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>You want to sell my purchase/demographics data? No problem. Just let me know how much or what i'll get for it and i'll decide if it worth to opt-in. It should

>You want to sell my purchase/demographics data? No problem. Just let me know how much or what i'll get for it and i'll decide if it worth to opt-in. It should be allowed to be the cost of admission to the site. If you don't like that the advertising and your own metadata allows you to view the site for free, you could just not visit (or when you click no to consent, they would block you). Websites shouldn't be required to provide you content for free.

ppseafield 7y ago
Maybe for some or even most sites this makes sense. But Walmart, Home Depot, etc., from the article are businesses open to the public, and as such operate under laws governing public businesses. Few would put up with Walmart making them sign a contract letting them sell their personal demographic information in order to enter a public store (except if every public business did this, removing the choice - currently how most of the internet works). Why should websites for public businesses be different? You may say that credit and debit cards do this already (and they do), but you can still pay cash in public stores. Of course they can track you with your phone's bluetooth identifiers, facial recognition, etc., but why as a society should we allow public businesses to require this? Once we permit one place to do it, others will follow.
- fastest963 7y ago
  > Few would put up with Walmart making them sign a contract letting them sell their personal demographic information in order to enter a public store What about Costco, BJ's, etc who require a membership to enter the store and (probably) are selling the data they get from your membership?
  - blackearl 7y ago
    You don't need a membership to enter. Specifically, the Costco near me has a liquor store inside but can't legally have it be part of the store. It's a separate store within Costco, and they won't stop you from walking in, buying liquor, and leaving. You can even grab a cheap hot dog on the way
    - ab_testing 7y ago
      Costco does not do that because of the goodness of their heart. They do that because state laws mandate liquor stores to allow anyone to buy liquor without being part of a club or membership. You can thank your state's liquor lobby for that.
      - blackearl 7y ago
        I can still go enter without a membership. Liquor store or not.
  - droithomme 7y ago
    If something is members-only and you have to pay a fee to be a member is it, legally, public?
  - jlgaddis 7y ago
    In that case, you are making an informed decision by entering into a written contract -- you are free to do that, if you wish.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
danShumway 7y ago
Websites aren't required to provide you content for free, and (for the most part) shouldn't be. But they also shouldn't be able to claim that there's an implicit acceptance of TOS by visiting the site. If they want to make it a cost of accessing the site, they should put the equivalent of a paywall in front of the site for data. If I make an unauthenticated HTTP GET request to a server, and it responds with a 200, it can't claim after the fact that receiving that request means I agreed to something.
- sgslo 7y ago
  There is an HTTP status code of '402' with message 'Payment Required'. Sounds like an appropriate use case for this scenario. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402
briffle 7y ago
Honestly, I would happily pay many websites if they allowed me to, instead of being ad-supported.. I bet Facebook makes less than $10/month selling me targeted ads, tracking info, etc. (much less considering my ad-blockers, etc) I would happily pay for the site, so I am no longer the product, and an actual customer.
Trias11 7y ago
Sure, thats what paid membership websites are for. But none of the websites should be allowed to pull the fast one on their visitors by stealing and sharing visitor data to other entities. If you going to give me a free kiss, please ask my concent to be infected by personal-data-stealing disease. Of course if you like kissing and don't give a shit about others - government should step in to protect their citizens.

ppseafield 7y ago

Maybe for some or even most sites this makes sense. But Walmart, Home Depot, etc., from the article are businesses open to the public, and as such operate under laws governing public businesses. Few would put up with Walmart making them sign a contract letting them sell their personal demographic information in order to enter a public store (except if every public business did this, removing the choice - currently how most of the internet works). Why should websites for public businesses be different? You may say that credit and debit cards do this already (and they do), but you can still pay cash in public stores. Of course they can track you with your phone's bluetooth identifiers, facial recognition, etc., but why as a society should we allow public businesses to require this? Once we permit one place to do it, others will follow.

fastest963 7y ago
> Few would put up with Walmart making them sign a contract letting them sell their personal demographic information in order to enter a public store What about Costco, BJ's, etc who require a membership to enter the store and (probably) are selling the data they get from your membership?
- blackearl 7y ago
  You don't need a membership to enter. Specifically, the Costco near me has a liquor store inside but can't legally have it be part of the store. It's a separate store within Costco, and they won't stop you from walking in, buying liquor, and leaving. You can even grab a cheap hot dog on the way
  - ab_testing 7y ago
    Costco does not do that because of the goodness of their heart. They do that because state laws mandate liquor stores to allow anyone to buy liquor without being part of a club or membership. You can thank your state's liquor lobby for that.
    - blackearl 7y ago
      I can still go enter without a membership. Liquor store or not.
- droithomme 7y ago
  If something is members-only and you have to pay a fee to be a member is it, legally, public?
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  In that case, you are making an informed decision by entering into a written contract -- you are free to do that, if you wish.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

danShumway 7y ago

Websites aren't required to provide you content for free, and (for the most part) shouldn't be. But they also shouldn't be able to claim that there's an implicit acceptance of TOS by visiting the site. If they want to make it a cost of accessing the site, they should put the equivalent of a paywall in front of the site for data. If I make an unauthenticated HTTP GET request to a server, and it responds with a 200, it can't claim after the fact that receiving that request means I agreed to something.

sgslo 7y ago
There is an HTTP status code of '402' with message 'Payment Required'. Sounds like an appropriate use case for this scenario. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402

briffle 7y ago

Honestly, I would happily pay many websites if they allowed me to, instead of being ad-supported.. I bet Facebook makes less than $10/month selling me targeted ads, tracking info, etc. (much less considering my ad-blockers, etc) I would happily pay for the site, so I am no longer the product, and an actual customer.

Trias11 7y ago

Sure, thats what paid membership websites are for. But none of the websites should be allowed to pull the fast one on their visitors by stealing and sharing visitor data to other entities. If you going to give me a free kiss, please ask my concent to be infected by personal-data-stealing disease. Of course if you like kissing and don't give a shit about others - government should step in to protect their citizens.