5 ms·

Facebook better wake up and realize that especially thanks to companies like them and their failure to self-regulate and respect privacy values outside the US,

by rickmb 15y ago

Facebook better wake up and realize that especially thanks to companies like them and their failure to self-regulate and respect privacy values outside the US, using Like-buttons for tracking is likely to become illegal in the EU and many other places in the next five years. Technically, one could argue that they already violate existing laws, but incidents like these will make absolutely sure that these practices will be explicitly outlawed very soon. It keeps surprising me how companies like Facebook and Google seem to be oblivious to the way privacy is perceived elsewhere, and are actively provoking stricter legislation than would be the case if they showed some respect. There is absolutely no question about these tracking practices being perceived as ethically unacceptable in many countries, so why provoke both negative publicity and legislation that is likely to handicap less intrusive solutions as well?

doki_pen 15y ago
Google claims that they do not use or keep this information for anything. When they talk about for debugging purposes, they probably mean their web access logs. http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=1207011&answer=1319578 http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&...
mypov 15y ago
I would like to add that contrary to your impression we too value privacy in USA.
- _delirium 15y ago
  To some extent, though we've been less active in doing anything about it. In part we tend to be less keen than Europeans on having the government regulate these kinds of things, but the various private-sector and non-profit initiatives (like TRUSTe) that are supposed to fill the gap have been fairly ineffectual.
  - alexqgb 15y ago
    Unlike Germans - who had the Statsi to contend with, and before that the SS - Americans have never been exposed to a genuine, law-unto-itself, every-phoneline-tapped, free-to-kidnap-torture-and-kill secret police force. One of the clearest lessons learned is that once these things take root, they are incredibly hard to dislodge. When they do go, it's only due to truly cataclysmic change. What naive Americans may regard as absurd hyper-sensitivity or a hopeless lack of technical sophistication is often an acute awareness that never letting it happen again means banning a lot of stuff that young innocents casually dismiss "as just being how the internet works". Evgeny Morozov (author of "The Net Delusion" http://amzn.to/nOOxzQ http://amzn.to/nOOxzQ) observes that casual openness is exactly how the web can be used to work against you. He makes the point that while folks safely ensconced in California should be grateful for their freedom from truly abusive government, they should also be a lot more sensitive to the concerns - and outright trauma - still found in places that haven't been so lucky. Of course, I'm over-simplifying his argument a bit. If you want a more complete (and much more entertaining) introduction, RSA did an especially good animation of a talk he gave, which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU
    - hollerith 15y ago
      You mean Gestapo, not SS.
      - alexqgb 15y ago
        Correct - thank you.
- beagle3 15y ago
  Consider the massive usage of Facebook and Twitter, the lack of outrage over the warrantless wiretapping scandal (running for 10.5 years now), easily available voter records (see e.g. the backstory behind Latanya Sweeney's original identifiability study), and lack of public comments about requiring ISPs to store all session information for a long time - I would say that is strong evidence that USA as a nation does not actually value privacy. edit: wireless wiretapping scandal -> warrantless wiretapping scandal, silly me.
  - Hawramani 15y ago
    Or the fact that all ATT (and possibly Verizon) traffic goes through the NSA.
    - beagle3 15y ago
      doh! I wrote "wireless wiretapping scandal" but I meant "warrantless wiretapping scandal", which is what you are referring to explicitly. edited to note correction; Thanks!
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    Please don't equate a lack of change with a lack of outrage; that assumes we have the ability to fix things here just by getting outraged about them. I'd say "if only it were that easy", except that many of the broken things that need fixing exist due to supposed outrage/fear.
    - beagle3 15y ago
      I use outrage as an indicator for the degree of caring (in the sense that "value privacy" means "care about privacy"); is that not an acceptable use?
  - old-gregg 15y ago
    Lack of outrage is the phenomena here, not the lack of respect for privacy. It's not that Americans don't value privacy, I think we do. Rather, it is the general attitude against outrage or, perhaps, against complaining, what differentiates the US from Europe. The country doesn't have a healthcare system for citizens outside of the military, and there's no outrage. Does this mean "there is strong evidence that USA as a nation" doesn't value not dying? "Don't seek government help, work harder, smile more and make more money" appears to be the answer/advice to those who complain/express outrage. Then you can buy yourself healthcare, privacy or anything you wish.
ristretto 15y ago
TBH, i would like to see all the like/+1/tweet/digg buttons gone, they are a big privacy hazard. This functionality should be included in the browser or available from extensions.
- rjd 15y ago
  I use a few plugins to handle this, check out: http://www.ghostery.com/ http://www.ghostery.com/ http://open-bits.com/shellfish/ http://open-bits.com/shellfish/ http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/ http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/ With ad block it cleans pages up like you wouldn't believe. Many sites actually become readable :O
  - cpeterso 15y ago
    What does Facebook Blocker do that Ghostery (combined with AdBlock Plus) doesn't? Are these redundant extensions?
    - rjd 15y ago
      Probably, I just had a look what I was currently running and noted them down. Could probably do with uninstalling it ;)
    - slowpoke 15y ago
      Ghostery is a general tracker blocker. FBB only blocks, as the name implies, Facebook related stuff - at least that's what I infer from a quick skim through the description. So, if you only want Facebook gone, by all means use FBB. If you don't want trackers in general (Google Analytics etc), use Ghostery.
    - mason2 15y ago
      What about an add-on designed with the only purpose of implementing this 2-Click solution? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2-click-like/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2-click-like/ :)
- pak 15y ago

by rickmb 15y ago

doki_pen 15y ago

Google claims that they do not use or keep this information for anything. When they talk about for debugging purposes, they probably mean their web access logs. http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=1207011&answer=1319578 http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&...

mypov 15y ago

I would like to add that contrary to your impression we too value privacy in USA.

