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So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that mo

So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that most of that profit comes from third parties who they're effectively selling data access to (e.g. ads where the profit is from Google's ability to know which ads to put in front of which users, effectively selling that user's privacy for profit). Pointing out that ISPs are worse is really neither here nor there. Just because big tech isn't the worst does absolve them of criticism nor is a compelling argument for why we cannot talk about them lobbying for the law to allow them to continue to do what they're doing or even expand it. I'm not even going to try and address why we cannot have privacy because of "legitimate first amendment problem[s]" or because it would result in "law[s] against strong encryption." I don't consider those arguments to even pass the basic sniff test, they feel like throwing out every argument under the sun and seeing what sticks. Almost to Gish Gallop levels. > This is gotcha journalism That isn't what "gotcha journalism" means. Collecting facts, presenting those facts, and putting a negative spin on it isn't "gotcha journalism" because the journalist didn't trick Google or Facebook into doing these things, they're simply telling the public that they did. In fact the term doesn't really to apply to journalism outside of interviews, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotcha_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotcha_journalism

Nasrudith 7y ago
Yes the facts are wrong and there is a major difference between selling the data and using it. It is like the difference between a salesman asking a bartender what type of drinks you prefer and them having a transcript of everything you ever said in the bar.
- thfuran 7y ago
  >It is like the difference between a salesman asking a bartender what type of drinks you prefer and them having a transcript of everything you ever said in the bar. What? That's a difference in scale, not in kind.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Correct. The better analogy is the salesman asking the bartender that when someone orders X drink, give them Y drink also for free. The salesman never actually gets to find out what customers got Y, though they can learn how many Y were given away and thereby get some secondary signal on how popular X is (and, of course, if individual bar patrons walk directly out of the bar and say "Hey, can I buy more Y?" the salesman can make a pretty strong guess that the patron in question likes X).
    - skybrian 7y ago
      It's too simple to say they don't learn anything. If you actually click on the ad, advertisers sometimes gain some information (based on IP address, third-party cookies, and maybe browser fingerprinting) Sometimes they might get some information just by running the ad via analytics. It's a bit murky whether the amounts to being able to identify you. It's not clear how much advertisers care about identifying people who don't buy or how effective advertising actually is. And this data goes stale pretty quickly anyway. So it comes down to, "well, it depends." None of this is comforting to people who don't want to be tracked. On the other hand I haven't heard anything credible about people being directly harmed by it? It seems more about the principle of the thing?
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        You're absolutely correct. That's what I was trying to capture in the parenthetical; clicking on an ad is like wandering directly out of the bar and straight into the salesman's shop.
    - svieira 7y ago
      Yes. And as we know, Prolog is turing complete. Therefore†, anything which the salesman could do if he could hear ever bar patron's conversation, he can do by a clever set of ad deployments (though it may be orders of magnitude less efficient). ---- † Yes, I'm stretching the "proof" beyond its breaking point here.
  - edmundsauto 7y ago
jermaustin1 7y ago
I don't agree that just because 3rd parties are where google profits, means that they are buying the data. If I ran a newsletter, "selling data" would be me giving a 3rd party my mailing list. Profiting from the data would be me "selling eyeballs" from my list. That is effectively what Google and Facebook do. They are in the eyeball selling industry, not email selling.
- sounds 7y ago
  No, a newspaper doesn't sell eyeballs. They create a medium the advertisers want to advertise into. They "own the eyeballs," as it were. They create the newspaper that people read. Google does not own the eyeballs, they are an aggregator but they loudly point out that users could switch. Let's acknowledge that users are not likely to switch away from Google websites, Android, etc. but it's as if Google snatched the newspaper and stuck advertising stickers all over it just before you read it in the morning.
  - jermaustin1 7y ago
    I can see where you are going with this, but I disagree with it (mostly). Google owns the eyeballs on the places of the internet that have sold that space to google. If I have a website and want to monetize it with ads, I'm giving that section of my page to Google. Who now rents the "tower" in my sidebar, and owns the eyeballs of my visitors. The advertisers don't get to own my data. I'm just exposing my audience to their products. If my audience decides that they want the advertised widget, they are then willingly giving their data to the advertiser when they purchase/sign up/whatever. The only point I agree with you on (if this is what you meant) is how Google ranks search results based on the speed of the content, and who's content loads fastest for Google? AMP... owned by Google.
    - sounds 7y ago
      Good points. I think the browser is the equivalent of a newspaper. It's just you can "open your newspaper" to pages defined by someone on the internet, as opposed to only getting the 30-to-50 pages put out by the newspaper company. I think the pages within it can be Google, but there's a browser in between. If you use Chrome, then Google totally owns your eyeballs (according to my viewpoint). But you are spot on with publishers opening up a "tower" on their page, and Google moving in and paying rent. And from that point on, Google is watching you. Maybe the ISP owns the eyeballs? ISPs are often characterized as either a "content network" (such as Netflix) or an "eyeball network" (such as Comcast). And the networks sometimes fight because Comcast thinks they're the big, bad eyeball network. Netflix, of course, thinks they're the big, bad content network.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that most of that profit comes from third parties who they're effectively selling data access to (e.g. ads where the profit is from Google's ability to know which ads to put in front of which users, effectively selling that user's privacy for profit). When the argument is that the privacy groups have a perverse interest in opposing a specific rule because of donations from tech companies, it seems pretty relevant that the tech companies already aren't actually violating that rule. > Pointing out that ISPs are worse is really neither here nor there. Just because big tech isn't the worst does absolve them of criticism nor is a compelling argument for why we cannot talk about them lobbying for the law to allow them to continue to do what they're doing or even expand it. But that isn't what they're talking about. They're talking about laws against selling user data, which the ISPs are doing (so there is a strong lobby against passing a law to prohibit it), but the tech companies generally aren't. To prohibit what the tech companies are doing you would basically need a law against collecting user data, or something much more invasive and specific about what it could be used for than "don't sell it", and that's a whole different debate. Because then you run into problems like entrenching the incumbents by creating a complex regulatory environment that only huge tech companies can navigate. Which is why opponents try to tar them with "selling user data" instead, which is a lot easier to define and be opposed to, even though they aren't actually doing that. > I'm not even going to try and address why we cannot have privacy because of "legitimate first amendment problem[s]" or because it would result in "law[s] against strong encryption." I don't consider those arguments to even pass the basic sniff test, they feel like throwing out every argument under the sun and seeing what sticks. Political realities exist even when they're complicated and inconvenient. Mocking them doesn't make them go away. > Collecting facts, presenting those facts, and putting a negative spin on it isn't "gotcha journalism" because the journalist didn't trick Google or Facebook into doing these things, they're simply telling the public that they did. In fact the term doesn't really to apply to journalism outside of interviews The term originally dates from a time when "interviews" were a thing that happened after you actually agreed to be interviewed. Now the debate happens live on the internet and trolls get to ask their loaded questions in front of the public with the implication that you're guilty if you don't respond. But the question is phrased so as to make an exonerating response impossible. It's the rhetorical equivalent of "have you stopped beating your wife" -- have you stopped allowing tech company money to influence your policies? Respond right now, while the question is on the front page, or you're guilty.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Yes the facts are wrong and there is a major difference between selling the data and using it. It is like the difference between a salesman asking a bartender what type of drinks you prefer and them having a transcript of everything you ever said in the bar.

