6 ms·

Google sought fellow tech giants' help in stalling kids' privacy protections

342 points by koolba 5y ago

koolba 5y ago
Title suffix of "... states allege" removed due to HN length limits. Full title: Google sought fellow tech giants' help in stalling kids' privacy protections, states allege
- evgen 5y ago
  A more honest title would remove 'states allege' and simply state 'evidence shows'.
  - extropy 5y ago
    Or more biased, depends on which side you are.
sva_ 5y ago
This seems like a bad day for Google (and 'fellow tech giants'.) I wonder if there will, for once, be any actual consequences that will lead to change. If not, then I don't know if these mega-corporations are perhaps to be considered untouchable, which would cast serious doubt on our government; or rather, erase most doubt remaining about the degree of corruption thereof (at least from my perspective.)
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"We have been successful in slowing down and delaying the [ePrivacy Regulation] process and have been working behind the scenes hand in hand with the other companies," the complaint quoted Google executives as saying in a memo ahead of the meeting. The August meeting could "find areas of alignment and narrow gaps in our positions and priorities on child privacy and safety." This sounds like a starting point for further investigation. Perhaps the litigation will reveal more about what is going on inside Big Tech.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Why were they successful? Why can't politicians just do the opposite of what these lobbyists want them to do? Whatever it is they're pushing is likely good for them and bad for society. Just do the opposite. They want less privacy protections for the humans they're exploiting? Add more. Add so many protections they probably won't be able to make any money anymore.
  - nigerian1981 5y ago
    Because the lobbyists support their political campaigns.
    - bostik 5y ago
      Or they want a cushy, well-paid job in the industry they are supposedly regulating. See also: revolving door policy making.
- extropy 5y ago
  It seems that they did not do anything illegal, so not sure what you are proposing to litigate? Lobbying lawmakers is a basic practice that happens all the time. And a law is not right on its own right, there is always supporters and detractors. Just that we agree as a society yo abide by the laws we currently have. If anything we should invest in more public awareness to make sure strong privacy requirements are signed into the law. On the other hand, strong privacy laws is a sizable buerocratic burden on the society. So we should be cautious to not over regulate. Laws are difficult to change or revoke even if they are found ineffective or too stringent later on. A high trust environment where most of the players do the right thing without the buerocracy and enforcement is way more efficient.
  - CIADidHarryHolt 5y ago
    We need to create a strong, rigid and onerous privacy bureaucracy that allows lawmakers to limit current and future expression against them on the internet, while not creating a strong, rigid and onerous privacy bureaucracy that limits current and future expression on the internet. Blah blah blah Section 230. Blah blah blah Children. Blah blah blah Freedom. Blah blah blah Liberals.
ganzuul 5y ago
Goddamn traitors of the species.
m0zg 5y ago
Twitter threads on this are rather eye opening, if folks haven't seen them, check them out. If this shit is proven in court (and if the judge doesn't hold a large position in defendants, as the case may be), Google / FB could face some _serious_, life changing repercussions. I knew FB / Google Ads was a hive of scum and villainy (but would, nonetheless, accept the paycheck generated by all that), but did not think it was quite this bad. Much like when the varnish started cracking on both Google and Apple when Eric Schmidt fired the recruiter due to Steve Jobs' displeasure. [1] https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1451619916994396164 https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1451619916994396164
- gonzo41 5y ago
  That's a great twitter thread!
  - m0zg 5y ago
    You can already see how Google/FB PR shills are trying to narrow down the fallout in the press (and on this site) by pretending this is only (or mostly) about kids' privacy, whereas the real story is rather severely anticompetitive behavior, collusion, and price fixing in ad exchanges, and privacy is merely a footnote in a War and Peace thick tome of alleged wrongdoing. The actual story is 100x bigger, but you wouldn't even know if you hadn't read that twitter thread. This is called "shaping".
- theduder99 5y ago
  amazing thread, thanks for sharing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
imgabe 5y ago
