduced innovation). This is generally accepted by most people.
- wccrawford 7y agoBecause in order to prevent all bad things, you need to prevent many good things, too. Those good things are necessary for innovation and progress.
- kerkeslager 7y ago> Because in order to prevent all bad things, you need to prevent many good things, too. That's nonsense. Please explain, for example, how you think making it illegal to sell people's telco data in the 80s when we already knew this was happening would have prevented some good thing. Preventing selling data would have only prevented a few rich sociopaths from getting a bit richer. They knew it was wrong, we knew it was wrong, the only reason it happened (and is still happening) was because people like you refuse to ever allow regulation, and people will likely prevent any regulation that does happen from having any teeth or a broad enough scope, so it will just keep happening. The "innovation" your ideology is incentivizing is just finding new loopholes to crawl through and screw people over. I get it, the concept that regulation might have side effects makes sense if you talk about it only in general terms. But whenever I find myself arguing against this ideology, it's in a specific situation where your ideology is just being used to let sociopaths profit off of amoral behavior. Your ideology makes sense in theory, but over and over again it simply doesn't play out in practice.
- cabaalis 7y agoIANAL but what could be the US-equivalent of a GDPR? A conglomeration of local laws? Federal? Can our government pass a sweeping regulation like GDPR without being unconstitutional? (Meaning, can it be argued that businesses/individuals have a right to enter into the kinds of contracts they create to sell personal data?)
- vonmoltke 7y ago> Can our government pass a sweeping regulation like GDPR without being unconstitutional? Depends on how much will and political support there is for contorting the Commerce Clause to cover it.
- lidHanteyk 7y agoSuch legislation is coming to California next year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...
- driverdan 7y ago> Stuff like this makes me glad to live in NYC This is the same place that has E-ZPass trackers and automated license plate readers all over the city tracking vehicle movement, that has an untold number of CCTV cameras, and corrupt cops that get away with murder. I'm not saying we shouldn't commend them for this, just that there are many other major related issues that should be equally concerning.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoCities don't tend to propose shooting their golden goose in the foot so I hope this is a decently strong signal that the finance industry doesn't make all that much use of this data. Edit: Why is this down-voted so heavily? Too cynical?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- viburnum 7y agoJust ban all ad tech while you’re at it. No one will miss it.
- edf13 7y agoYou will when you see the knock on effect to all consumer good pricing
- aqme28 7y agoWhy would there be any significant added cost to consumer good pricing?
- sailfast 7y agoEverything "free" on the internet could potentially have a reduced revenue stream. People will have to make up the difference somewhere in order to provide these services if they can no longer monetize the data. Users that already pay for these services for this exact reason shouldn't be impacted, but it will impact other services that people consider "free", I would imagine.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> Why would there be any significant added cost to consumer good pricing? Assuming ad tech makes advertising more effective, banning it would make challenging a market incumbent more difficult. You'd need to burn more cash to teach more consumers about your product, a larger fraction of whom would be outside your target market. Granted, ad tech does not always add value. And there is a legitimate question as to the trade-off between privacy and consumer prices. But the tradeoff exists. Reducing the threat of new entrants means incumbents will raise prices.
- sitkack 7y agoThat assumes there is only one way to reach users, ie through internet wide surveillance. This is simply not true. You have a new wakeboard gadget, advertise it on a wakeboard forum or a wakeboard site. I visit EETimes so I can see the ads. An intermediary doesn't need to know me so they can profit from selling my existence and desires to a 3rd party at the drop of a hat.
- gourou 7y ago> giving the right to sue to customers who have had their location data shared without their explicit permission. Are Terms of Service considered explicit?
- save_ferris 7y agoHopefully not, nobody reads the TOS and it's really unreasonable to expect users to. For example, Twitter's TOS clocks in at around 5,000 words, who has time for that? Between the apps for work and the apps I use for fun, it would take me weeks to fully read through all of the TOS for every piece of software I use if I was insane enough to do it.
- rubinelli 7y ago"Nobody reads those" isn't a valid defense. That said, I see a huge problem in adding abusive clauses when you have a monopoly or duopoly in the area. The customer can refuse, but then what? Will they simply not have a phone or Internet?
- jonlucc 7y ago> "Nobody reads those" isn't a valid defense. Why not? Presumably the goal is that consumers understand the agreements they're in. If nobody reads ToS and everyone knows that nobody reads ToS, then they aren't useful communication.
- rat9988 7y agoDepends on the country I guess, but in some it is a very valid defense.
