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> "Something" doesn't mean "anything". You can't offer your services in exchange for e.g. my body parts. Why are we willing to ban that but not our data? Becau

by d1zzy 7y ago

> "Something" doesn't mean "anything". You can't offer your services in exchange for e.g. my body parts. Why are we willing to ban that but not our data? Because if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so while a much smaller percentage thinks it's OK to sell their organs for that?

rpastuszak 7y ago
I think you’re missing the point. At least I know where my data is. Have you ever read a GDPR popup partner list? Do the people you mention understand how gmail business model works?
- buboard 7y ago
  "Have you ever read a BGP table"? Arguing that there are too many people in ad exchanges is a very weak argument. This is the internet, which enables global scale exchanges of all kinds of things. GDPR is a law designed for the 1800s
- afiori 7y ago
  The partner list is not there for informing users, it is there for accountability in case the decide to silently add new partners.
100100010001 7y ago
This is your opinion, unless you actually did a survey of violating a citizens privacy by big tech. Have you?
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Presumably you have? Do share!
  - 100100010001 7y ago
    No need! I’m not presenting a hypothetical survey’s results without evidence. The person I was responding to is, unless they actually have such a survey. I asked for it and no one answered. Therefore, until there is a time with supporting evidence, we can’t even qualify the opinion as a theory, let alone a fact.
hrjriei9 7y ago
The large majority have long held it ok to bomb other nations, persecute pot, ostracize others for sexual preference... basically a piss poor yard stick for what’s ok given how emotionally coopted they can be into believing nonsense. Like how fetishizing the needs of the business class is of the utmost importance to maintaining cohesive social structure.
SXX 7y ago
General population is simply not aware of how much surveillance is involved and how much of their private information said companies collect, use or sell to 3rd parties. Many are happy to get "free" service in exchange for "some data", but most people people would be very much against someone data mining their health or pregnancy status, using some sophisticated algorithm to selling something harmful to their kids or messing with their mood when they're in depression to maximize profits. Most people don't understand the risks and how badly mass surveillance done by Google / Facebook / etc can be abused. So akin to situation with tobacco industry someone have to educate them about this.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  > Most people don't understand the risks and how badly mass surveillance done by Google / Facebook / etc can be abused. This is totally dodging the issue. Would they pay instead of allowing that collection? Given the choice of "pay for this service", "stop using this service", "give up your data", even with a full understanding of the risks and the extent of this data, the general public has shown time and time again they will take the last option. People do not like to pay for things. I see way too many arguments about privacy that doesn't seem to grasp that the core of today's tech industry is built around this fact. People will pay 5$ for 50 cents of coffee beans and enough sugar to drown a fly a day, but they will never pay 5$ a month to access nearly the entirety of mankind's collective knowledge at their fingertips in milliseconds in the form of a search index spending millions of dollars a year to index it all.
  - csande17 7y ago
    > People will pay 5$ for 50 cents of coffee beans and enough sugar to drown a fly a day, but they will never pay 5$ a month to access nearly the entirety of mankind's collective knowledge at their fingertips in milliseconds I pay a lot more than $5/month for Internet service.
    - ianmcgowan 7y ago
      Would you pay $5 on top of that ISP charge to Google, so that your search experience is ad-free? Would you pay $5 for fastmail.com's standard plan over gmail?
kmonsen 7y ago
This is a strawman, you can still monetize without detailed user information, even still with ads.
dao- 7y ago
> Because if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so How is this an argument against the law? It doesn't make it illegal to share data but requires that users can opt out. If said large majority is fine with surveillance, I guess Silicon Valley can relax.
- umvi 7y ago
  He's saying being able to "opt out" is absurd. It's equivalent to getting the product for free in most cases. "Hey, I want to use your free service but I want to go ahead and opt out of the part that enables it to be free" You don't see a problem with that? It would be like if there were a restaurant that gave free food in exchange for filling out surveys (data collection). So you eat the free meal and then "opt out" of doing the survey.
  - dao- 7y ago
    The idea that free is only possible by trading data is absurd. E.g. Google search and maps can provide sponsored results without knowing everything about you. News sites can have ads related to their content and general target audience.
  - abacadaba 7y ago
    > You don't see a problem with that? in this case, NOPE
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Opt out is a problem anyway, GDPR is better in that it requires information up front, opt in.
pgcj_poster 7y ago
I strongly suspect that if you asked people 50 years ago whether it was ok for companies to eg. track everywhere most people go, I think the vast majority would have said no. Google et al. just started spying on everyone without any serious debate over whether it was right. Then once people caught on, they either had to stop caring about privacy, or they had be Richard Stallman and eschew pretty much all mainstream computing technology. If someone went back in time to tell people that this new internet thing was going to lead to the US having more surveillance than East Germany or the Soviet Union, there would have been laws passed and systems designed from the start to prevent it from happening. The fact that it didn't happen this way, and our culture's privacy norms have been destroyed as a consequence, is more reason to act to prevent further damage, not a reason to just give up.
- cft 7y ago
  I understand the requirements to clearly disclose, so that a user can make an informed decision, but deciding for the user is hubris.
- darawk 7y ago
  > I strongly suspect that if you asked people 50 years ago whether it was ok for companies to eg. track everywhere most people go, I think the vast majority would have said no. Google et al. just started spying on everyone without any serious debate over whether it was right. Then once people caught on, they either had to stop caring about privacy, or they had be Richard Stallman and eschew pretty much all mainstream computing technology. Sure, but if you had phrased the question more fairly and said "Should it be ok for a company to give you free services in exchange for tracking everywhere you go?" I think almost everyone would have said yes. > If someone went back in time to tell people that this new internet thing was going to lead to the US having more surveillance than East Germany or the Soviet Union, there would have been laws passed and systems designed from the start to prevent it from happening. The fact that it didn't happen this way, and our culture's privacy norms have been destroyed as a consequence, is more reason to act to prevent further damage, not a reason to just give up. My intuition here is the same as yours. That this is a bad thing. That privacy matters in an intrinsic sense, not an operational sense. But i'm not so sure that's really true anymore. The privacy ship has sailed off into the sunset for a while now, and at least to me, the harms don't seem that substantial. All that data is mostly used to give me ads that are more targeted to what I might want to see anyway. There certainly could be lurking latent risks about, but it's a little hard to see exactly what they are.
jlarocco 7y ago
> Because if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so That's nonsense. Nobody can make an informed decision because nobody knows exactly what data Google collects or exactly how it's used. And unless you've actually run a survey you can't even speculate about whether people are okay with it or not. If your claim was true, why would this law even exist? You're okay with it, but privacy is a highly personal issue.
playpause 7y ago
> if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so This is simply not true. When informed about it, a clear majority of people would prefer not to be surveilled, and are uncomfortable with unknown third parties having profiles on them, ads following them around the internet, etc. The fact that these people continue to use these services anyway (even after being informed) is not a sign that they are 'fine' with it. It is because they have no choice. Even as an engineer, I've found it unfeasibly difficult to avoid being surveilled while continuing to live a normal life. For most people it's a non-starter. They have no choice. Freedom to choose is essential to a free market. Regulation, done well, can increase market freedom.

by d1zzy 7y ago

rpastuszak 7y ago

I think you’re missing the point. At least I know where my data is. Have you ever read a GDPR popup partner list? Do the people you mention understand how gmail business model works?

buboard 7y ago
"Have you ever read a BGP table"? Arguing that there are too many people in ad exchanges is a very weak argument. This is the internet, which enables global scale exchanges of all kinds of things. GDPR is a law designed for the 1800s
afiori 7y ago
The partner list is not there for informing users, it is there for accountability in case the decide to silently add new partners.

100100010001 7y ago

This is your opinion, unless you actually did a survey of violating a citizens privacy by big tech. Have you?

rootusrootus 7y ago
Presumably you have? Do share!
- 100100010001 7y ago
  No need! I’m not presenting a hypothetical survey’s results without evidence. The person I was responding to is, unless they actually have such a survey. I asked for it and no one answered. Therefore, until there is a time with supporting evidence, we can’t even qualify the opinion as a theory, let alone a fact.

hrjriei9 7y ago

The large majority have long held it ok to bomb other nations, persecute pot, ostracize others for sexual preference... basically a piss poor yard stick for what’s ok given how emotionally coopted they can be into believing nonsense. Like how fetishizing the needs of the business class is of the utmost importance to maintaining cohesive social structure.

SXX 7y ago

General population is simply not aware of how much surveillance is involved and how much of their private information said companies collect, use or sell to 3rd parties. Many are happy to get "free" service in exchange for "some data", but most people people would be very much against someone data mining their health or pregnancy status, using some sophisticated algorithm to selling something harmful to their kids or messing with their mood when they're in depression to maximize profits. Most people don't understand the risks and how badly mass surveillance done by Google / Facebook / etc can be abused. So akin to situation with tobacco industry someone have to educate them about this.

BoorishBears 7y ago
> Most people don't understand the risks and how badly mass surveillance done by Google / Facebook / etc can be abused. This is totally dodging the issue. Would they pay instead of allowing that collection? Given the choice of "pay for this service", "stop using this service", "give up your data", even with a full understanding of the risks and the extent of this data, the general public has shown time and time again they will take the last option. People do not like to pay for things. I see way too many arguments about privacy that doesn't seem to grasp that the core of today's tech industry is built around this fact. People will pay 5$ for 50 cents of coffee beans and enough sugar to drown a fly a day, but they will never pay 5$ a month to access nearly the entirety of mankind's collective knowledge at their fingertips in milliseconds in the form of a search index spending millions of dollars a year to index it all.
- csande17 7y ago
  > People will pay 5$ for 50 cents of coffee beans and enough sugar to drown a fly a day, but they will never pay 5$ a month to access nearly the entirety of mankind's collective knowledge at their fingertips in milliseconds I pay a lot more than $5/month for Internet service.
  - ianmcgowan 7y ago
    Would you pay $5 on top of that ISP charge to Google, so that your search experience is ad-free? Would you pay $5 for fastmail.com's standard plan over gmail?

kmonsen 7y ago

This is a strawman, you can still monetize without detailed user information, even still with ads.

dao- 7y ago

> Because if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so How is this an argument against the law? It doesn't make it illegal to share data but requires that users can opt out. If said large majority is fine with surveillance, I guess Silicon Valley can relax.

umvi 7y ago
He's saying being able to "opt out" is absurd. It's equivalent to getting the product for free in most cases. "Hey, I want to use your free service but I want to go ahead and opt out of the part that enables it to be free" You don't see a problem with that? It would be like if there were a restaurant that gave free food in exchange for filling out surveys (data collection). So you eat the free meal and then "opt out" of doing the survey.
- dao- 7y ago
  The idea that free is only possible by trading data is absurd. E.g. Google search and maps can provide sponsored results without knowing everything about you. News sites can have ads related to their content and general target audience.
- abacadaba 7y ago
  > You don't see a problem with that? in this case, NOPE
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Opt out is a problem anyway, GDPR is better in that it requires information up front, opt in.

pgcj_poster 7y ago

I strongly suspect that if you asked people 50 years ago whether it was ok for companies to eg. track everywhere most people go, I think the vast majority would have said no. Google et al. just started spying on everyone without any serious debate over whether it was right. Then once people caught on, they either had to stop caring about privacy, or they had be Richard Stallman and eschew pretty much all mainstream computing technology. If someone went back in time to tell people that this new internet thing was going to lead to the US having more surveillance than East Germany or the Soviet Union, there would have been laws passed and systems designed from the start to prevent it from happening. The fact that it didn't happen this way, and our culture's privacy norms have been destroyed as a consequence, is more reason to act to prevent further damage, not a reason to just give up.

cft 7y ago
I understand the requirements to clearly disclose, so that a user can make an informed decision, but deciding for the user is hubris.
darawk 7y ago
> I strongly suspect that if you asked people 50 years ago whether it was ok for companies to eg. track everywhere most people go, I think the vast majority would have said no. Google et al. just started spying on everyone without any serious debate over whether it was right. Then once people caught on, they either had to stop caring about privacy, or they had be Richard Stallman and eschew pretty much all mainstream computing technology. Sure, but if you had phrased the question more fairly and said "Should it be ok for a company to give you free services in exchange for tracking everywhere you go?" I think almost everyone would have said yes. > If someone went back in time to tell people that this new internet thing was going to lead to the US having more surveillance than East Germany or the Soviet Union, there would have been laws passed and systems designed from the start to prevent it from happening. The fact that it didn't happen this way, and our culture's privacy norms have been destroyed as a consequence, is more reason to act to prevent further damage, not a reason to just give up. My intuition here is the same as yours. That this is a bad thing. That privacy matters in an intrinsic sense, not an operational sense. But i'm not so sure that's really true anymore. The privacy ship has sailed off into the sunset for a while now, and at least to me, the harms don't seem that substantial. All that data is mostly used to give me ads that are more targeted to what I might want to see anyway. There certainly could be lurking latent risks about, but it's a little hard to see exactly what they are.

jlarocco 7y ago

> Because if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so That's nonsense. Nobody can make an informed decision because nobody knows exactly what data Google collects or exactly how it's used. And unless you've actually run a survey you can't even speculate about whether people are okay with it or not. If your claim was true, why would this law even exist? You're okay with it, but privacy is a highly personal issue.

playpause 7y ago

> if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so This is simply not true. When informed about it, a clear majority of people would prefer not to be surveilled, and are uncomfortable with unknown third parties having profiles on them, ads following them around the internet, etc. The fact that these people continue to use these services anyway (even after being informed) is not a sign that they are 'fine' with it. It is because they have no choice. Even as an engineer, I've found it unfeasibly difficult to avoid being surveilled while continuing to live a normal life. For most people it's a non-starter. They have no choice. Freedom to choose is essential to a free market. Regulation, done well, can increase market freedom.