> A week before the meeting, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it was considering making changes to its interpretation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits companies from collecting information about kids under the age of 13 without parental permission. How would that work in practice? A lot of us here operate websites. Your website gets a request. How are you supposed to tell the age of the person that request came from? Maybe Google / Facebook have enough data to identify the person and their age, but ironically, they would have to collect information about them to determine that it's a person they shouldn't collect information about. Certainly no child in the history of the Internet has ever lied to a website when asked their age.
- f6v 5y ago
  > How would that work in practice? You could ask everyone to confirm their age with eID.
  - eitland 5y ago
    Which ironically takes your site from - "can maybe connect sensitive data to some persons" to - "can absolutely connect sensitive data to every user unless they really go out of their way to avoid it"
- seanhunter 5y ago
  Maybe you shouldn't collect the information about anybody unless you have a way of discriminating. I run some (low-traffic) websites. I don't collect any information about anyone. It's not essential.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    It depends on what they consider "collecting information". Does your server log IP addresses? Do you know the age of the person behind each IP address? Does that count as "collecting information" about them? You know an IP, the time and date they accessed the site, what pages they viewed, you can infer a general location. If the law is not clear enough, it can be interpreted to make basically any website infringing. If you want to have a newsletter, or offer a service where people log in and want to recover their password, you'll need at least an email address. Can you verify that every email address is exclusively used by people 13+?
cletus 5y ago
I really wish we had less kneejerk cliche-recycling (eg "don't be evil" comments) commenters here just looking for confirmation bias because this is a difficult issue. First, kids use sites and apps when they're below the ToS age (usually 18 or sometimes 13, at least in the US). How are you meant to know that as a service provider? Don't get me wrong: it doesn't excuse you from doing due diligence. There's such a thing as wanton disregard for the truth. But we all know under 18s use IG, Snapchat, Tinder, etc. I'm not sure fining a company billions of dollars and putting executives in jail is the outcome anyone really wants if a 17 year old uses Tinder. Second, what is personal information, exactly? It's not as obvious as you might think to the point where lawyers who work for these companies can't agree among themselves. There are obvious things (eg IP addresses, dates of birth, SSNs, addresses, names). But what about media? Photos, videos and sound files may all contain PII, technically. Third, some will say "well don't store anything". Well, if a photo contains PII (which it can) then you can't operate a photo-sharing service at all for risk of storing PII of children. Also, this ignores legal obligations. If the Feds show up with a warrant about a particular user's actions then the argument "we log/store nothing" won't get you as far as you think. So I'm not saying Google didn't do wrong here but knowing the complexities I am sympathetic to the idea of resisting broad legislative overreach as you can end up with bad laws that do just that. And if we're going to start singling out tech giants for lobbying Congress, my question is why them in particular? We currently have a Senate that is essentially beholden to the personal interests of one unelected rich guy: Charles Koch. Koch lobbies against health care, taxes on the rich and infrastructure in the Senate. Around the country, he has been instrumental in defeating public transit and many other initiatives in many cities.
- wswope 5y ago
  > I really wish we had less kneejerk cliche-recycling (eg "don't be evil" comments). Looking at your profile, it’s very obvious that your writing here is an ego-driven deflection to absolve yourself of complicity in these unethical behaviors. You sound like an ex-Shell employee denying global warming. But who cares as long as you’re not as bad as the Koch brothers?
- dmitriid 5y ago
  You've listed the reasons why governments try not to regulate things until there's a blatant disregard of even common decency. We're way beyond blatant disregard.
washadjeffmad 5y ago
Relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860824 Google hasn't been shy about their own cash for kids(' data) schemes. It's also pretty wild how similar their market creation tactics are (and how beneficial they would be) to groomers other child exploiters. What are advertising and privacy protection laws regarding children like in other counties? Could Google have happened somewhere with stronger consumer and child protection laws?
hliyan 5y ago
Feels like something that should be handled at the client, rather than having even more personal info sent to servers. Perhaps something like a face-id that automatically switches the entire device a kids' profile.
gundmc 5y ago
Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28967575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28967575 There are at least 4 similar stories on the front page right now all stemming from the same amended Texas court filing.