thfuran 7y ago
>It is like the difference between a salesman asking a bartender what type of drinks you prefer and them having a transcript of everything you ever said in the bar. What? That's a difference in scale, not in kind.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Correct. The better analogy is the salesman asking the bartender that when someone orders X drink, give them Y drink also for free. The salesman never actually gets to find out what customers got Y, though they can learn how many Y were given away and thereby get some secondary signal on how popular X is (and, of course, if individual bar patrons walk directly out of the bar and say "Hey, can I buy more Y?" the salesman can make a pretty strong guess that the patron in question likes X).
  - skybrian 7y ago
    It's too simple to say they don't learn anything. If you actually click on the ad, advertisers sometimes gain some information (based on IP address, third-party cookies, and maybe browser fingerprinting) Sometimes they might get some information just by running the ad via analytics. It's a bit murky whether the amounts to being able to identify you. It's not clear how much advertisers care about identifying people who don't buy or how effective advertising actually is. And this data goes stale pretty quickly anyway. So it comes down to, "well, it depends." None of this is comforting to people who don't want to be tracked. On the other hand I haven't heard anything credible about people being directly harmed by it? It seems more about the principle of the thing?
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      You're absolutely correct. That's what I was trying to capture in the parenthetical; clicking on an ad is like wandering directly out of the bar and straight into the salesman's shop.
  - svieira 7y ago
    Yes. And as we know, Prolog is turing complete. Therefore†, anything which the salesman could do if he could hear ever bar patron's conversation, he can do by a clever set of ad deployments (though it may be orders of magnitude less efficient). ---- † Yes, I'm stretching the "proof" beyond its breaking point here.
- edmundsauto 7y ago

jermaustin1 7y ago

I don't agree that just because 3rd parties are where google profits, means that they are buying the data. If I ran a newsletter, "selling data" would be me giving a 3rd party my mailing list. Profiting from the data would be me "selling eyeballs" from my list. That is effectively what Google and Facebook do. They are in the eyeball selling industry, not email selling.

