3 ms·

Anyone who uses the terms "spying" and "surveillance" to characterize this business model is being misleading in order to push an agenda. These terms imply som

by avalys 5y ago

Anyone who uses the terms "spying" and "surveillance" to characterize this business model is being misleading in order to push an agenda. These terms imply some kind of personal connection. The police will put a suspect under "surveillance". Someone might "spy" on their spouse to see if they're cheating. These are the sorts of scenarios that these terms call to mind. These imply a deliberate and focused invasion of privacy by another person who is specifically looking to uncover and reveal some information that you want to keep secret, in order to use it against your interests. This really has nothing to do with a computer system automatically collecting data on what TV shows you're watching and the vendor reselling this information in aggregate from millions of users (or, just using it to allow some other vendor to automatically and impersonally select an ad to show you, along with millions of other users in the same algorithmic category). It's a false equivalency intended to manipulate your emotions into fearing a harm that does not exist. The reason they have to resort to this sort of technique is that they can't point to any actual harm from this practice that ordinary people would care about, so emotionally manipulative trickery is their only option.

mschuster91 5y ago
> These terms imply some kind of personal connection. The police will put a suspect under "surveillance". Someone might "spy" on their spouse to see if they're cheating. The thing is, with "dragnet warrants" (see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-warrants-reverse-search-warrants-police-google https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-war...) it is incredibly easy for your data to end up subpoena'd by the police. Secret services may not even need that and simply take all the data they want. And at that time, your TV, phone or other device has effectively become an espionage device. This is why the European GDPR focuses so hard on data minimization: data that doesn't even get collected or stored cannot be abused by criminals and the government.
Zigurd 5y ago
This argument is a denial of the existence and effectiveness of microtargeting.
- dopamean 5y ago
  No it is not. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with it but it’s arguing that the harm of microtargeting is at the very least overstated.
thot_experiment 5y ago
The actual harm? If you steal a dollar from everyone what's the harm, it's just a dollar? Except now you have 7 billion dollars and you can do a bunch of bullshit with it. Except in this case companies are stealing personal agency and using it to create reality. Not only that but that cache of power, it's not available to you but it's probably available to rich people and governments, further exacerbating power divides. The power of information is insidious and grows as you gain more of it.
- avalys 5y ago
  > Except in this case companies are stealing personal agency and using it to create reality. What does this mean?
  - thot_experiment 5y ago
    By understanding behaviors and patterns on a large scale you can become better at manipulating on a large scale. In giving up privacy you allow yourself to be more effectively manipulated (giving up your agency) and the entities that understand the broader patterns can now use those patterns for to create large structures in our world (creating reality).
akaij 5y ago
Threats to civil liberties only ever come a few dollars at a time.
chuckee 5y ago
And someone might "spy" on a whistleblower that leaked an incriminating video, by issuing a warrant for the media fingerprint [1], and finding which TV was used to view the leaked footage. Google doesn't "spy" on you either, by your ridiculously narrow definition, and yet their data sends people to jail [2]. Or a personality/political profile could be built on a person from the shows they watch. Or your social score could be reduced if you watch too many subversive shows. Oh but that's in China, and could never ever happen here, so no worries about building all the infrastructure to enable it. Except if you view terrorist content, then the UK feels justified in jailing you for 10-15 years [3]. But hey I don't think there's precedent yet for using smart TV fingerprinting for that, so why worry? Lets give up our autonomy and privacy one tiny slice at a time. And when there is nothing left, you can point to each individual slice and explain to us how losing that one was totally insignificant and non-nefarious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_fingerprinting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_fingerprinting [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-warrants-reverse-search-warrants-police-google https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-war... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41479620.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41479620.amp
CuriousSkeptic 5y ago
Well in Sweden recording the audio, or intercepting data, is a crime that could land you up to six years in prison. It seems to me the only thing protecting these people would be claiming informed consent due to the dense EULA presented on activating the device. Im not really sure it would hold up in court though

by avalys 5y ago

mschuster91 5y ago

> These terms imply some kind of personal connection. The police will put a suspect under "surveillance". Someone might "spy" on their spouse to see if they're cheating. The thing is, with "dragnet warrants" (see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-warrants-reverse-search-warrants-police-google https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-war...) it is incredibly easy for your data to end up subpoena'd by the police. Secret services may not even need that and simply take all the data they want. And at that time, your TV, phone or other device has effectively become an espionage device. This is why the European GDPR focuses so hard on data minimization: data that doesn't even get collected or stored cannot be abused by criminals and the government.

Zigurd 5y ago

This argument is a denial of the existence and effectiveness of microtargeting.

dopamean 5y ago
No it is not. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with it but it’s arguing that the harm of microtargeting is at the very least overstated.

thot_experiment 5y ago

The actual harm? If you steal a dollar from everyone what's the harm, it's just a dollar? Except now you have 7 billion dollars and you can do a bunch of bullshit with it. Except in this case companies are stealing personal agency and using it to create reality. Not only that but that cache of power, it's not available to you but it's probably available to rich people and governments, further exacerbating power divides. The power of information is insidious and grows as you gain more of it.

avalys 5y ago
> Except in this case companies are stealing personal agency and using it to create reality. What does this mean?
- thot_experiment 5y ago
  By understanding behaviors and patterns on a large scale you can become better at manipulating on a large scale. In giving up privacy you allow yourself to be more effectively manipulated (giving up your agency) and the entities that understand the broader patterns can now use those patterns for to create large structures in our world (creating reality).

akaij 5y ago

Threats to civil liberties only ever come a few dollars at a time.

chuckee 5y ago

And someone might "spy" on a whistleblower that leaked an incriminating video, by issuing a warrant for the media fingerprint [1], and finding which TV was used to view the leaked footage. Google doesn't "spy" on you either, by your ridiculously narrow definition, and yet their data sends people to jail [2]. Or a personality/political profile could be built on a person from the shows they watch. Or your social score could be reduced if you watch too many subversive shows. Oh but that's in China, and could never ever happen here, so no worries about building all the infrastructure to enable it. Except if you view terrorist content, then the UK feels justified in jailing you for 10-15 years [3]. But hey I don't think there's precedent yet for using smart TV fingerprinting for that, so why worry? Lets give up our autonomy and privacy one tiny slice at a time. And when there is nothing left, you can point to each individual slice and explain to us how losing that one was totally insignificant and non-nefarious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_fingerprinting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_fingerprinting [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-warrants-reverse-search-warrants-police-google https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/geofence-war... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41479620.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41479620.amp

CuriousSkeptic 5y ago

Well in Sweden recording the audio, or intercepting data, is a crime that could land you up to six years in prison. It seems to me the only thing protecting these people would be claiming informed consent due to the dense EULA presented on activating the device. Im not really sure it would hold up in court though