9 ms·

Am I the only one who thinks this is all a bit mental? Say you have a (real, physical) business. And say you have some customers who are regulars. You can use y

Am I the only one who thinks this is all a bit mental? Say you have a (real, physical) business. And say you have some customers who are regulars. You can use your eyes to see what your customers frequently buy/engage with and your brain to remember. You can also use a notepad to write things down. This is commonplace - "The usual today John?". Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. Now we just supplement your eyes and notepad with technology, and replace phone calls with packet exchanges. What has changed exactly? Don't you have a right to record who transacts with you? Isn't that information yours, to do with as you please? Can "John" command us to forget we ever saw him? Where in this sequence are anyone's rights violated? How is any of this reasonable?

leephillips 5y ago
No, you don’t have that right. If I buy toe fungus cream at your store you absolutely may not tell other shopkeepers about that. I can’t even get my head around a mentality that considers this behavior to be moral or even normal.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  > If I buy toe fungus cream at your store you absolutely may not tell other shopkeepers about that Why exactly? Which laws would I be violating if I did?
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Well now you'd be violating the GDPR. Before we didn't have these laws because this wasn't a problem in practice - nobody was calling other businesses at scale to tell them who was buying fungus cream. If they were, we would've had a law equivalent to the GDPR to prevent that. Actually, there was one incident in the US where a politician's video rental history was disclosed against his wishes and as a result a law was drafted to prevent this practice in the future: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
  - leephillips 5y ago
    The laws of decency, respected by all decent people. Sure, keep a ledger of what I buy from you. But do not tell anyone else anything about me. I respect this principle in non-commercial life, and so do my friends. You are not exempt from the rules governing decency just because you sell things.
    - Aerroon 5y ago
      But on the other hand, if you had an interaction with the shopkeeper then wouldn't the same laws of decency prevent you from telling others about that encounter?
      - leephillips 5y ago
        It depends what I tell. If the shopkeeper tells me that he recommends a particular brand of toe fungus cream because it works for him, I will never reveal his condition to others. But I might mention his hours of operation, or that he runs a good store, because that’s public information.
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        There are plenty of deals that you make with vendors/merchants that are given in confidence; a merchant may give you 50% off if you promise not to spread it around. Other than those occasions, "shopkeepers" not only want you to spread around that you shopped there, they actually depend on it and will often pay you to do it. As a customer, I have no interest in you advertising for me, so it's not comparable. Any information that you spread around about me is likely to give other "shopkeepers" greater leverage over me (which is why vendors don't do this in the real world unless they have some sort of financial relationship with each other.)
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      I agree, but it has always been tyrannical to legislate decency. What next, fines for not saying "please" and "thank you"?
      - leephillips 5y ago
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    Depending on your jurisdiction, privacy laws designed to prevent exactly what you are doing.
  - xxs 5y ago
    GDPR immediately, unless you have a consent from John to share his personal details. GDPR does not pertain to digital format solely.
Nextgrid 5y ago
The problem is the scale at which this is done. Technology allows to not only collect much more of this data but puts that data at risk of being stolen much more than a single physical notebook. If you employed an army of people to be able to take photographs and remember or write down what every customer looks like, what time they come in, what they typically wear, how long they spend looking at each product, etc... most people will find that creepy and will take offense at that.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  They may find it creepy, but why should it be illegal or regulated by the government in any way? If you don't like the creepy establishments, go elsewhere?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    That assumes that the customer is aware that it's happening and that there are other stores that don't do it. Since at least one of those things is vanishingly unlikely, we have legislation.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    What if everyone does it and so you literally don't have anywhere else to go? What if the data collection was done in such a way that most non-technical people aren't even aware what data is being collected and how it is used? In my hypothetical example about a business employing an army of workers to follow, photograph & take notes about every customer the behavior would at least be visible by the customers (and so they could choose to go elsewhere), which is not the case with modern technology - data is being collected silently in the background. > why should it be illegal or regulated by the government in any way There are plenty of other unlawful things you could apply this question to. Society enacts laws to dissuade & punish behaviors that the majority finds reprehensible.
  - tpush 5y ago
    > They may find it creepy, but why should it be illegal or regulated by the government in any way? Because that society has decided that it wants no creepy restaurants at all. Same with unclean ones, discriminatory ones, etc.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matsemann 5y ago
