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Which is why GDPR has the concept of "informed consent", which is a fancy way of saying "consent hidden in the fine print doesn't count".

deafpolygon 4y ago
When installing office, you are told in the fine print to go read: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement ... it counts. The verbiage in there is quite disturbing.
- reitanqild 4y ago
  It doesn't count anywhere that is protected by GDPR.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    > protected by GDPR This is like the firewall in windows 95: nice but useless.
    - real_dogbert 4y ago
      I wish I could disagree with you. GDPR technically does have real teeth, to the extent that one really shouldn't want to raise the ire of an EU Data Protection Authority. Unfortunately, enforcement to date, and the resulting fines, have been lackluster at best. When will people learn that disincentives like fines and such have to actually hurt to be effective in changing the behavior of corporations?
    - reitanqild 4y ago
      Many companies have gotten their first fines already. Hundreds of millions of shareholder value down the drain because they blatantly ignored the rules. No, most companies don't get a massive fine in the first round, but I already see enough have gotten then that even Google now allows me to opt out with a single click :-}
nonrandomstring 4y ago
And that the user may not have capacity to consent. That seems the salient issue today with regards to children and social media. Most of the giant social media companies profit from participants who cannot legally enrol.
- real_dogbert 4y ago
  By "participants who cannot legally enrol," do you mean minors? I'm not tracking what the Venn diagram between those people and those who "may not have the capacity to consent" is.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    EDIT: I was talking about kids. But Dogbert's comment actually deserves a bit more than "try using common sense instead of set theory" :) I tried thinking of classes of adults who lack capacity, other than the mentally unfit, senile or criminally insane. There's a lot of young people who are "deemed to consent" (the passive weasel-words of filthy scoundrels) in higher education. I've written about Turnitin in the Times and the "very dodgy circumstances" in which students are inducted into university and then find themselves coerced into tacit agreement to use tools which massively violate their privacy and other rights. The same applies to Microsoft products where institutions block choice and force students use insecure products that they would refuse if exercising their better judgement.
msla 4y ago
How willing would a government be to prosecute a company its IT infrastructure relies on? Even if you think Microsoft doesn't have kill switches, it still isn't obligated to do business with them.

deafpolygon 4y ago

When installing office, you are told in the fine print to go read: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement ... it counts. The verbiage in there is quite disturbing.

reitanqild 4y ago
It doesn't count anywhere that is protected by GDPR.
- hulitu 4y ago
  > protected by GDPR This is like the firewall in windows 95: nice but useless.
  - real_dogbert 4y ago
    I wish I could disagree with you. GDPR technically does have real teeth, to the extent that one really shouldn't want to raise the ire of an EU Data Protection Authority. Unfortunately, enforcement to date, and the resulting fines, have been lackluster at best. When will people learn that disincentives like fines and such have to actually hurt to be effective in changing the behavior of corporations?
  - reitanqild 4y ago
    Many companies have gotten their first fines already. Hundreds of millions of shareholder value down the drain because they blatantly ignored the rules. No, most companies don't get a massive fine in the first round, but I already see enough have gotten then that even Google now allows me to opt out with a single click :-}

nonrandomstring 4y ago

And that the user may not have capacity to consent. That seems the salient issue today with regards to children and social media. Most of the giant social media companies profit from participants who cannot legally enrol.

real_dogbert 4y ago
By "participants who cannot legally enrol," do you mean minors? I'm not tracking what the Venn diagram between those people and those who "may not have the capacity to consent" is.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  EDIT: I was talking about kids. But Dogbert's comment actually deserves a bit more than "try using common sense instead of set theory" :) I tried thinking of classes of adults who lack capacity, other than the mentally unfit, senile or criminally insane. There's a lot of young people who are "deemed to consent" (the passive weasel-words of filthy scoundrels) in higher education. I've written about Turnitin in the Times and the "very dodgy circumstances" in which students are inducted into university and then find themselves coerced into tacit agreement to use tools which massively violate their privacy and other rights. The same applies to Microsoft products where institutions block choice and force students use insecure products that they would refuse if exercising their better judgement.

msla 4y ago

How willing would a government be to prosecute a company its IT infrastructure relies on? Even if you think Microsoft doesn't have kill switches, it still isn't obligated to do business with them.