342 points by koolba 5y ago

Title suffix of "... states allege" removed due to HN length limits. Full title: Google sought fellow tech giants' help in stalling kids' privacy protections, states allege

evgen 5y ago
A more honest title would remove 'states allege' and simply state 'evidence shows'.
- extropy 5y ago
  Or more biased, depends on which side you are.

sva_ 5y ago

This seems like a bad day for Google (and 'fellow tech giants'.) I wonder if there will, for once, be any actual consequences that will lead to change. If not, then I don't know if these mega-corporations are perhaps to be considered untouchable, which would cast serious doubt on our government; or rather, erase most doubt remaining about the degree of corruption thereof (at least from my perspective.)

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"We have been successful in slowing down and delaying the [ePrivacy Regulation] process and have been working behind the scenes hand in hand with the other companies," the complaint quoted Google executives as saying in a memo ahead of the meeting. The August meeting could "find areas of alignment and narrow gaps in our positions and priorities on child privacy and safety." This sounds like a starting point for further investigation. Perhaps the litigation will reveal more about what is going on inside Big Tech.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Why were they successful? Why can't politicians just do the opposite of what these lobbyists want them to do? Whatever it is they're pushing is likely good for them and bad for society. Just do the opposite. They want less privacy protections for the humans they're exploiting? Add more. Add so many protections they probably won't be able to make any money anymore.
- nigerian1981 5y ago
  Because the lobbyists support their political campaigns.
  - bostik 5y ago
    Or they want a cushy, well-paid job in the industry they are supposedly regulating. See also: revolving door policy making.
extropy 5y ago
It seems that they did not do anything illegal, so not sure what you are proposing to litigate? Lobbying lawmakers is a basic practice that happens all the time. And a law is not right on its own right, there is always supporters and detractors. Just that we agree as a society yo abide by the laws we currently have. If anything we should invest in more public awareness to make sure strong privacy requirements are signed into the law. On the other hand, strong privacy laws is a sizable buerocratic burden on the society. So we should be cautious to not over regulate. Laws are difficult to change or revoke even if they are found ineffective or too stringent later on. A high trust environment where most of the players do the right thing without the buerocracy and enforcement is way more efficient.
- CIADidHarryHolt 5y ago
  We need to create a strong, rigid and onerous privacy bureaucracy that allows lawmakers to limit current and future expression against them on the internet, while not creating a strong, rigid and onerous privacy bureaucracy that limits current and future expression on the internet. Blah blah blah Section 230. Blah blah blah Children. Blah blah blah Freedom. Blah blah blah Liberals.

ganzuul 5y ago

Goddamn traitors of the species.

m0zg 5y ago

Twitter threads on this are rather eye opening, if folks haven't seen them, check them out. If this shit is proven in court (and if the judge doesn't hold a large position in defendants, as the case may be), Google / FB could face some _serious_, life changing repercussions. I knew FB / Google Ads was a hive of scum and villainy (but would, nonetheless, accept the paycheck generated by all that), but did not think it was quite this bad. Much like when the varnish started cracking on both Google and Apple when Eric Schmidt fired the recruiter due to Steve Jobs' displeasure. [1] https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1451619916994396164 https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1451619916994396164

gonzo41 5y ago
That's a great twitter thread!
- m0zg 5y ago
  You can already see how Google/FB PR shills are trying to narrow down the fallout in the press (and on this site) by pretending this is only (or mostly) about kids' privacy, whereas the real story is rather severely anticompetitive behavior, collusion, and price fixing in ad exchanges, and privacy is merely a footnote in a War and Peace thick tome of alleged wrongdoing. The actual story is 100x bigger, but you wouldn't even know if you hadn't read that twitter thread. This is called "shaping".
theduder99 5y ago
amazing thread, thanks for sharing.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

imgabe 5y ago

> A week before the meeting, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it was considering making changes to its interpretation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits companies from collecting information about kids under the age of 13 without parental permission. How would that work in practice? A lot of us here operate websites. Your website gets a request. How are you supposed to tell the age of the person that request came from? Maybe Google / Facebook have enough data to identify the person and their age, but ironically, they would have to collect information about them to determine that it's a person they shouldn't collect information about. Certainly no child in the history of the Internet has ever lied to a website when asked their age.