- mondras 7y ago> The language is designed to challenge the vague agreements customers click on when signing up for an app or a cellular service. I guess not.
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y agoIt's wild how common this is, especially on Android, and how little people know about it. Those free apps you enjoy? Many of them make money by shipping with a 3rd party SDK that records your location (among other identifying information), collates it with other identifying information, and feeds it into the massive real time ad-tech system that powers large swaths of the internet.
- eugeniub 7y agoToo bad your location is still sold by your cellular provider even if you delete all those apps.
- gourou 7y ago> AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have pledged to stop selling location data to brokers who may sell the information on the black market. Most of them stopped according to the article.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoWe should of course still outlaw the practice to prevent future data privacy violations.
- AndrewGaspar 7y agoIt's good they're keeping it off the black market, but I suspect many on here are opposed to above the board sales, too.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThose pledges to stop haven't been worth much in the past. https://www.wired.com/story/carriers-sell-location-data-third-parties-privacy/ https://www.wired.com/story/carriers-sell-location-data-thir... > Amid the ensuing customer outrage and mounting congressional scrutiny, the major US carriers promised to stop selling user location data to outside brokers. Which is part of what makes the Motherboard story so troubling: Seven months later, it remains easy and cheap for anyone to buy data about a phone's location without a warrant or any justification at all. All you need is a phone number to target. In Motherboard's case it was a T-Mobile customer, but data brokers claim to be able to provide location information from all the major carriers.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thwythwy 7y agoHow they get free pub for "considering" something. Consideration is for voters. Act or do not act. There is no consideration.
- jetpks 7y agoIt takes time on the order of months and years to build a coalition behind bills. During that time, a bill is considered, amended, and re-considered. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how government works if you think there "is no consideration."
- kingkawn 7y agoThis is a meaningful tactic. Voters and cell providers alike are alerted this is coming down the pipeline. It is a way to gauge voter interest, ie how hard should the politician push for this particular regulation given the returns on support that can be anticipated from public engagement. It also puts the cell providers on notice and incentivizes them to compromise and cooperate to avoid more hostile regulation.
- thatcat 7y agoSeems like in practice this would incentivize providers to lobby the politician considering legislation..
- kurtisc 7y agoThey are voters, it's proposed legislation. Blame editors for using headlines like these.
- tsumnia 7y agoJust let me profit or opt-out of the sale! Some how the mindset/unspoken agreement/TOS-spoken agreement that I have to "pay" with my personal data to use these products has become too commonplace. It doesn't have to be much, but if I were allowed to generate an extra $20 a month that'd be great! I already use Google Rewards, and at this point that's the only "surveys" I get. If I play fantasy futurologist for a second, it would even make for some interesting economics. Underrepresented groups for a particular analysis could pay more, because those groups' data is rarer. A straight, white, male techie is probably a saturated market, so I wouldn't generate much, but a Hispanic woman's could be more valuable.
- AznHisoka 7y agoThe economics of location data is such that if providers had to pay them much per person, they'd no longer buy the data. If they paid the real worth per person, it'd probably come down to 1/2 cent a month.
- DevKoala 7y agoNot true. I work on a targeting product, and if we could have accurate targeting data for a business decision maker, we’d pay significantly more per individual. The problem is that most people’s targeting data is not worth that much. Particularly the data of those who’d want to make a buck off it.
- dehrmann 7y ago> the mindset...that I have to "pay" with my personal data to use these products has become too commonplace I don't mind it so much when it's Facebook because it's clear they have to make money somehow. When it's the phone company that I pay money to, it's more surprising, and it feels like I'm being taken advantage of.
- mrgreenfur 7y agoHow are these different? Even if you already pay for a service they will maximize their return by doing everything that is legally allowed. This needs CCPA-style disclosure and opt out I think.
- rezeroed 7y agoWhen I leave home I turn off all networking. I'll turn it on if I need it, but then turn it off again until I get to work. Same when heading home in the evening.
- UnFleshedOne 7y agoYou will have to be in airplane mode (no cell reception) for this to be meaningful. Even then you probably turned it on enough times in the places you frequent for the data to be solid.
- rezeroed 7y agoI do use airplane mode.
- dang 7y agoStories about bills that haven't passed yet are mostly fluff, because most proposed bills never go anywhere. This is a story about a bill that hasn't even been introduced yet. That makes it an announcement of an announcement, the gold standard of offtopicness. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20announcement%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20an...
- sydney6 7y agoSeeing is believing.
- lostgame 7y agoOh, they'd consider not violating our fundamental privacy? How...'considerate'.