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There's no conflict. necessarily there needs to be a way for that business to confirm your identity and link you to that data Why would linking you to that da

There's no conflict. necessarily there needs to be a way for that business to confirm your identity and link you to that data Why would linking you to that data require confirming your identity? My password links my HN account to me and me alone, while revealing nothing about my identity. There's no conflicting views. They're two, completely compatible aspects of the same view. One is how much or how little data each service gets about you. The other is how much control you have over what those services do with the data they do get. That's why technical and legislative solutions work in tandem, reducing the former (amount of data) and increasing the latter (control over data). That's also why technical solutions are preferable: there's no need to legislate control over data that services are unable to collect about you in the first place.

danShumway 7y ago
This works because you're the person who uploaded the data, and because you have a shared secret with Hackernews: in other words, an identity and a link between that identity and the data. Let's say someone else uploads a photo of my face to an image sharing site. Is there a way for me to prove to that site that the face belongs to me without sharing additional information? This principle also applies in the opposite direction. Let's say a third-party noncommercial site uploads a photo of my face and makes it publicly fixing. In order to demand they remove the photo, I need to be able to link that website to an owner. It's not that the systems can never be combined. It's that following either system in the absolute results in conflicts with the other.
- laughinghan 7y ago
  My shared secret with HN, my password, is an identity? I don't think you'll find a lot of people who agree with that definition of the word. As for the use of photos of me that are owned by other people, I'm pretty certain that neither CCPA nor GDPR cover those. The EU might have some relevant privacy laws, but they're not relevant to the "dichotomy" you brought up, because no one expects to be unidentifiable in a photo in which their face is identifiably visible.
  - danans 7y ago
    No. But in the HN context, your user id is. If HN decided one day to monetize the site by showing you ads based on your posts, the kind of discussions you frequent, or your location, then it's a profile of personal info.
    - laughinghan 7y ago
      I am 100% okay with HN doing whatsoever they'd like with posts I've made that I haven't deleted. I know they have them. I personally wrote them here with my own two hands. I am 100% not okay with HN doing anything at all with my location information. Why would they have that information in the first place? Why would they keep it? The discussions I frequent are more of a gray area; I favor Maciej Ceglowski's Six Fixes a lot: https://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm https://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm But all of this is irrelevant to the thread you're replying to, because my user id is anonymous.
      - danans 7y ago
        > Why would they have that information in the first place? IP based geolocalization? > But all of this is irrelevant to the thread you're replying to, because my user id is anonymous. Just because your hacker news user id is anonymous doesn't mean your account can't have an ad targeting profile built based on it if HN decided. They are sort of independent, and most sites don't care so much about who you actually are, but rather that you can be shown relevant ads. > I favor Maciej Ceglowski's Six Fixes a lot Those are very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
        laughinghan 7y ago
        To clarify, I happen to be technically sophisticated enough to know that yes, unless I use a VPN, websites can guess what city I'm in based on my IP. But I'm saying rhetorically, as someone surfing the Web, it doesn't feel like part of my contract with HN that they know my location. Everyone knows no one reads terms of service, but even if people did, they don't generally specify location, just that they collect "information about your visit". Or they might mention that they collect your IP, but most people don't know what an IP address it is, much less have an intuition for how specific of location information it reveals (some probably think you can backtrace the IP and send the cyberpolice after them). That's why ad targeting profiles shouldn't be built on that kind of incidentally-provided behavioral data. As per the Six Fixes, ads should only be targeted to the content of the page I'm looking at, just like a dead-tree newspaper. Note that this can be achieved either technically, i.e. anonymous browsing, or legally, e.g. requiring my permission to track me to build an ad targeting profile. That's not a conflict, that's anonymity and control over data about me as two sides of the same coin. Btw I highly recommended Maciej Ceglowski's other works, e.g. https://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm

danShumway 7y ago

This works because you're the person who uploaded the data, and because you have a shared secret with Hackernews: in other words, an identity and a link between that identity and the data. Let's say someone else uploads a photo of my face to an image sharing site. Is there a way for me to prove to that site that the face belongs to me without sharing additional information? This principle also applies in the opposite direction. Let's say a third-party noncommercial site uploads a photo of my face and makes it publicly fixing. In order to demand they remove the photo, I need to be able to link that website to an owner. It's not that the systems can never be combined. It's that following either system in the absolute results in conflicts with the other.

laughinghan 7y ago
My shared secret with HN, my password, is an identity? I don't think you'll find a lot of people who agree with that definition of the word. As for the use of photos of me that are owned by other people, I'm pretty certain that neither CCPA nor GDPR cover those. The EU might have some relevant privacy laws, but they're not relevant to the "dichotomy" you brought up, because no one expects to be unidentifiable in a photo in which their face is identifiably visible.
- danans 7y ago
  No. But in the HN context, your user id is. If HN decided one day to monetize the site by showing you ads based on your posts, the kind of discussions you frequent, or your location, then it's a profile of personal info.
  - laughinghan 7y ago
    I am 100% okay with HN doing whatsoever they'd like with posts I've made that I haven't deleted. I know they have them. I personally wrote them here with my own two hands. I am 100% not okay with HN doing anything at all with my location information. Why would they have that information in the first place? Why would they keep it? The discussions I frequent are more of a gray area; I favor Maciej Ceglowski's Six Fixes a lot: https://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm https://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm But all of this is irrelevant to the thread you're replying to, because my user id is anonymous.
    - danans 7y ago
      > Why would they have that information in the first place? IP based geolocalization? > But all of this is irrelevant to the thread you're replying to, because my user id is anonymous. Just because your hacker news user id is anonymous doesn't mean your account can't have an ad targeting profile built based on it if HN decided. They are sort of independent, and most sites don't care so much about who you actually are, but rather that you can be shown relevant ads. > I favor Maciej Ceglowski's Six Fixes a lot Those are very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
      - laughinghan 7y ago
        To clarify, I happen to be technically sophisticated enough to know that yes, unless I use a VPN, websites can guess what city I'm in based on my IP. But I'm saying rhetorically, as someone surfing the Web, it doesn't feel like part of my contract with HN that they know my location. Everyone knows no one reads terms of service, but even if people did, they don't generally specify location, just that they collect "information about your visit". Or they might mention that they collect your IP, but most people don't know what an IP address it is, much less have an intuition for how specific of location information it reveals (some probably think you can backtrace the IP and send the cyberpolice after them). That's why ad targeting profiles shouldn't be built on that kind of incidentally-provided behavioral data. As per the Six Fixes, ads should only be targeted to the content of the page I'm looking at, just like a dead-tree newspaper. Note that this can be achieved either technically, i.e. anonymous browsing, or legally, e.g. requiring my permission to track me to build an ad targeting profile. That's not a conflict, that's anonymity and control over data about me as two sides of the same coin. Btw I highly recommended Maciej Ceglowski's other works, e.g. https://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm