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I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Before, much of this was incredibly difficult to impossible so legislation and

I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Before, much of this was incredibly difficult to impossible so legislation and regulation was entirely avoidable and relatively rare occurence could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. At this point, technology has enabled this sort of behavior at mass scale, now revealing far more personal and useful information about individuals. A feasible model to work from may be go look at the healthcare industry and HIPPA requirements/liabilities and adapt as needed. Certainly not perfect but it's a good starting point for widespread data laws. The question is, will our representatives actually give teeth to real data protection legislation (not a facade with no teeth only enacted by name) in the US or are they too deeply in bed with industry that they'll protect business rights over real people who suffer real direct damages.

nojvek 7y ago
Looking out how the spam act played out, which allows implicit opt in compared to Europe’s explicit opt-in. I believe US govt will always be at the mercy of corporations. Now some things are great. Like CCPA, California’s version of GDPR. But getting it accepted throughout the US is a mammoth task. I have hope though.
- aledalgrande 7y ago
  I've been wondering: if there was a world government, corporations would probably reach a point in which they are unstoppable from a law point of view. The bigger the machine, the harder to steer it in a good direction.
diafygi 7y ago
So I originally studied chemical engineering, and one of the common catchphrases is, "regulations are written in blood." The reason there's a requirement to put a pressure relief valve on that tank is because at some point a tank like it didn't have one and it blew up and killed people. However, safety in chemical engineering has been evolving over centuries as we have understood more about the dangers and consequences of dealing with chemical manufacturing. For software, it feels like we're only at the beginning of understanding the dangers and consequences of the software, business models, and technology our industry has created. Unfortunately, if it follows the same path as other engineering disciplines, we likely will experience decades or centuries of bloodshed before it is regulated appropriately.
- diminoten 7y ago
  Another interpretation of that catchphrase is that once it's written, it can't be unwritten, and that's true with laws, or at least they've very difficult to change once on the books. We need to understand the full scope of the problem, rather than try to fix what isn't fully grasped, and honestly I have very little faith in the US government to accurately grasp the subtleties and nuances of the advertising and privacy problems.
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    But that's not an interpretation of that phrase at all.
    - cgag 7y ago
      It makes me think of signing inescapable contracts with demons, which seem convenient but ultimately doom you for eternity.
      - crooked-v 7y ago
        Nothing about 'regulations are written in blood' is about convenience. Regulations specifically exist to make things less convenient. The reason such regulations exist is because people did the convenient thing and it killed somebody.
        cgag 7y ago
        they are convenient solutions
    - diminoten 7y ago
      It's not up for debate whether or not what I wrote is an interpretation, what might be up for debate is how valid the interpretation is, and even still, you could strike all reference to the phrase from my comment and the point I made would stand.
amelius 7y ago
> I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Why not ban targeted advertising altogether?
- hirundo 7y ago
  Because it has value, both to the advertiser and to the target, compared to un-targeted advertising. Advertising is an attempt to transfer information. Targeted ads means that the information is more likely to be relevant, whatever its other downsides. Let's not throw out that baby with the bath water.
  - aedocw 7y ago
    "Advertising is an attempt to transfer information" is deeply misguided unless you adjust that to say "transfer very biased information". Advertising is an attempt to influence one party to give their money to another party, generally through manipulation and guile. Targeted advertising is like the difference between spam and spear phising. The person being advertised to rarely (if ever) benefits.
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      I benefit if Youtube shows me advertisements for desk chairs and lathes instead of beauty products and kids toys. Targeted advertisements help me discover new products and product categories, while untargeted advertising just wastes my time. This is in essence no different than companies buying advertising time in specific TV shows with a known audience. Of course the abuses are also plentiful and dangerous. We probably do need a lot of regulation. But in general targeted advertisement is a useful thing to have.
      - vertex-four 7y ago
        The equivalent of buying advertising time in specific TV shows with a known audience is... buying adverts on specific Youtube channels with a known audience. Funnily, a lot of Youtubers now perform advertising of this sort - I'm sure you've seen the VPN ads. This, like TV, doesn't require tracking of individual people who haven't consented to such.
dkonofalski 7y ago
>will our representatives actually give teeth to real data protection legislation No. The majority of them don't even understand what data is being collected, how it can be used, or the technology behind any of it. Until the people in office change, the idea that our representatives can or will protect us is toothless and spineless.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  What trouble Congress is in! They have to be experts in law, warfare, every industry from oil refining to adtech, science (at least as far as funding it goes), ecology, economics, medicine... In fact I would say that it's impossible to expect anyone to understand enough to know what they're legislating. Aside from being a powerful libertarian argument against the excessive involvement of government, I think it shows that we have to figure out a way to work around the fact that congressmen don't understand everything that they're in charge of, rather than trying to remedy it.
  - vertex-four 7y ago
    Congress used to have an office which would inform them of how things work, but unsurprisingly, proceeded to dismantle it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessmen...
  - acdha 7y ago
    This is why members of Congress have staffers and various groups like http://www.loc.gov/crsinfo/ http://www.loc.gov/crsinfo/ which have subject-matter experts on staff to offer advice and research arbitrary topics of legislative interest.
  - Jach 7y ago
    A quick refresher on the details of how congress actually goes about their day-to-day plus the roles of the various permanent government and de facto government organs, shows "expertise doesn't scale" isn't really a problem. If it was, the whole thing would have come toppling down ages ago. So the libertarian argument is only "it's hard to do well", not "it's impossible". I'll leave you to find your own references to get a detailed picture, but in short two basic forms of organizing do a lot of the work: big teams/staff for each congressman to help out, and special interest committees and caucuses. On top of that at least some take the idea of "representation" somewhat seriously, so if they need to know about a topic they're not experienced in, they tend to meet with supposed experts in those topics (which can come from a dedicated pool, lobbyists, state university department, and occasionally private industry owners or high level employees) for information and sometimes policy recommendations.
aledalgrande 7y ago
Isn't GDPR enforcing on this vein? You could build something similar in North America.