Wow, I think your example is what's mental. In no way what so ever is it ok for someone to share that with someone else. So I actually like your analogy, it shows how insane the ad businesses and tracking is. (Except for the part where you say the other business owner does it to give great service. Ads aren't used to help people, no one likes them)
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Since always? If someone asks you a question you have a right to answer as you see fit, don't you? Shouldn't you? Even if you've entered into an agreement to keep a secret, it's only a legal contract that you'd be violating (which you have a perfect right to do) not a law.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    You seem to be using “right” to mean something like the state of affairs where there is no criminal penalty. Am I mistaken? I don’t think most people understand the term in that way. So my answers would be no, you don’t have a right to answer as you see fit; no, you should not; and no, you don’t have a right to violate a contract.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      Yes, I mean "right" as in action that may be taken with no criminal consequences. What do you mean by the term? With this definition, you do in fact have a right to breach any contract as there are no criminal penalties for doing so. That's why most contracts specify what happens if they are breached under various conditions. There's a major distinction between civil and criminal law.
      - leephillips 5y ago
        I mean something that it is wrong for you to do. You indeed do not have the “right” to violate a contract; that’s precisely why doing so exposes you to civil remedies.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. That was already way too invasive, yes. You could probably get away with it before, because the scale was so small that it wasn't quite as horrible. There is after all a difference between occasionally violating one person's privacy and violating the privacy of thousands of people a minute. Not an actual ethical difference, but there are finite legal resources to go around. Also, I object to this idea that because the pieces of behavior are acceptable the combined effect is automatically okay. It's perfectly legal to own and use a camera. It's perfectly legal to own an use a telephoto lens. It's even legal to look at your neighbor's house. Nonetheless, taking a camera and pointing it through a telephoto lens at a neighbor's house and recording 24/7 is an excellent way to get arrested.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  All of what we're discussing is within the realm of decency, not law. Yes it's impolite to gossip about people, always has been. It's however tyrannical and totally inappropriate to legislate decency.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    It was a matter of decency first, but we're here talking about it because to varying degrees in varying jurisdictions it most certainly is law.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      Yes, and I'm suggesting these laws are unjust because they impose the values of some segment of people on to others. Leave people to associate as they see fit. Some groups will track you, some won't. You can choose which to patronize, on which browsers.
      - leephillips 5y ago
capableweb 5y ago
> Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. That's not how it works in the real world though. Why would a restaurant answer someone random calling them and asking what one of their regulars is typically ordering? I see no possible benefit in answering that question.
- aembleton 5y ago
  How would they even know which restaurant to call? This only works in the online advertising world because whenever John enters a shop, restaurant or other establishment his photo is taken and sent to a central authority. That central authority can then sell space in some of those shops to push a product or service to him based on the history of shops he's entered.
paxys 5y ago
A lot of tech regulation exists specifically because of the scale of the collection/automation that is now possible. For example surveillance cameras, license plate readers, facial recognition can all be replicated by positing a dozen cops on every intersection in the country, but many jurisdictions still have laws against them. To answer your specific scenario, it would be pretty creepy (and possibly illegal) if shopkeepers in different towns were calling each other and discussing my specific purchasing preferences.
dane-pgp 5y ago
> Isn't that information yours, to do with as you please? I could equally ask "Isn't that information John's, to do with as he pleases?". Property is a legal fiction, and "intellectual property" doubly so; but it seems perfectly reasonable that society should decide that information about a human person should be controlled by them, rather than by the artificial person of a corporation. If John asks you to make his drink preference available to every competitor of yours, and you for some reason agree to provide that service to him, then of course John can get the benefit of that information sharing, but this should only happen if he specifically opts in to it. (In reality you wouldn't provide this service helping your competitors, and the information sharing could be managed by another service, which John would probably have to pay for, and service providers would compete based on the security, speed, ease of use, and accuracy of their service).
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  "information" itself is a fiction. The only question is to what degree can someone else control what you do or say? The "information" is "mine" in the sense that I should be able to use my brain and mouth as I see fit. Anything else is awfully invasive don't you think?
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    If you work for a corporation, you already are prevented from using your brain and mouth as you see fit (or at least, what you "see fit" is being heavily influenced by your desire to stay employed by them). Consumer privacy regulations don't control your brain and mouth, they control the incentives of companies, who are not humans, and do not have mouths or brains. Those companies then control the incentives of their employees who can choose whether or not to work for them.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      I'm not prevented by anyone. No one will impose a fine on me for speaking my mind at work. They may just terminate me, which is of course their prerogative. They can terminate me anyways. Small businesses with individual owners are also burdened by this legislation.
gostsamo 5y ago
Maybe John traveled to another city so that the things he does there are not linked to what he does at home. If John wants that I share his preferences, he should let me know and the other business owner should ask him whom to contact in order to spare him the inconvenience of listing all his preferences himself. Edit: grammar
pessimizer 5y ago
> Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. You casually say this like it's obviously OK, and like it ever happens in the real world. If I'm doing business with you, and you investigate me to discover other people that I've done similar business with in order to ask them what I like, you're officially a creepy business. The reason this is a matter of creepiness and not law IRL is because no business with more than a couple of customers could manage to regularly do this. The internet is what provides the dragnets, and the ability to be creepy at scale.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
The more you move from "your brain" to "database", the bigger the risk of abuse. If you keep it in your head, it's not going to be stolen or abused. If you put it in a notebook, the risk increases, but you at least aren't going to be doing this at a large scale, simply due to physical limitations. Various laws have different thresholds, but usually it's something like a "systematic collection of data" or "automated processing" (I think it's the latter for GDPR), which seems like a reasonable compromise to avoid hampering the low-risk small scale use cases. Edit, looked it up, this is the definition GDPR uses: This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automated means and to the processing other than by automated means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system. So if you keep your database in a notebook, you're probably still fine, because the structure makes it impossible to do nasty things at scale. Once you switch to alphabetically sorted index cards, you've crossed the threshold.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  This is exactly what seems crazy to me. Why does augmenting my capabilities with technology arbitrarily subject me to additional regulation? I should either have a right to do something, or not have that right. That's what "inalienable" means. In this case an inalienable right to free expression.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > Why does augmenting my capabilities with technology arbitrarily subject me to additional regulation? Augmented capability lets you cause more, newer and larger problems. We didn't have speed limits on the roads until humans acquired the technological capability to go faster, causing more fatalities.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      We've had laws governing public spaces and common rights of way for millennia. Governing what and to whom people can communicate, and what they are allowed to remember or record, that's the new thing I'm objecting to.
Bayart 5y ago
>Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. That's unacceptable to start with. >What has changed exactly? You've automatized something unacceptable ? >Don't you have a right to record who transacts with you? Within a certain context, you do. The data that is untrusted to you is done so based on the assumption that you're acting in good faith and won't trade that information without consent. >Isn't that information yours, to do with as you please? Absolutely not, at least not in the legal systems we have in Europe. >Can "John" command us to forget we ever saw him? Yes, he can ! At least in my opinion and virtually every other European's he does. The right to be forgotten is an active subject of discussion[0]. The stance in the US is that it runs contrary to freedom of expression. The stance in Europe is that personal freedom implies being sovereign over one's own data. In technical areas, the right to be forgotten is interpreted as the right to erasure[1], which happens to be part of the GDPR. I've myself used that right several times. And I end up being very mindful of my usage of data in software I write. >How is any of this reasonable? Your ease of business doesn't trump someone's rights over themselves, the data they generate being a extension of it. End of story. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten [1]: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  > That's unacceptable to start with. On what grounds exactly? When interacting with people they are able to observe you and record their observations. From where do you derive a "right" to control their behavior in this regard? How could you classify an observation about yourself made by someone else as "yours"? How would you enforce this "right to be forgotten" when people carry around storage mediums made from meat? Or are you simply suggesting that you should be forced to go through all your letters, diaries, notebooks and ledgers on the whim of someone's demands?
fangorn 5y ago
And if that shopkeeper starts following you around everywhere you go, noting what you do, what you buy, what you read, with whom, and then shares this with whomever they want, for profit, isn't that stalking, isn't that person basically a creep? And if they did it with all of their customers? And since it's physically impossible for a single person to do that then they will build an army of robots that will do that for them, is that still OK? Because that's already a reality we live in.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  I mean, yeah if it's their shop of course they can follow you around with a clipboard and sell copies to whomever wants one. That's why it's their shop. If you don't like it, you can leave. If they follow you home, yeah they're stalking you, but that's not what we're talking about is it?
gpvos 5y ago
I hope you are playing devil's advocate and don't mean this seriously. 1. When you enter it into a computer, everything changes. The scale with which data can be stored, distributed and aggregated is just staggeringly more huge. 2. People don't like ads, except for a few weirdos. Ads are not a service in the interest of the consumer. 3. Knowing someone personally is fine, but passing on that knowledge without their consent, or at least knowing for certain that it is in their interest, is a no-no. And that's only the three most egregious things you get wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  A computer is just an augmentation of a mind. It does the same things, just more perfectly. Shouldn't we all be able to augment our minds as we see fit? Should our freedoms change in the process? People who attract new customers with ads must like them. People who were informed of a product that meets their previously-unserved needs must also, right? 3. is just plain old gossip, which is also what I'm describing. It has always been in poor taste, and should never be illegal or regulated at all. Only religions do that.
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    Some forms of "gossip" (such as slander) are actually harmful, and thus probably should have legal consequences (and usually does).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
croes 5y ago
Bad example. You are not memorizing one customer but millions, you don't note one favorite purchase but all, you don't tell one other store owner but thousands. One locust is harmless thousands are a plague.
jacquesm 5y ago
The question to ask yourself is always 'if I prefix this with 'at scale' does that change the equation?'. And if the answer to that is a 'yes' then your online/offline analogy doesn't hold water.
kymaz 5y ago
Technology is making this easy to scale up, there will always be people who want to abuse this, and the abuse potential grows with scale. What was once 'I'm particularly fond of a certain shops version of a food item' can then become every shop selling that category of item automatically guiding you to the same type of item. Besides the part where everyone knows your name and a quick dossier like you're a celebrity but without any of the perks, life would be so drab if it was "The usual today John?" at literally every place everywhere always.
908B64B197 5y ago
High end hotels do this. Honestly, more and more I'm starting to think GDPR is just an excuse to fleece "evil foreign tech giants". It's a set of arbitrary rules with vague and selective enforcement that seems not to be completely understood even by the legislators who wrote it, as demonstrated by legislators not knowing the answer to the simple question: Are pop-up consent forms acceptable. It's whatever the bureaucrats don't like that day really. Guess some US company will have to go to court (and subsidize the European Legal Industry doing so) for the privilege of figuring it out. It wouldn't be so comical if FAANG wasn't full of European devs who chose to innovate in the Valley, probably to escape this very bureaucracy.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  Doesn't seem arbitrary to me. It might be cultural though. Somehow the need for privacy is just not something that is in the lived experience of eg many Americans, apparently. Say we've learned over time that the color purple is really dangerous and needs to be regulated (work with me here for a second) . Now try explaining "Purple Considered Harmful" to someone who is colorblind. The fact that suddenly grape juice is bad, but orange juice is good... weird. Or the fact that you'd not be allowed to mix tomato ketchup with blueberry jam. And you'd just randomly get fined for trying to sell that "dark green" sweater. Madness! It would all seem quite arbitrary to the color blind person. Meanwhile someone with color vision would instantly see that all those things are purple, and thus clearly harmful. The example might seem bit contrived, but something similar might be going on with the European concept of privacy. People have been hurt due to PII issues in recent history, so one would like to keep control of PII. But try to explain that tingling spidey sense that has kept one's family alive in the last century to someone who has never encountered Nazis or Soviets before, and has instead lived a life of unfettered freedom. That might be rather difficult. Especially if you can't get the base concept across, and need to do it in terms of (very arbitrary seeming) examples.
- p_l 5y ago
  Honestly, if you fail to comply with GDPR, you probably failed to comply with laws stretching at least back to 1995. GDPR mostly changed ability to hunt down violations, and further harmonised and clarified laws that were already in force. It's easier to comply in post-GDPR world than before it, and there's general guidance for let's call it "honest mistakes" as well as coverage on some internet-specific issues. And Valley is pretty much there because when the long chain of capital-hungry events was building it up, we were still rebuilding from last war while funding preparation for take three thanks to Truman.
spurgu 5y ago
I'm more or less in agreement. What we need is a change of mentality/awareness, i.e. that everything you do online is being tracked and shared with other parties. Because it mostly is.
andylynch 5y ago
These is no difference offline vs online in this context. You almost certainly had a legitimate interest in remembering your guest’s preferences, but retaining only the necessary amount of personal information is key, and sharing it with other firms is more restricted- an example of where this could be legal is in sharing warning of violent guests.

leephillips 5y ago

No, you don’t have that right. If I buy toe fungus cream at your store you absolutely may not tell other shopkeepers about that. I can’t even get my head around a mentality that considers this behavior to be moral or even normal.

thegrimmest 5y ago
> If I buy toe fungus cream at your store you absolutely may not tell other shopkeepers about that Why exactly? Which laws would I be violating if I did?
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Well now you'd be violating the GDPR. Before we didn't have these laws because this wasn't a problem in practice - nobody was calling other businesses at scale to tell them who was buying fungus cream. If they were, we would've had a law equivalent to the GDPR to prevent that. Actually, there was one incident in the US where a politician's video rental history was disclosed against his wishes and as a result a law was drafted to prevent this practice in the future: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
- leephillips 5y ago
  The laws of decency, respected by all decent people. Sure, keep a ledger of what I buy from you. But do not tell anyone else anything about me. I respect this principle in non-commercial life, and so do my friends. You are not exempt from the rules governing decency just because you sell things.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    But on the other hand, if you had an interaction with the shopkeeper then wouldn't the same laws of decency prevent you from telling others about that encounter?
    - leephillips 5y ago
      It depends what I tell. If the shopkeeper tells me that he recommends a particular brand of toe fungus cream because it works for him, I will never reveal his condition to others. But I might mention his hours of operation, or that he runs a good store, because that’s public information.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      There are plenty of deals that you make with vendors/merchants that are given in confidence; a merchant may give you 50% off if you promise not to spread it around. Other than those occasions, "shopkeepers" not only want you to spread around that you shopped there, they actually depend on it and will often pay you to do it. As a customer, I have no interest in you advertising for me, so it's not comparable. Any information that you spread around about me is likely to give other "shopkeepers" greater leverage over me (which is why vendors don't do this in the real world unless they have some sort of financial relationship with each other.)
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    I agree, but it has always been tyrannical to legislate decency. What next, fines for not saying "please" and "thank you"?
    - leephillips 5y ago
- verve_rat 5y ago
  Depending on your jurisdiction, privacy laws designed to prevent exactly what you are doing.
- xxs 5y ago
  GDPR immediately, unless you have a consent from John to share his personal details. GDPR does not pertain to digital format solely.

Nextgrid 5y ago

The problem is the scale at which this is done. Technology allows to not only collect much more of this data but puts that data at risk of being stolen much more than a single physical notebook. If you employed an army of people to be able to take photographs and remember or write down what every customer looks like, what time they come in, what they typically wear, how long they spend looking at each product, etc... most people will find that creepy and will take offense at that.

thegrimmest 5y ago
They may find it creepy, but why should it be illegal or regulated by the government in any way? If you don't like the creepy establishments, go elsewhere?
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  That assumes that the customer is aware that it's happening and that there are other stores that don't do it. Since at least one of those things is vanishingly unlikely, we have legislation.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  What if everyone does it and so you literally don't have anywhere else to go? What if the data collection was done in such a way that most non-technical people aren't even aware what data is being collected and how it is used? In my hypothetical example about a business employing an army of workers to follow, photograph & take notes about every customer the behavior would at least be visible by the customers (and so they could choose to go elsewhere), which is not the case with modern technology - data is being collected silently in the background. > why should it be illegal or regulated by the government in any way There are plenty of other unlawful things you could apply this question to. Society enacts laws to dissuade & punish behaviors that the majority finds reprehensible.
- tpush 5y ago
  > They may find it creepy, but why should it be illegal or regulated by the government in any way? Because that society has decided that it wants no creepy restaurants at all. Same with unclean ones, discriminatory ones, etc.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matsemann 5y ago

