5 ms·

If I may go back a few years... If my number is listed in the 1995 local big yellow phonebook but then I choose to have it unlisted in the 1996 phonebook, is i

by sandipc 15y ago

If I may go back a few years... If my number is listed in the 1995 local big yellow phonebook but then I choose to have it unlisted in the 1996 phonebook, is it wrong for someone with the older phonebook to have my phone number?

Silhouette 15y ago
No, but it is wrong for them to start plugging that number into some database of telesales people they feel like working with. (Edit: To those downvoting, do you not like the analogy, or do you not agree with the ethical principle?)
- rwolf 15y ago
  I believe sorbus's comment covers it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    I don't really see why. The world is not black and white. I tell my friends things that are sensitive all the time, and they understand that as a matter of simple good manners and common courtesy they would keep that information between us. How come as soon as we're on the Internet, suddenly all the shades of gray disappear, and I either trust someone with my entire life story to do with as they wish or I don't trust them at all?
    - moheeb 15y ago
      When you tell your friends, the information loss over distance and time eventually makes the words turn to shades of grey. The internet preserves those words in their original state, black and white, which makes them stick out against the shades of grey composing the background. Even simpler...when your friends die, with them go the words you have shared. Not so with the internet. It appears to be immortal.
    - roldon332 15y ago
      You are confusing trust with the right to have an address book. if you give me your phone number I can save that number in my Verizon cell phone, then when I switch to ATT I can move the number to my ATT cell phone. That IS a black and white issue. Because I demand the right to move phone numbers to my new phone, does not mean that I demand the right to sell your phone number to telemarketers or send your phone number to sex offenders. Doing things like that would make me a shitty friend. And being a shitty friend is totally unrelated to what websites/phones I store contact information on
      - Silhouette 15y ago
        > You are confusing trust with the right to have an address book. And most of the people in this discussion are confusing the right to have an address book (which you control and to which only you have access) with giving someone else's personal data to Google (a global giant that would squish you like a bug if it meant a 0.001% increase in its data mining efficiency, with absolutely no loyalty to either you or the person whose data you are providing to it). Is that clear enough?
        roldon332 15y ago
        So google is going to sell me out? But facebook isn't? What about Verizon? How do you know what companies to trust with private information?
        Silhouette 15y ago
        That's not the point. Your friend made a decision to share their private data with you using Facebook, knowing that it was Facebook that would be holding the sensitive data. You are talking about sharing that data with other organisations, which your friend has no control over. The point isn't whether or not you trust those organisations, it's whether it's abusing the privilege of having access to your friend's data to spread that data around where they don't control it any more. I think doing so is, at best, a betrayal of confidence. (Edit: And in answer to your other question, about which organisations I personally can trust, we have fairly strict laws in my country about privacy and data protection, which limit what any of these companies may legally do and give me various rights with regard to any personally identifiable data anyone holds about me. I don't think those laws go far enough, but IMHO they're certainly better than the free-for-all you seem to want. So I can have some confidence in how my data will be handled by any company operating in our jurisdiction, which immediately makes me more likely to trust them than US-based companies like Facebook and Google whose business models fundamentally rely on undermining privacy in ways that are rarely going to be in the interests of the exposed.)

by sandipc 15y ago

Silhouette 15y ago

No, but it is wrong for them to start plugging that number into some database of telesales people they feel like working with. (Edit: To those downvoting, do you not like the analogy, or do you not agree with the ethical principle?)

rwolf 15y ago
I believe sorbus's comment covers it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277
- Silhouette 15y ago
  I don't really see why. The world is not black and white. I tell my friends things that are sensitive all the time, and they understand that as a matter of simple good manners and common courtesy they would keep that information between us. How come as soon as we're on the Internet, suddenly all the shades of gray disappear, and I either trust someone with my entire life story to do with as they wish or I don't trust them at all?
  - moheeb 15y ago
    When you tell your friends, the information loss over distance and time eventually makes the words turn to shades of grey. The internet preserves those words in their original state, black and white, which makes them stick out against the shades of grey composing the background. Even simpler...when your friends die, with them go the words you have shared. Not so with the internet. It appears to be immortal.
  - roldon332 15y ago
    You are confusing trust with the right to have an address book. if you give me your phone number I can save that number in my Verizon cell phone, then when I switch to ATT I can move the number to my ATT cell phone. That IS a black and white issue. Because I demand the right to move phone numbers to my new phone, does not mean that I demand the right to sell your phone number to telemarketers or send your phone number to sex offenders. Doing things like that would make me a shitty friend. And being a shitty friend is totally unrelated to what websites/phones I store contact information on
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      > You are confusing trust with the right to have an address book. And most of the people in this discussion are confusing the right to have an address book (which you control and to which only you have access) with giving someone else's personal data to Google (a global giant that would squish you like a bug if it meant a 0.001% increase in its data mining efficiency, with absolutely no loyalty to either you or the person whose data you are providing to it). Is that clear enough?
      - roldon332 15y ago
        So google is going to sell me out? But facebook isn't? What about Verizon? How do you know what companies to trust with private information?
        Silhouette 15y ago
        That's not the point. Your friend made a decision to share their private data with you using Facebook, knowing that it was Facebook that would be holding the sensitive data. You are talking about sharing that data with other organisations, which your friend has no control over. The point isn't whether or not you trust those organisations, it's whether it's abusing the privilege of having access to your friend's data to spread that data around where they don't control it any more. I think doing so is, at best, a betrayal of confidence. (Edit: And in answer to your other question, about which organisations I personally can trust, we have fairly strict laws in my country about privacy and data protection, which limit what any of these companies may legally do and give me various rights with regard to any personally identifiable data anyone holds about me. I don't think those laws go far enough, but IMHO they're certainly better than the free-for-all you seem to want. So I can have some confidence in how my data will be handled by any company operating in our jurisdiction, which immediately makes me more likely to trust them than US-based companies like Facebook and Google whose business models fundamentally rely on undermining privacy in ways that are rarely going to be in the interests of the exposed.)