_delirium 15y ago
To some extent, though we've been less active in doing anything about it. In part we tend to be less keen than Europeans on having the government regulate these kinds of things, but the various private-sector and non-profit initiatives (like TRUSTe) that are supposed to fill the gap have been fairly ineffectual.
- alexqgb 15y ago
  Unlike Germans - who had the Statsi to contend with, and before that the SS - Americans have never been exposed to a genuine, law-unto-itself, every-phoneline-tapped, free-to-kidnap-torture-and-kill secret police force. One of the clearest lessons learned is that once these things take root, they are incredibly hard to dislodge. When they do go, it's only due to truly cataclysmic change. What naive Americans may regard as absurd hyper-sensitivity or a hopeless lack of technical sophistication is often an acute awareness that never letting it happen again means banning a lot of stuff that young innocents casually dismiss "as just being how the internet works". Evgeny Morozov (author of "The Net Delusion" http://amzn.to/nOOxzQ http://amzn.to/nOOxzQ) observes that casual openness is exactly how the web can be used to work against you. He makes the point that while folks safely ensconced in California should be grateful for their freedom from truly abusive government, they should also be a lot more sensitive to the concerns - and outright trauma - still found in places that haven't been so lucky. Of course, I'm over-simplifying his argument a bit. If you want a more complete (and much more entertaining) introduction, RSA did an especially good animation of a talk he gave, which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU
  - hollerith 15y ago
    You mean Gestapo, not SS.
    - alexqgb 15y ago
      Correct - thank you.
beagle3 15y ago
Consider the massive usage of Facebook and Twitter, the lack of outrage over the warrantless wiretapping scandal (running for 10.5 years now), easily available voter records (see e.g. the backstory behind Latanya Sweeney's original identifiability study), and lack of public comments about requiring ISPs to store all session information for a long time - I would say that is strong evidence that USA as a nation does not actually value privacy. edit: wireless wiretapping scandal -> warrantless wiretapping scandal, silly me.
- Hawramani 15y ago
  Or the fact that all ATT (and possibly Verizon) traffic goes through the NSA.
  - beagle3 15y ago
    doh! I wrote "wireless wiretapping scandal" but I meant "warrantless wiretapping scandal", which is what you are referring to explicitly. edited to note correction; Thanks!
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  Please don't equate a lack of change with a lack of outrage; that assumes we have the ability to fix things here just by getting outraged about them. I'd say "if only it were that easy", except that many of the broken things that need fixing exist due to supposed outrage/fear.
  - beagle3 15y ago
    I use outrage as an indicator for the degree of caring (in the sense that "value privacy" means "care about privacy"); is that not an acceptable use?
- old-gregg 15y ago
  Lack of outrage is the phenomena here, not the lack of respect for privacy. It's not that Americans don't value privacy, I think we do. Rather, it is the general attitude against outrage or, perhaps, against complaining, what differentiates the US from Europe. The country doesn't have a healthcare system for citizens outside of the military, and there's no outrage. Does this mean "there is strong evidence that USA as a nation" doesn't value not dying? "Don't seek government help, work harder, smile more and make more money" appears to be the answer/advice to those who complain/express outrage. Then you can buy yourself healthcare, privacy or anything you wish.

ristretto 15y ago

TBH, i would like to see all the like/+1/tweet/digg buttons gone, they are a big privacy hazard. This functionality should be included in the browser or available from extensions.

rjd 15y ago
I use a few plugins to handle this, check out: http://www.ghostery.com/ http://www.ghostery.com/ http://open-bits.com/shellfish/ http://open-bits.com/shellfish/ http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/ http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/ With ad block it cleans pages up like you wouldn't believe. Many sites actually become readable :O
- cpeterso 15y ago
  What does Facebook Blocker do that Ghostery (combined with AdBlock Plus) doesn't? Are these redundant extensions?
  - rjd 15y ago
    Probably, I just had a look what I was currently running and noted them down. Could probably do with uninstalling it ;)
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    Ghostery is a general tracker blocker. FBB only blocks, as the name implies, Facebook related stuff - at least that's what I infer from a quick skim through the description. So, if you only want Facebook gone, by all means use FBB. If you don't want trackers in general (Google Analytics etc), use Ghostery.
  - mason2 15y ago
    What about an add-on designed with the only purpose of implementing this 2-Click solution? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2-click-like/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2-click-like/ :)
pak 15y ago