Wow, I think your example is what's mental. In no way what so ever is it ok for someone to share that with someone else. So I actually like your analogy, it shows how insane the ad businesses and tracking is. (Except for the part where you say the other business owner does it to give great service. Ads aren't used to help people, no one likes them)

thegrimmest 5y ago
Since always? If someone asks you a question you have a right to answer as you see fit, don't you? Shouldn't you? Even if you've entered into an agreement to keep a secret, it's only a legal contract that you'd be violating (which you have a perfect right to do) not a law.
- leephillips 5y ago
  You seem to be using “right” to mean something like the state of affairs where there is no criminal penalty. Am I mistaken? I don’t think most people understand the term in that way. So my answers would be no, you don’t have a right to answer as you see fit; no, you should not; and no, you don’t have a right to violate a contract.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    Yes, I mean "right" as in action that may be taken with no criminal consequences. What do you mean by the term? With this definition, you do in fact have a right to breach any contract as there are no criminal penalties for doing so. That's why most contracts specify what happens if they are breached under various conditions. There's a major distinction between civil and criminal law.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      I mean something that it is wrong for you to do. You indeed do not have the “right” to violate a contract; that’s precisely why doing so exposes you to civil remedies.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

> Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. That was already way too invasive, yes. You could probably get away with it before, because the scale was so small that it wasn't quite as horrible. There is after all a difference between occasionally violating one person's privacy and violating the privacy of thousands of people a minute. Not an actual ethical difference, but there are finite legal resources to go around. Also, I object to this idea that because the pieces of behavior are acceptable the combined effect is automatically okay. It's perfectly legal to own and use a camera. It's perfectly legal to own an use a telephoto lens. It's even legal to look at your neighbor's house. Nonetheless, taking a camera and pointing it through a telephoto lens at a neighbor's house and recording 24/7 is an excellent way to get arrested.

thegrimmest 5y ago
All of what we're discussing is within the realm of decency, not law. Yes it's impolite to gossip about people, always has been. It's however tyrannical and totally inappropriate to legislate decency.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  It was a matter of decency first, but we're here talking about it because to varying degrees in varying jurisdictions it most certainly is law.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    Yes, and I'm suggesting these laws are unjust because they impose the values of some segment of people on to others. Leave people to associate as they see fit. Some groups will track you, some won't. You can choose which to patronize, on which browsers.
    - leephillips 5y ago

capableweb 5y ago

> Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. That's not how it works in the real world though. Why would a restaurant answer someone random calling them and asking what one of their regulars is typically ordering? I see no possible benefit in answering that question.

aembleton 5y ago
How would they even know which restaurant to call? This only works in the online advertising world because whenever John enters a shop, restaurant or other establishment his photo is taken and sent to a central authority. That central authority can then sell space in some of those shops to push a product or service to him based on the history of shops he's entered.

paxys 5y ago

A lot of tech regulation exists specifically because of the scale of the collection/automation that is now possible. For example surveillance cameras, license plate readers, facial recognition can all be replicated by positing a dozen cops on every intersection in the country, but many jurisdictions still have laws against them. To answer your specific scenario, it would be pretty creepy (and possibly illegal) if shopkeepers in different towns were calling each other and discussing my specific purchasing preferences.

dane-pgp 5y ago

> Isn't that information yours, to do with as you please? I could equally ask "Isn't that information John's, to do with as he pleases?". Property is a legal fiction, and "intellectual property" doubly so; but it seems perfectly reasonable that society should decide that information about a human person should be controlled by them, rather than by the artificial person of a corporation. If John asks you to make his drink preference available to every competitor of yours, and you for some reason agree to provide that service to him, then of course John can get the benefit of that information sharing, but this should only happen if he specifically opts in to it. (In reality you wouldn't provide this service helping your competitors, and the information sharing could be managed by another service, which John would probably have to pay for, and service providers would compete based on the security, speed, ease of use, and accuracy of their service).

thegrimmest 5y ago
"information" itself is a fiction. The only question is to what degree can someone else control what you do or say? The "information" is "mine" in the sense that I should be able to use my brain and mouth as I see fit. Anything else is awfully invasive don't you think?
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  If you work for a corporation, you already are prevented from using your brain and mouth as you see fit (or at least, what you "see fit" is being heavily influenced by your desire to stay employed by them). Consumer privacy regulations don't control your brain and mouth, they control the incentives of companies, who are not humans, and do not have mouths or brains. Those companies then control the incentives of their employees who can choose whether or not to work for them.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    I'm not prevented by anyone. No one will impose a fine on me for speaking my mind at work. They may just terminate me, which is of course their prerogative. They can terminate me anyways. Small businesses with individual owners are also burdened by this legislation.