f6v 5y ago
> How would that work in practice? You could ask everyone to confirm their age with eID.
- eitland 5y ago
  Which ironically takes your site from - "can maybe connect sensitive data to some persons" to - "can absolutely connect sensitive data to every user unless they really go out of their way to avoid it"
seanhunter 5y ago
Maybe you shouldn't collect the information about anybody unless you have a way of discriminating. I run some (low-traffic) websites. I don't collect any information about anyone. It's not essential.
- imgabe 5y ago
  It depends on what they consider "collecting information". Does your server log IP addresses? Do you know the age of the person behind each IP address? Does that count as "collecting information" about them? You know an IP, the time and date they accessed the site, what pages they viewed, you can infer a general location. If the law is not clear enough, it can be interpreted to make basically any website infringing. If you want to have a newsletter, or offer a service where people log in and want to recover their password, you'll need at least an email address. Can you verify that every email address is exclusively used by people 13+?

cletus 5y ago

I really wish we had less kneejerk cliche-recycling (eg "don't be evil" comments) commenters here just looking for confirmation bias because this is a difficult issue. First, kids use sites and apps when they're below the ToS age (usually 18 or sometimes 13, at least in the US). How are you meant to know that as a service provider? Don't get me wrong: it doesn't excuse you from doing due diligence. There's such a thing as wanton disregard for the truth. But we all know under 18s use IG, Snapchat, Tinder, etc. I'm not sure fining a company billions of dollars and putting executives in jail is the outcome anyone really wants if a 17 year old uses Tinder. Second, what is personal information, exactly? It's not as obvious as you might think to the point where lawyers who work for these companies can't agree among themselves. There are obvious things (eg IP addresses, dates of birth, SSNs, addresses, names). But what about media? Photos, videos and sound files may all contain PII, technically. Third, some will say "well don't store anything". Well, if a photo contains PII (which it can) then you can't operate a photo-sharing service at all for risk of storing PII of children. Also, this ignores legal obligations. If the Feds show up with a warrant about a particular user's actions then the argument "we log/store nothing" won't get you as far as you think. So I'm not saying Google didn't do wrong here but knowing the complexities I am sympathetic to the idea of resisting broad legislative overreach as you can end up with bad laws that do just that. And if we're going to start singling out tech giants for lobbying Congress, my question is why them in particular? We currently have a Senate that is essentially beholden to the personal interests of one unelected rich guy: Charles Koch. Koch lobbies against health care, taxes on the rich and infrastructure in the Senate. Around the country, he has been instrumental in defeating public transit and many other initiatives in many cities.

wswope 5y ago
> I really wish we had less kneejerk cliche-recycling (eg "don't be evil" comments). Looking at your profile, it’s very obvious that your writing here is an ego-driven deflection to absolve yourself of complicity in these unethical behaviors. You sound like an ex-Shell employee denying global warming. But who cares as long as you’re not as bad as the Koch brothers?
dmitriid 5y ago
You've listed the reasons why governments try not to regulate things until there's a blatant disregard of even common decency. We're way beyond blatant disregard.

washadjeffmad 5y ago

Relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860824 Google hasn't been shy about their own cash for kids(' data) schemes. It's also pretty wild how similar their market creation tactics are (and how beneficial they would be) to groomers other child exploiters. What are advertising and privacy protection laws regarding children like in other counties? Could Google have happened somewhere with stronger consumer and child protection laws?

hliyan 5y ago

Feels like something that should be handled at the client, rather than having even more personal info sent to servers. Perhaps something like a face-id that automatically switches the entire device a kids' profile.

gundmc 5y ago

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28967575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28967575 There are at least 4 similar stories on the front page right now all stemming from the same amended Texas court filing.