5 ms·

This is the kind of thing that should be illegal.

Beldin 4y ago
There are laws against it (in certain parts of the world at least). Of course, those laws do allow tracking in certain situations. Of course that makes enforcement harder - enforcers need to figure out if this is not an allowed case. Moreover, enforcement agencies vary in execution, with the Irish DPA so bad, their actions are indistinguishable from actively undermining GDPR.
Jasper_ 4y ago
How many "this should be illegal"s are we going to see on this website before people realize that powerful platforms have the money, power, and politics to lobby their way out of everything? A huge chunk of this was made illegal through the GDPR, and for years on this website everyone said it was a massive overreach. Or maybe we make this spend 5 years making this specific thing illegal and they circumvent it all in two weeks. Or they just ignore it and pay the paltry fines as a cost of doing business. Not to mention the giant groups of people working at FAANG here, directly complicit with this behavior, afraid their salary and stock options will tank if anything changes. Companies have the willpower and money to fight any sort of check on their power, well after the rest of us are all beyond exhausted.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rurp 4y ago
  So we should just give up? Yes it's a hard problem trying to regulate the behavior of companies with the resources and determination to subvert consumer rights, but it's not binary, incremental progress is possible. If you have ideas for a better approach perhaps you could share them here.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    there are more radical options than incremental reform under a widening power imbalance
- akagusu 4y ago
  One of many benefits of posting "this should be illegal" is that it exposes what people think about the problem. We think the problem is just the big corp circumventing moral, ethics and even law for make a profit, but how many people here support this behavior? We are not only talking about people working there, but people from the outside, completely unrelated, telling they are right and that they should keep doing what they are doing. Maybe we can not fight big corps because they have all the money and power, but people, we definitely can fight them.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    another way to put it is that even if there isn't consensus on a legal solution (particularly when those kind of solutions involve state power and violence), it's fine to express and promote a moral stance
baby 4y ago
You should be a able to change how URLs work for your own website. They're not making any promise of stability here.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  You can. The problem is that they're changing them to actively and intentionally circumvent the expressed wills of people visiting their site. I'm allowed to move my arms like I want, but that doesn't give me the right to push people off cliffs.
  - zaphirplane 4y ago
    Very poor metaphor. The will of the (informed) visitor doesn’t matter when they are visiting a place. I can’t have an intention to take a painting from a museum, ranging about the museum making it hard
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Should we also ban sites formatting their pages so that you can't easily block their ads?
    - teddyh 4y ago
      Intent matters.
      - jefftk 4y ago
        Many sites do this very intentionally, including Facebook. Look sometime at the markup on their "sponsored" disclosures
    - zakki 4y ago
      I believe the problem is not the ads but the tracking.
      - jefftk 4y ago
dredmorbius 4y ago
And who do you think has the lobbying, law-making, and regulatory advantage here? Facebook or 5 billion disaggregated people around the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action
grepfru_it 4y ago
Once upon a time, I would ship word docs with a remote image using a unique URL that I host. When someone opens the word doc (and accepts remote images) the URL is fetched and I know when someone opened a doc that was destined for a particular recipient. It's quite interesting when the doc intended for a specific recipient is opened in 15 different geographical areas. Even more interesting when that specific recipient was under an NDA. My question to you is if this should be made illegal? (since it is the same action facebook appears to be doing)
- akagusu 4y ago
  I didn't know Facebook was protecting documents under NDA. Can you provide references?
  - grepfru_it 4y ago
    Oh apologies I didn’t realize it was only Facebook that would be specifically targeted in the law. By all means, please continue!

There are laws against it (in certain parts of the world at least). Of course, those laws do allow tracking in certain situations. Of course that makes enforcement harder - enforcers need to figure out if this is not an allowed case. Moreover, enforcement agencies vary in execution, with the Irish DPA so bad, their actions are indistinguishable from actively undermining GDPR.

Jasper_ 4y ago

How many "this should be illegal"s are we going to see on this website before people realize that powerful platforms have the money, power, and politics to lobby their way out of everything? A huge chunk of this was made illegal through the GDPR, and for years on this website everyone said it was a massive overreach. Or maybe we make this spend 5 years making this specific thing illegal and they circumvent it all in two weeks. Or they just ignore it and pay the paltry fines as a cost of doing business. Not to mention the giant groups of people working at FAANG here, directly complicit with this behavior, afraid their salary and stock options will tank if anything changes. Companies have the willpower and money to fight any sort of check on their power, well after the rest of us are all beyond exhausted.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rurp 4y ago
So we should just give up? Yes it's a hard problem trying to regulate the behavior of companies with the resources and determination to subvert consumer rights, but it's not binary, incremental progress is possible. If you have ideas for a better approach perhaps you could share them here.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  there are more radical options than incremental reform under a widening power imbalance
akagusu 4y ago
One of many benefits of posting "this should be illegal" is that it exposes what people think about the problem. We think the problem is just the big corp circumventing moral, ethics and even law for make a profit, but how many people here support this behavior? We are not only talking about people working there, but people from the outside, completely unrelated, telling they are right and that they should keep doing what they are doing. Maybe we can not fight big corps because they have all the money and power, but people, we definitely can fight them.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  another way to put it is that even if there isn't consensus on a legal solution (particularly when those kind of solutions involve state power and violence), it's fine to express and promote a moral stance

baby 4y ago

You should be a able to change how URLs work for your own website. They're not making any promise of stability here.

pessimizer 4y ago
You can. The problem is that they're changing them to actively and intentionally circumvent the expressed wills of people visiting their site. I'm allowed to move my arms like I want, but that doesn't give me the right to push people off cliffs.
- zaphirplane 4y ago
  Very poor metaphor. The will of the (informed) visitor doesn’t matter when they are visiting a place. I can’t have an intention to take a painting from a museum, ranging about the museum making it hard
- jefftk 4y ago
  Should we also ban sites formatting their pages so that you can't easily block their ads?
  - teddyh 4y ago
    Intent matters.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Many sites do this very intentionally, including Facebook. Look sometime at the markup on their "sponsored" disclosures
  - zakki 4y ago
    I believe the problem is not the ads but the tracking.
    - jefftk 4y ago

dredmorbius 4y ago

And who do you think has the lobbying, law-making, and regulatory advantage here? Facebook or 5 billion disaggregated people around the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

grepfru_it 4y ago

Once upon a time, I would ship word docs with a remote image using a unique URL that I host. When someone opens the word doc (and accepts remote images) the URL is fetched and I know when someone opened a doc that was destined for a particular recipient. It's quite interesting when the doc intended for a specific recipient is opened in 15 different geographical areas. Even more interesting when that specific recipient was under an NDA. My question to you is if this should be made illegal? (since it is the same action facebook appears to be doing)

akagusu 4y ago
I didn't know Facebook was protecting documents under NDA. Can you provide references?
- grepfru_it 4y ago
  Oh apologies I didn’t realize it was only Facebook that would be specifically targeted in the law. By all means, please continue!