nojvek 7y ago

Looking out how the spam act played out, which allows implicit opt in compared to Europe’s explicit opt-in. I believe US govt will always be at the mercy of corporations. Now some things are great. Like CCPA, California’s version of GDPR. But getting it accepted throughout the US is a mammoth task. I have hope though.

aledalgrande 7y ago
I've been wondering: if there was a world government, corporations would probably reach a point in which they are unstoppable from a law point of view. The bigger the machine, the harder to steer it in a good direction.

diafygi 7y ago

So I originally studied chemical engineering, and one of the common catchphrases is, "regulations are written in blood." The reason there's a requirement to put a pressure relief valve on that tank is because at some point a tank like it didn't have one and it blew up and killed people. However, safety in chemical engineering has been evolving over centuries as we have understood more about the dangers and consequences of dealing with chemical manufacturing. For software, it feels like we're only at the beginning of understanding the dangers and consequences of the software, business models, and technology our industry has created. Unfortunately, if it follows the same path as other engineering disciplines, we likely will experience decades or centuries of bloodshed before it is regulated appropriately.

diminoten 7y ago
Another interpretation of that catchphrase is that once it's written, it can't be unwritten, and that's true with laws, or at least they've very difficult to change once on the books. We need to understand the full scope of the problem, rather than try to fix what isn't fully grasped, and honestly I have very little faith in the US government to accurately grasp the subtleties and nuances of the advertising and privacy problems.
- crooked-v 7y ago
  But that's not an interpretation of that phrase at all.
  - cgag 7y ago
    It makes me think of signing inescapable contracts with demons, which seem convenient but ultimately doom you for eternity.
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      Nothing about 'regulations are written in blood' is about convenience. Regulations specifically exist to make things less convenient. The reason such regulations exist is because people did the convenient thing and it killed somebody.
      - cgag 7y ago
        they are convenient solutions
  - diminoten 7y ago
    It's not up for debate whether or not what I wrote is an interpretation, what might be up for debate is how valid the interpretation is, and even still, you could strike all reference to the phrase from my comment and the point I made would stand.

amelius 7y ago

> I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Why not ban targeted advertising altogether?

hirundo 7y ago
Because it has value, both to the advertiser and to the target, compared to un-targeted advertising. Advertising is an attempt to transfer information. Targeted ads means that the information is more likely to be relevant, whatever its other downsides. Let's not throw out that baby with the bath water.
- aedocw 7y ago
  "Advertising is an attempt to transfer information" is deeply misguided unless you adjust that to say "transfer very biased information". Advertising is an attempt to influence one party to give their money to another party, generally through manipulation and guile. Targeted advertising is like the difference between spam and spear phising. The person being advertised to rarely (if ever) benefits.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    I benefit if Youtube shows me advertisements for desk chairs and lathes instead of beauty products and kids toys. Targeted advertisements help me discover new products and product categories, while untargeted advertising just wastes my time. This is in essence no different than companies buying advertising time in specific TV shows with a known audience. Of course the abuses are also plentiful and dangerous. We probably do need a lot of regulation. But in general targeted advertisement is a useful thing to have.
    - vertex-four 7y ago
      The equivalent of buying advertising time in specific TV shows with a known audience is... buying adverts on specific Youtube channels with a known audience. Funnily, a lot of Youtubers now perform advertising of this sort - I'm sure you've seen the VPN ads. This, like TV, doesn't require tracking of individual people who haven't consented to such.

dkonofalski 7y ago

>will our representatives actually give teeth to real data protection legislation No. The majority of them don't even understand what data is being collected, how it can be used, or the technology behind any of it. Until the people in office change, the idea that our representatives can or will protect us is toothless and spineless.

whatshisface 7y ago
What trouble Congress is in! They have to be experts in law, warfare, every industry from oil refining to adtech, science (at least as far as funding it goes), ecology, economics, medicine... In fact I would say that it's impossible to expect anyone to understand enough to know what they're legislating. Aside from being a powerful libertarian argument against the excessive involvement of government, I think it shows that we have to figure out a way to work around the fact that congressmen don't understand everything that they're in charge of, rather than trying to remedy it.
- vertex-four 7y ago
  Congress used to have an office which would inform them of how things work, but unsurprisingly, proceeded to dismantle it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessmen...
- acdha 7y ago
  This is why members of Congress have staffers and various groups like http://www.loc.gov/crsinfo/ http://www.loc.gov/crsinfo/ which have subject-matter experts on staff to offer advice and research arbitrary topics of legislative interest.
- Jach 7y ago
  A quick refresher on the details of how congress actually goes about their day-to-day plus the roles of the various permanent government and de facto government organs, shows "expertise doesn't scale" isn't really a problem. If it was, the whole thing would have come toppling down ages ago. So the libertarian argument is only "it's hard to do well", not "it's impossible". I'll leave you to find your own references to get a detailed picture, but in short two basic forms of organizing do a lot of the work: big teams/staff for each congressman to help out, and special interest committees and caucuses. On top of that at least some take the idea of "representation" somewhat seriously, so if they need to know about a topic they're not experienced in, they tend to meet with supposed experts in those topics (which can come from a dedicated pool, lobbyists, state university department, and occasionally private industry owners or high level employees) for information and sometimes policy recommendations.

aledalgrande 7y ago

Isn't GDPR enforcing on this vein? You could build something similar in North America.