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What? Being tracked and analyzed in unknown ways without your concent seems very serious. The fact you got used to it doesn't make it less serious. Would you ac

by mola 5y ago

What? Being tracked and analyzed in unknown ways without your concent seems very serious. The fact you got used to it doesn't make it less serious. Would you accept people following you around all day taking notes? I'd guess not, so what's the difference with web tracking? GDPR is good, the sites are doing their best to make the GDPR experience bad to encourage the existence of people with your opinion. It doesn't have to be that way, and hopefully the regulator will use its teeth and make companies using obvious dark patterns pay for their infringements.

nickpp 5y ago
> Being tracked and analyzed in unknown ways without your consent seems very serious. Really?! What is the worst thing that can happen? What exactly is the danger here? > Would you accept people following you around all day taking notes? While I browse the web? Sure, why not. I would certainly worry if it was the government doing it, since the government usually has nefarious reasons, but a private party... go straight ahead. That doesn't mean I can't take my own measures if and when I want my privacy, but that is MY choice. Not an idiotic law "protecting me" against my own will.
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  Presumably you live in a democratic nation with a strong constitution, respect for law and order, lack of discrimination, and where freedom of speech is a non-negotiable absolute. Further, I assume your country has a strong army and/or is separated from any would-be invaders by tall mountains, deep oceans, or both. In that case, probably the worst thing you need to worry about is some level of power imbalance when negotiating with large companies over insurance rates, real estate, or credit. So, you know how some places have these oddly specific laws based on some of something that happened there? Well, a lot of places in the EU have had some Interesting experiences with people being tracked and analyzed in unknown ways. Hence the laws against it.
  - nickpp 5y ago
    I live in the EU, but not in one of the countries from your first two paragraphs. So, I really wonder about those "interesting experiences" with people tracked and analyzed and how being tracked gives me a power imbalance with large companies?! All I got from being tracked so far was repetitive ads for the same stuff I just purchased on Amazon. Dumb.
    - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
      In eastern Europe, the original people doing the tracking and analyzing were your favorite local secret police of course. (take your pick, and I'm sure we can google some examples). I'm pretty sure they'd be quite jealous of some of the modern advertising companies. That said, even if you're in a west European country with a long and proud democratic tradition (like -say- the Netherlands); you can find examples of people accidentally revealing information about themselves in a census (to wit: religious affiliation) thinking What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Well, the neighbors invaded, demanded the census data, and then hauled off everyone with the Wrong Affiliation to be worked to death and/or gassed. Again, you can imagine it would have been much easier for them if they could have just raided Facebook's offices; but fortunately Facebook didn't yet exist back then. But even if you have a stalwart democracy surrounded on all sides by the sea, you can still get in trouble if discrimination is rife. See for instance the case of Alan Turing, a man who helped Great Britain shorten WWII by at least a year, and saved many lives. However, people found out his sexual orientation, and he ended up being driven to suicide. One could eg. imagine using Mr. Turing's social graph (derived from advertising/tracking/location/phone metadata) to track down further people to arrest. It should also be somewhat easy to guess someone's orientation based on what sites they visit, for instance.
      - nickpp 5y ago
        I did say a couple posts above that if the government is doing the tracking - then yeah, I would be worried. But if I had something (just or unjust) to hide, I would certainly not rely on a government regulation to protect me. I would simply not trust it and I would use my own methods of protection. Finally, you presented me with a few valid historical cases which I am not sure are even close: none of them involved a private company tracking people and ending up in tragedy. I would've waited until I had at least such a case before banning the practice altogether. And I would've also considered the cost of my boneheaded regulation: the cost to implement it (billions) and the cost to abide to it when encountering every f-ing day on each new website: thousands of man-lives wasted.

by mola 5y ago

nickpp 5y ago

> Being tracked and analyzed in unknown ways without your consent seems very serious. Really?! What is the worst thing that can happen? What exactly is the danger here? > Would you accept people following you around all day taking notes? While I browse the web? Sure, why not. I would certainly worry if it was the government doing it, since the government usually has nefarious reasons, but a private party... go straight ahead. That doesn't mean I can't take my own measures if and when I want my privacy, but that is MY choice. Not an idiotic law "protecting me" against my own will.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago
Presumably you live in a democratic nation with a strong constitution, respect for law and order, lack of discrimination, and where freedom of speech is a non-negotiable absolute. Further, I assume your country has a strong army and/or is separated from any would-be invaders by tall mountains, deep oceans, or both. In that case, probably the worst thing you need to worry about is some level of power imbalance when negotiating with large companies over insurance rates, real estate, or credit. So, you know how some places have these oddly specific laws based on some of something that happened there? Well, a lot of places in the EU have had some Interesting experiences with people being tracked and analyzed in unknown ways. Hence the laws against it.
- nickpp 5y ago
  I live in the EU, but not in one of the countries from your first two paragraphs. So, I really wonder about those "interesting experiences" with people tracked and analyzed and how being tracked gives me a power imbalance with large companies?! All I got from being tracked so far was repetitive ads for the same stuff I just purchased on Amazon. Dumb.
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    In eastern Europe, the original people doing the tracking and analyzing were your favorite local secret police of course. (take your pick, and I'm sure we can google some examples). I'm pretty sure they'd be quite jealous of some of the modern advertising companies. That said, even if you're in a west European country with a long and proud democratic tradition (like -say- the Netherlands); you can find examples of people accidentally revealing information about themselves in a census (to wit: religious affiliation) thinking What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Well, the neighbors invaded, demanded the census data, and then hauled off everyone with the Wrong Affiliation to be worked to death and/or gassed. Again, you can imagine it would have been much easier for them if they could have just raided Facebook's offices; but fortunately Facebook didn't yet exist back then. But even if you have a stalwart democracy surrounded on all sides by the sea, you can still get in trouble if discrimination is rife. See for instance the case of Alan Turing, a man who helped Great Britain shorten WWII by at least a year, and saved many lives. However, people found out his sexual orientation, and he ended up being driven to suicide. One could eg. imagine using Mr. Turing's social graph (derived from advertising/tracking/location/phone metadata) to track down further people to arrest. It should also be somewhat easy to guess someone's orientation based on what sites they visit, for instance.
    - nickpp 5y ago
      I did say a couple posts above that if the government is doing the tracking - then yeah, I would be worried. But if I had something (just or unjust) to hide, I would certainly not rely on a government regulation to protect me. I would simply not trust it and I would use my own methods of protection. Finally, you presented me with a few valid historical cases which I am not sure are even close: none of them involved a private company tracking people and ending up in tragedy. I would've waited until I had at least such a case before banning the practice altogether. And I would've also considered the cost of my boneheaded regulation: the cost to implement it (billions) and the cost to abide to it when encountering every f-ing day on each new website: thousands of man-lives wasted.