sounds 7y ago
No, a newspaper doesn't sell eyeballs. They create a medium the advertisers want to advertise into. They "own the eyeballs," as it were. They create the newspaper that people read. Google does not own the eyeballs, they are an aggregator but they loudly point out that users could switch. Let's acknowledge that users are not likely to switch away from Google websites, Android, etc. but it's as if Google snatched the newspaper and stuck advertising stickers all over it just before you read it in the morning.
- jermaustin1 7y ago
  I can see where you are going with this, but I disagree with it (mostly). Google owns the eyeballs on the places of the internet that have sold that space to google. If I have a website and want to monetize it with ads, I'm giving that section of my page to Google. Who now rents the "tower" in my sidebar, and owns the eyeballs of my visitors. The advertisers don't get to own my data. I'm just exposing my audience to their products. If my audience decides that they want the advertised widget, they are then willingly giving their data to the advertiser when they purchase/sign up/whatever. The only point I agree with you on (if this is what you meant) is how Google ranks search results based on the speed of the content, and who's content loads fastest for Google? AMP... owned by Google.
  - sounds 7y ago
    Good points. I think the browser is the equivalent of a newspaper. It's just you can "open your newspaper" to pages defined by someone on the internet, as opposed to only getting the 30-to-50 pages put out by the newspaper company. I think the pages within it can be Google, but there's a browser in between. If you use Chrome, then Google totally owns your eyeballs (according to my viewpoint). But you are spot on with publishers opening up a "tower" on their page, and Google moving in and paying rent. And from that point on, Google is watching you. Maybe the ISP owns the eyeballs? ISPs are often characterized as either a "content network" (such as Netflix) or an "eyeball network" (such as Comcast). And the networks sometimes fight because Comcast thinks they're the big, bad eyeball network. Netflix, of course, thinks they're the big, bad content network.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that most of that profit comes from third parties who they're effectively selling data access to (e.g. ads where the profit is from Google's ability to know which ads to put in front of which users, effectively selling that user's privacy for profit). When the argument is that the privacy groups have a perverse interest in opposing a specific rule because of donations from tech companies, it seems pretty relevant that the tech companies already aren't actually violating that rule. > Pointing out that ISPs are worse is really neither here nor there. Just because big tech isn't the worst does absolve them of criticism nor is a compelling argument for why we cannot talk about them lobbying for the law to allow them to continue to do what they're doing or even expand it. But that isn't what they're talking about. They're talking about laws against selling user data, which the ISPs are doing (so there is a strong lobby against passing a law to prohibit it), but the tech companies generally aren't. To prohibit what the tech companies are doing you would basically need a law against collecting user data, or something much more invasive and specific about what it could be used for than "don't sell it", and that's a whole different debate. Because then you run into problems like entrenching the incumbents by creating a complex regulatory environment that only huge tech companies can navigate. Which is why opponents try to tar them with "selling user data" instead, which is a lot easier to define and be opposed to, even though they aren't actually doing that. > I'm not even going to try and address why we cannot have privacy because of "legitimate first amendment problem[s]" or because it would result in "law[s] against strong encryption." I don't consider those arguments to even pass the basic sniff test, they feel like throwing out every argument under the sun and seeing what sticks. Political realities exist even when they're complicated and inconvenient. Mocking them doesn't make them go away. > Collecting facts, presenting those facts, and putting a negative spin on it isn't "gotcha journalism" because the journalist didn't trick Google or Facebook into doing these things, they're simply telling the public that they did. In fact the term doesn't really to apply to journalism outside of interviews The term originally dates from a time when "interviews" were a thing that happened after you actually agreed to be interviewed. Now the debate happens live on the internet and trolls get to ask their loaded questions in front of the public with the implication that you're guilty if you don't respond. But the question is phrased so as to make an exonerating response impossible. It's the rhetorical equivalent of "have you stopped beating your wife" -- have you stopped allowing tech company money to influence your policies? Respond right now, while the question is on the front page, or you're guilty.