gostsamo 5y ago

Maybe John traveled to another city so that the things he does there are not linked to what he does at home. If John wants that I share his preferences, he should let me know and the other business owner should ask him whom to contact in order to spare him the inconvenience of listing all his preferences himself. Edit: grammar

pessimizer 5y ago

> Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. You casually say this like it's obviously OK, and like it ever happens in the real world. If I'm doing business with you, and you investigate me to discover other people that I've done similar business with in order to ask them what I like, you're officially a creepy business. The reason this is a matter of creepiness and not law IRL is because no business with more than a couple of customers could manage to regularly do this. The internet is what provides the dragnets, and the ability to be creepy at scale.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

The more you move from "your brain" to "database", the bigger the risk of abuse. If you keep it in your head, it's not going to be stolen or abused. If you put it in a notebook, the risk increases, but you at least aren't going to be doing this at a large scale, simply due to physical limitations. Various laws have different thresholds, but usually it's something like a "systematic collection of data" or "automated processing" (I think it's the latter for GDPR), which seems like a reasonable compromise to avoid hampering the low-risk small scale use cases. Edit, looked it up, this is the definition GDPR uses: This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automated means and to the processing other than by automated means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system. So if you keep your database in a notebook, you're probably still fine, because the structure makes it impossible to do nasty things at scale. Once you switch to alphabetically sorted index cards, you've crossed the threshold.

thegrimmest 5y ago
This is exactly what seems crazy to me. Why does augmenting my capabilities with technology arbitrarily subject me to additional regulation? I should either have a right to do something, or not have that right. That's what "inalienable" means. In this case an inalienable right to free expression.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > Why does augmenting my capabilities with technology arbitrarily subject me to additional regulation? Augmented capability lets you cause more, newer and larger problems. We didn't have speed limits on the roads until humans acquired the technological capability to go faster, causing more fatalities.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    We've had laws governing public spaces and common rights of way for millennia. Governing what and to whom people can communicate, and what they are allowed to remember or record, that's the new thing I'm objecting to.

Bayart 5y ago

>Now say John travels to another town, and the proprietor of a similar establishment in that town, wanting to provide John with the best level of service, calls you to ask "Hey, what does John like?", and you tell them. That's unacceptable to start with. >What has changed exactly? You've automatized something unacceptable ? >Don't you have a right to record who transacts with you? Within a certain context, you do. The data that is untrusted to you is done so based on the assumption that you're acting in good faith and won't trade that information without consent. >Isn't that information yours, to do with as you please? Absolutely not, at least not in the legal systems we have in Europe. >Can "John" command us to forget we ever saw him? Yes, he can ! At least in my opinion and virtually every other European's he does. The right to be forgotten is an active subject of discussion[0]. The stance in the US is that it runs contrary to freedom of expression. The stance in Europe is that personal freedom implies being sovereign over one's own data. In technical areas, the right to be forgotten is interpreted as the right to erasure[1], which happens to be part of the GDPR. I've myself used that right several times. And I end up being very mindful of my usage of data in software I write. >How is any of this reasonable? Your ease of business doesn't trump someone's rights over themselves, the data they generate being a extension of it. End of story. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten [1]: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/

thegrimmest 5y ago
> That's unacceptable to start with. On what grounds exactly? When interacting with people they are able to observe you and record their observations. From where do you derive a "right" to control their behavior in this regard? How could you classify an observation about yourself made by someone else as "yours"? How would you enforce this "right to be forgotten" when people carry around storage mediums made from meat? Or are you simply suggesting that you should be forced to go through all your letters, diaries, notebooks and ledgers on the whim of someone's demands?

fangorn 5y ago

And if that shopkeeper starts following you around everywhere you go, noting what you do, what you buy, what you read, with whom, and then shares this with whomever they want, for profit, isn't that stalking, isn't that person basically a creep? And if they did it with all of their customers? And since it's physically impossible for a single person to do that then they will build an army of robots that will do that for them, is that still OK? Because that's already a reality we live in.

thegrimmest 5y ago
I mean, yeah if it's their shop of course they can follow you around with a clipboard and sell copies to whomever wants one. That's why it's their shop. If you don't like it, you can leave. If they follow you home, yeah they're stalking you, but that's not what we're talking about is it?

