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I’m doubtful about this lawsuit. Talk of “dossiers” is extremely hyperbolic. For those not familiar with it, Oracle’s data platform is effectively a supermarke

I’m doubtful about this lawsuit. Talk of “dossiers” is extremely hyperbolic. For those not familiar with it, Oracle’s data platform is effectively a supermarket, stocking the freshest data indexed by “audience” - behavioural interest groups. This data comes from “data providers” - companies who hold data on the behaviours of specific audiences and (are supposed to) have the right to sell it on. They are paid a commission on each sale. Once you understand this then the lawsuit makes less sense - it’s like suing Safeway because you don’t like the ingredients of Cheez-Its. Now, there’s more to it than that, of course, but “some data providers in the marketplace may have issues” is very different from “Oracle has lawless stack of 5bn of dossiers”.

hedora 4y ago
If a picture of Larry Ellison in front of a thirty foot screen with the title "Oracle Data Cloud: 5 billion consumer profiles in database; largest consumer identity graph in the world" isn't enough evidence that they're storing and providing access to consumer dossiers, then what would be?
- jahewson 4y ago
  Lol, that’s Larry’s marketing material. Database = store shelves. Likewise Safeway has thousands of products on its shelves - they don’t make any of them, not even the ones with their brand on.
  - hedora 4y ago
    So, the defense is that he's lying about having access to illegal goods, but selling them anyway. I went down to Safeway yesterday, and bought a kilo of cocaine. It turns out it was ground up sudafed and talcum powder. The cops were like "lolz. that's all on you; it's just how they market these days".
    - jahewson 4y ago
      Huh? He’s just a CEO talking-up his product. Safeway has exclusive deals nowhere else has! Kind of… it’s marketing spin but it’s not a lie. Also having the same data in a database wouldn’t necessarily be illegal, but it would be useless as behavioural data ages-out after 90 days or less.
      - hedora 4y ago
        His definitely illegal product, based on the long list of violated laws in the article.
        jahewson 4y ago
        Well, no that’s for the court to decide. And it’s a civil suit so no illegality here. This suit takes a very creative interpretation of California privacy law, let’s look at one representative cause for action: > Oracle also collects minute details about Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ offline activities, including their brick-and-mortar purchases and location information. By its very nature, Plaintiffs and Class members cannot be aware of or consent to this conduct. This is exactly what I mean by suing Safeway because of a problem with Cheeze-Its. Aptly in this example the actual entity collecting and selling your data could be a grocery store - That’s who you should sue if you’re bothered by, you know, them selling your data.
      - 3np 4y ago
        > Also having the same data in a database wouldn’t necessarily be illegal Pardon?
3np 4y ago
Look at the video in the link. It's straight from the horse's mouth.
- jahewson 4y ago
  It’s marketing fluff. I doubt Larry has any idea how these products work.
j-bos 4y ago
Do you work for Oracle?
- jahewson 4y ago
  No. I am however familiar with their data cloud product.
t0mas88 4y ago
You're correct that the data comes from data providers. What you may not know is how both Oracle and Salesforce implemented these products: They create a common identifier and copy all the audiences / attributes from the data providers in to the Oracle / Salesforce data cloud. So they indeed did not collect most of the data themselves (although Oracle owns a few of the biggest data sources...), but they are the ones that have a central database with 5 billion+ identifiers in it and tens of thousands of attributes for each identifier. So they are really not as innocent as you suggest they are. When someone wants to use the data, that customer pays Oracle. So it's Oracle selling the dataset. That they then pay a fee to some of the data sources really doesn't change that. Especially not since they own several of the data sources themselves.
- jahewson 4y ago
  Yes, that’s right. But because it’s behavioural data for targeting ads, most of it ages-out within 90 days, so it’s a lot more like a product on a supermarket shelf than a “dossier”. Most people aren’t familiar with how ad tech works and so when the first thing they encounter is a gross misrepresentation of what happens then we get knee jerk responses to that instead of a more nuanced reflection on the details.

hedora 4y ago

If a picture of Larry Ellison in front of a thirty foot screen with the title "Oracle Data Cloud: 5 billion consumer profiles in database; largest consumer identity graph in the world" isn't enough evidence that they're storing and providing access to consumer dossiers, then what would be?

jahewson 4y ago
Lol, that’s Larry’s marketing material. Database = store shelves. Likewise Safeway has thousands of products on its shelves - they don’t make any of them, not even the ones with their brand on.
- hedora 4y ago
  So, the defense is that he's lying about having access to illegal goods, but selling them anyway. I went down to Safeway yesterday, and bought a kilo of cocaine. It turns out it was ground up sudafed and talcum powder. The cops were like "lolz. that's all on you; it's just how they market these days".
  - jahewson 4y ago
    Huh? He’s just a CEO talking-up his product. Safeway has exclusive deals nowhere else has! Kind of… it’s marketing spin but it’s not a lie. Also having the same data in a database wouldn’t necessarily be illegal, but it would be useless as behavioural data ages-out after 90 days or less.
    - hedora 4y ago
      His definitely illegal product, based on the long list of violated laws in the article.
      - jahewson 4y ago
        Well, no that’s for the court to decide. And it’s a civil suit so no illegality here. This suit takes a very creative interpretation of California privacy law, let’s look at one representative cause for action: > Oracle also collects minute details about Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ offline activities, including their brick-and-mortar purchases and location information. By its very nature, Plaintiffs and Class members cannot be aware of or consent to this conduct. This is exactly what I mean by suing Safeway because of a problem with Cheeze-Its. Aptly in this example the actual entity collecting and selling your data could be a grocery store - That’s who you should sue if you’re bothered by, you know, them selling your data.
    - 3np 4y ago
      > Also having the same data in a database wouldn’t necessarily be illegal Pardon?

3np 4y ago

Look at the video in the link. It's straight from the horse's mouth.

jahewson 4y ago
It’s marketing fluff. I doubt Larry has any idea how these products work.

j-bos 4y ago

Do you work for Oracle?

jahewson 4y ago
No. I am however familiar with their data cloud product.

t0mas88 4y ago

You're correct that the data comes from data providers. What you may not know is how both Oracle and Salesforce implemented these products: They create a common identifier and copy all the audiences / attributes from the data providers in to the Oracle / Salesforce data cloud. So they indeed did not collect most of the data themselves (although Oracle owns a few of the biggest data sources...), but they are the ones that have a central database with 5 billion+ identifiers in it and tens of thousands of attributes for each identifier. So they are really not as innocent as you suggest they are. When someone wants to use the data, that customer pays Oracle. So it's Oracle selling the dataset. That they then pay a fee to some of the data sources really doesn't change that. Especially not since they own several of the data sources themselves.

jahewson 4y ago
Yes, that’s right. But because it’s behavioural data for targeting ads, most of it ages-out within 90 days, so it’s a lot more like a product on a supermarket shelf than a “dossier”. Most people aren’t familiar with how ad tech works and so when the first thing they encounter is a gross misrepresentation of what happens then we get knee jerk responses to that instead of a more nuanced reflection on the details.