4 ms·

> I don’t think that the German society broadly shares the value of privacy to a level that warrants such excessive restrictions I live here. Privacy awareness

by junon 5y ago

> I don’t think that the German society broadly shares the value of privacy to a level that warrants such excessive restrictions I live here. Privacy awareness is very high, compared to everywhere else I've personally been. Nobody likes having their picture taken, nobody likes being filmed, nobody likes answering questions for strangers. And they'll tell it to your face too. Go onto Google street maps for Germany and see how far you get.

Sebb767 5y ago
To be fair, recent tech has eroded that a lot. People are still not happy about all of it, but the resistance has been dropping - usage of Facebook and Google products is now pretty widespread and people (especially young ones) seem to be far more lenient in that regard.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  On the other hand, the proliferation of hacking and fraud could drive a swing to the opposite direction. It's got to the point where being hacked, blackmailed, or being the target of fraud is a regular occurrence, and a lot of that is driven by hackers having easy access to private data which lends plausibility to emails or text messages. When you get to the point where judges and lawmakers have, more likely than not, personal experience of threatening emails containing private information, there's a lot of incentive to reduce the amount of data collection - and correspondingly, a lot of popular support for the idea.
- ATsch 5y ago
  I think this is less due to a genuine change of heart and more because the lack of enforcement by the government in regards to big tech has left people without much choice.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    You always have a choice. But you can't deny that the services offered by these companies are really good and, not to mention, completely free. It's easy to give up long term drawbacks for short term benefits.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Unfortunately true. The steady, slow and, in everyday live, invisible erosion of privacy is what might ultimately bring an end to online privacy. Especially once certain politicians see the benefit of outsourcing surveillance to third parties. Despite privacy being generally held up a lot in Europe, there are definitely a lot of people in power all over the place that would love to have access to the kind of data ad-companies have. That courts are ruling against this, in whatever way, is still a good sign.
aloe_falsa 5y ago
The germans' attitude to privacy is... incoherent, to put it mildly. People get up in arms about the weirdest things, such as the Google Street View you mention. Thousands of people see an apartment building's facade every day, so what does blurring it on Google Maps give the residents, privacy-wise? And yet, people are amazingly complacent în other aspects ("War halt immer so"). For example, your apartment's doorbell has to have your last name on it: someone with an unusual name could conceivably be tracked down just by postal code. For another example, when I was blogging, I had to display my full name and address in an Impressum on the website - dox myself, so to speak. And, of course, the Berlin government forces people to register their address, and allows everyone to query it, because why wouldn't they: https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120732/ https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120732/
- moooo99 5y ago
  I absolutely hate the attitude towards privacy here. The street view example is just perfect: people require google to blur their building facade but the same people have no problem having their full name (incl. partners name), phone number and address on a publicly searchable online phonebook. People constantly complain about the greedy tech companies collecting data where ever they can and proceed to complain about the strict privacy regulations in the EU in their next sentence. Forcing private individuals to put their full name and address into the imprint of their personal website, which often enough isn’t even run for profit, seems absolutely absurd and very publishing hostile. To me it’s more and more starting to seem like people don’t actually care about their privacy, they just want to be against something.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > people require google to blur their building facade but the same people have no problem having their full name (incl. partners name), phone number and address on a publicly searchable online phonebook Wait...so people can decide which facts about their life they want to remain private and which they're fine with you knowing? I thought that was the whole idea of self-determination. Where's the catch?

by junon 5y ago

Sebb767 5y ago

To be fair, recent tech has eroded that a lot. People are still not happy about all of it, but the resistance has been dropping - usage of Facebook and Google products is now pretty widespread and people (especially young ones) seem to be far more lenient in that regard.

pasabagi 5y ago
On the other hand, the proliferation of hacking and fraud could drive a swing to the opposite direction. It's got to the point where being hacked, blackmailed, or being the target of fraud is a regular occurrence, and a lot of that is driven by hackers having easy access to private data which lends plausibility to emails or text messages. When you get to the point where judges and lawmakers have, more likely than not, personal experience of threatening emails containing private information, there's a lot of incentive to reduce the amount of data collection - and correspondingly, a lot of popular support for the idea.
ATsch 5y ago
I think this is less due to a genuine change of heart and more because the lack of enforcement by the government in regards to big tech has left people without much choice.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  You always have a choice. But you can't deny that the services offered by these companies are really good and, not to mention, completely free. It's easy to give up long term drawbacks for short term benefits.
hef19898 5y ago
Unfortunately true. The steady, slow and, in everyday live, invisible erosion of privacy is what might ultimately bring an end to online privacy. Especially once certain politicians see the benefit of outsourcing surveillance to third parties. Despite privacy being generally held up a lot in Europe, there are definitely a lot of people in power all over the place that would love to have access to the kind of data ad-companies have. That courts are ruling against this, in whatever way, is still a good sign.

aloe_falsa 5y ago

The germans' attitude to privacy is... incoherent, to put it mildly. People get up in arms about the weirdest things, such as the Google Street View you mention. Thousands of people see an apartment building's facade every day, so what does blurring it on Google Maps give the residents, privacy-wise? And yet, people are amazingly complacent în other aspects ("War halt immer so"). For example, your apartment's doorbell has to have your last name on it: someone with an unusual name could conceivably be tracked down just by postal code. For another example, when I was blogging, I had to display my full name and address in an Impressum on the website - dox myself, so to speak. And, of course, the Berlin government forces people to register their address, and allows everyone to query it, because why wouldn't they: https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120732/ https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120732/

moooo99 5y ago
I absolutely hate the attitude towards privacy here. The street view example is just perfect: people require google to blur their building facade but the same people have no problem having their full name (incl. partners name), phone number and address on a publicly searchable online phonebook. People constantly complain about the greedy tech companies collecting data where ever they can and proceed to complain about the strict privacy regulations in the EU in their next sentence. Forcing private individuals to put their full name and address into the imprint of their personal website, which often enough isn’t even run for profit, seems absolutely absurd and very publishing hostile. To me it’s more and more starting to seem like people don’t actually care about their privacy, they just want to be against something.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > people require google to blur their building facade but the same people have no problem having their full name (incl. partners name), phone number and address on a publicly searchable online phonebook Wait...so people can decide which facts about their life they want to remain private and which they're fine with you knowing? I thought that was the whole idea of self-determination. Where's the catch?