gpvos 5y ago

I hope you are playing devil's advocate and don't mean this seriously. 1. When you enter it into a computer, everything changes. The scale with which data can be stored, distributed and aggregated is just staggeringly more huge. 2. People don't like ads, except for a few weirdos. Ads are not a service in the interest of the consumer. 3. Knowing someone personally is fine, but passing on that knowledge without their consent, or at least knowing for certain that it is in their interest, is a no-no. And that's only the three most egregious things you get wrong.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thegrimmest 5y ago
A computer is just an augmentation of a mind. It does the same things, just more perfectly. Shouldn't we all be able to augment our minds as we see fit? Should our freedoms change in the process? People who attract new customers with ads must like them. People who were informed of a product that meets their previously-unserved needs must also, right? 3. is just plain old gossip, which is also what I'm describing. It has always been in poor taste, and should never be illegal or regulated at all. Only religions do that.
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  Some forms of "gossip" (such as slander) are actually harmful, and thus probably should have legal consequences (and usually does).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

croes 5y ago

Bad example. You are not memorizing one customer but millions, you don't note one favorite purchase but all, you don't tell one other store owner but thousands. One locust is harmless thousands are a plague.

jacquesm 5y ago

The question to ask yourself is always 'if I prefix this with 'at scale' does that change the equation?'. And if the answer to that is a 'yes' then your online/offline analogy doesn't hold water.

kymaz 5y ago

Technology is making this easy to scale up, there will always be people who want to abuse this, and the abuse potential grows with scale. What was once 'I'm particularly fond of a certain shops version of a food item' can then become every shop selling that category of item automatically guiding you to the same type of item. Besides the part where everyone knows your name and a quick dossier like you're a celebrity but without any of the perks, life would be so drab if it was "The usual today John?" at literally every place everywhere always.

908B64B197 5y ago

High end hotels do this. Honestly, more and more I'm starting to think GDPR is just an excuse to fleece "evil foreign tech giants". It's a set of arbitrary rules with vague and selective enforcement that seems not to be completely understood even by the legislators who wrote it, as demonstrated by legislators not knowing the answer to the simple question: Are pop-up consent forms acceptable. It's whatever the bureaucrats don't like that day really. Guess some US company will have to go to court (and subsidize the European Legal Industry doing so) for the privilege of figuring it out. It wouldn't be so comical if FAANG wasn't full of European devs who chose to innovate in the Valley, probably to escape this very bureaucracy.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Kim_Bruning 5y ago
Doesn't seem arbitrary to me. It might be cultural though. Somehow the need for privacy is just not something that is in the lived experience of eg many Americans, apparently. Say we've learned over time that the color purple is really dangerous and needs to be regulated (work with me here for a second) . Now try explaining "Purple Considered Harmful" to someone who is colorblind. The fact that suddenly grape juice is bad, but orange juice is good... weird. Or the fact that you'd not be allowed to mix tomato ketchup with blueberry jam. And you'd just randomly get fined for trying to sell that "dark green" sweater. Madness! It would all seem quite arbitrary to the color blind person. Meanwhile someone with color vision would instantly see that all those things are purple, and thus clearly harmful. The example might seem bit contrived, but something similar might be going on with the European concept of privacy. People have been hurt due to PII issues in recent history, so one would like to keep control of PII. But try to explain that tingling spidey sense that has kept one's family alive in the last century to someone who has never encountered Nazis or Soviets before, and has instead lived a life of unfettered freedom. That might be rather difficult. Especially if you can't get the base concept across, and need to do it in terms of (very arbitrary seeming) examples.
p_l 5y ago
Honestly, if you fail to comply with GDPR, you probably failed to comply with laws stretching at least back to 1995. GDPR mostly changed ability to hunt down violations, and further harmonised and clarified laws that were already in force. It's easier to comply in post-GDPR world than before it, and there's general guidance for let's call it "honest mistakes" as well as coverage on some internet-specific issues. And Valley is pretty much there because when the long chain of capital-hungry events was building it up, we were still rebuilding from last war while funding preparation for take three thanks to Truman.

spurgu 5y ago

I'm more or less in agreement. What we need is a change of mentality/awareness, i.e. that everything you do online is being tracked and shared with other parties. Because it mostly is.

andylynch 5y ago

These is no difference offline vs online in this context. You almost certainly had a legitimate interest in remembering your guest’s preferences, but retaining only the necessary amount of personal information is key, and sharing it with other firms is more restricted- an example of where this could be legal is in sharing warning of violent guests.