4 ms·

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says something about arbitrary interference in a person's privacy not being okay, so there's that. https://www.un.org

by krono 4y ago

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says something about arbitrary interference in a person's privacy not being okay, so there's that. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cmeacham98 4y ago
Not convinced. By your logic, an nginx log with your IP in it is a similarly egregious and unethical privacy violation. If you're going to commit to "all forms of tracking are bad no matter what" I'm going to need stronger evidence than a link a page on the UN's website.
- krono 4y ago
  Saving that IP to the webserver's log is rather necessary for it to function, whereas these detailed records of user behaviour can almost never be. Just because someone uses an application, does not mean you "own" them and have a moral right to freely collect and do whatever you want with records of their behaviour. Also it's just weird.
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    Please explain how webserver logging is "necessary for it to function".
    - krono 4y ago
      - cmeacham98 4y ago
        So I'll take that as you can't demonstrate it? Interestingly, I started up an Nginx server and piped the logs to /dev/null and it worked just fine!! Wow, turns out those logs weren't necessary at all. And by your standard, where tracking that isn't necessary for the website to function is unethical, that makes every single person running Nginx in its default configuration bad and participating in unethical tracking of users!
        cmeacham98 4y ago
        Because it doesn't seem like I'm going to get a response to this, I'll walk down the rest of the logic for completeness's sake. I think we can both agree that "all unnecessary tracking is unethical" doesn't make sense and leads to insane conclusions like "all Nginx users with IP addresses in their logs are participating in unethical tracking". So we're back to square one, where someone needs to demonstrate this type of tracking is actually unethical. So far we've got "all tracking ever is unethical" and "all tracking not necessary for function is unethical", but both of those seem to be dead ends.
        newaccount74 4y ago
        I think the argument is a bit nuanced, but I see where the "tracking is bad" comes from. I think everyone would agree that it would be very bad if eg. an instant messaging app logged message contents and allowed devs to look at anyones messages. On the other hand, most people would not object to an app that sends an anonymous weekly counter of which buttons were tapped. Anything between these two takes a lot of care and deliberation; on the one hand devs want useable data, on the other hand users don't want sensitive data tracked. But it takes a lot of effort to make sure you don't accidentally log sensitive data. Eg. if you log spell check suggestions (to determine common typos) you might probably be able to use that data to reconstruct message contents. Now, as a user, do I trust random companies to get this right? Do I trust random companies to not accidentally log sensitive data? And the answer to that question is NO, I don't trust them. So if you ask me if I would consent to activity tracking, I would almost definitely say no, even though I don't think anything is wrong with anonymous usage tracking -- I just don't trust every company to get this right, so I'd rather have them not track anything at all.
- wasmitnetzen 4y ago
  You're taking a full black-or-white approach, which isn't helpful. Yes, an nginx log contains personal data (which is why a GDPR-compliant nginx log obfuscates the IP, absent of user consent). But tracking user interactions is much more invasive, which is why the parent posters complained about it.
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    I'm not taking a black/white approach, as a matter of fact I'm the one pointing out that doesn't make sense. I asked for reasons for why this tracking is bad, and I got what basically amounts to "all tracking ever is bad", and thus I'm explaining why that "all tracking is black" approach doesn't work.
dkdbejwi383 4y ago
I think the argument here is that tracking how users interact with an app isn’t necessarily private information

by krono 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cmeacham98 4y ago

Not convinced. By your logic, an nginx log with your IP in it is a similarly egregious and unethical privacy violation. If you're going to commit to "all forms of tracking are bad no matter what" I'm going to need stronger evidence than a link a page on the UN's website.

krono 4y ago
Saving that IP to the webserver's log is rather necessary for it to function, whereas these detailed records of user behaviour can almost never be. Just because someone uses an application, does not mean you "own" them and have a moral right to freely collect and do whatever you want with records of their behaviour. Also it's just weird.
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  Please explain how webserver logging is "necessary for it to function".
  - krono 4y ago
    - cmeacham98 4y ago
      So I'll take that as you can't demonstrate it? Interestingly, I started up an Nginx server and piped the logs to /dev/null and it worked just fine!! Wow, turns out those logs weren't necessary at all. And by your standard, where tracking that isn't necessary for the website to function is unethical, that makes every single person running Nginx in its default configuration bad and participating in unethical tracking of users!
      - cmeacham98 4y ago
        Because it doesn't seem like I'm going to get a response to this, I'll walk down the rest of the logic for completeness's sake. I think we can both agree that "all unnecessary tracking is unethical" doesn't make sense and leads to insane conclusions like "all Nginx users with IP addresses in their logs are participating in unethical tracking". So we're back to square one, where someone needs to demonstrate this type of tracking is actually unethical. So far we've got "all tracking ever is unethical" and "all tracking not necessary for function is unethical", but both of those seem to be dead ends.
        newaccount74 4y ago
        I think the argument is a bit nuanced, but I see where the "tracking is bad" comes from. I think everyone would agree that it would be very bad if eg. an instant messaging app logged message contents and allowed devs to look at anyones messages. On the other hand, most people would not object to an app that sends an anonymous weekly counter of which buttons were tapped. Anything between these two takes a lot of care and deliberation; on the one hand devs want useable data, on the other hand users don't want sensitive data tracked. But it takes a lot of effort to make sure you don't accidentally log sensitive data. Eg. if you log spell check suggestions (to determine common typos) you might probably be able to use that data to reconstruct message contents. Now, as a user, do I trust random companies to get this right? Do I trust random companies to not accidentally log sensitive data? And the answer to that question is NO, I don't trust them. So if you ask me if I would consent to activity tracking, I would almost definitely say no, even though I don't think anything is wrong with anonymous usage tracking -- I just don't trust every company to get this right, so I'd rather have them not track anything at all.
wasmitnetzen 4y ago
You're taking a full black-or-white approach, which isn't helpful. Yes, an nginx log contains personal data (which is why a GDPR-compliant nginx log obfuscates the IP, absent of user consent). But tracking user interactions is much more invasive, which is why the parent posters complained about it.
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  I'm not taking a black/white approach, as a matter of fact I'm the one pointing out that doesn't make sense. I asked for reasons for why this tracking is bad, and I got what basically amounts to "all tracking ever is bad", and thus I'm explaining why that "all tracking is black" approach doesn't work.

dkdbejwi383 4y ago

I think the argument here is that tracking how users interact with an app isn’t necessarily private information