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> Passing a federal privacy law would end surveillance advertising at the stroke of a pen Unlikely—breaking the laws would likely just become a business cost,

> Passing a federal privacy law would end surveillance advertising at the stroke of a pen Unlikely—breaking the laws would likely just become a business cost, and make everything even more expensive for everyone.

pibechorro 4y ago
This. People like slapping laws on issues when the outcome is usually higher costs in the form of never shrinking burocrazys, little to no actual enforcement (unless you are rich or connected) and the red tape involved in compliance will likely make it worse. The answer is by adopting different behavior on our end. Add blockers avoiding services litterer in ads (its why i no longer use Instagram, google search, etc)
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > The answer is by adopting different behavior on our end. This tactic has not succeeded even once since written records began. Did snake oil salesmen disappear because we ran out of gullible people? Give me one example when this approach succeeded, without any corresponding legislation
  - Clubber 4y ago
    >Give me one example when this approach succeeded, without any corresponding legislation I think he's describing when the market dethrones an entrenched player without legislation. This happens quite often. Cable companies come to mind. Kodak, Novell, Sun Microsystems, etc. Like he said, regulation today serves the wealthiest companies, because startups, the ones that do the dethroning, have extra costs that are more difficult to afford. I believe it fits in the Barrier to Entry category. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/barrierstoentry.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/barrierstoentry.asp If you want real regulation, you need to look to the anti-trust laws, but our current politicians don't have the stomach for that. Today's regulation really tends to serve the already entrenched, because the entrenched usually write the regulation.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      my understanding is that his example referred to consumers boycotting a business. I could not find a successful example. When a business gets replaced by a conpetitor, that's a diffetent mechanism
      - Clubber 4y ago
        Ah ok. Yes, I remember it companies changing their behavior due to boycotts in the 80s and 90s but not since. I suspect companies are too big and too global and have too good PR.
  - lozenge 4y ago
    Popup and popunder ads? Email spam filtering? Web notification spam is much reduced since browsers made it a modal?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
vanilla_nut 4y ago
Of course it depends on enforcement. But individuals literally cannot solve this problem alone. That's why we have government in the first place: to level the playing field and avoid these prisoner's dilemma situations. Only an entity as powerful as the government has the resources to disincentivize surveillance advertising. If they set penalties high enough, it will not "just become a business cost."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
wpietri 4y ago
I doubt it. Surveillance advertising is mainly the domain of huge businesses, because you need scale to get eyes on all the people. Small companies may find it easy to be scofflaws. Large companies tend to be quite conservative, because they are big and slow, making them easy regulatory targets. A good example here is cheating standards. It's in the interests of pretty much every car company to cheat on mileage standards, safety standards, emissions standards, etc. But very few cheat and then pay the fines. Why? Because the regulators know how to size a fine to make them pay attention. Volkswagen got hit with a $2.8 billion fine for the emissions scandal, and total costs to them were estimated as over $30 billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
theshrike79 4y ago
GDPR is a privacy law, it's quite effective. The solution is to make the fine a percentage of global turnover, not a static fee. That way the "cost of business" will be big enough to put the fear of law even to the largest corporation.

pibechorro 4y ago

This. People like slapping laws on issues when the outcome is usually higher costs in the form of never shrinking burocrazys, little to no actual enforcement (unless you are rich or connected) and the red tape involved in compliance will likely make it worse. The answer is by adopting different behavior on our end. Add blockers avoiding services litterer in ads (its why i no longer use Instagram, google search, etc)

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> The answer is by adopting different behavior on our end. This tactic has not succeeded even once since written records began. Did snake oil salesmen disappear because we ran out of gullible people? Give me one example when this approach succeeded, without any corresponding legislation
- Clubber 4y ago
  >Give me one example when this approach succeeded, without any corresponding legislation I think he's describing when the market dethrones an entrenched player without legislation. This happens quite often. Cable companies come to mind. Kodak, Novell, Sun Microsystems, etc. Like he said, regulation today serves the wealthiest companies, because startups, the ones that do the dethroning, have extra costs that are more difficult to afford. I believe it fits in the Barrier to Entry category. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/barrierstoentry.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/barrierstoentry.asp If you want real regulation, you need to look to the anti-trust laws, but our current politicians don't have the stomach for that. Today's regulation really tends to serve the already entrenched, because the entrenched usually write the regulation.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    my understanding is that his example referred to consumers boycotting a business. I could not find a successful example. When a business gets replaced by a conpetitor, that's a diffetent mechanism
    - Clubber 4y ago
      Ah ok. Yes, I remember it companies changing their behavior due to boycotts in the 80s and 90s but not since. I suspect companies are too big and too global and have too good PR.
- lozenge 4y ago
  Popup and popunder ads? Email spam filtering? Web notification spam is much reduced since browsers made it a modal?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

vanilla_nut 4y ago

Of course it depends on enforcement. But individuals literally cannot solve this problem alone. That's why we have government in the first place: to level the playing field and avoid these prisoner's dilemma situations. Only an entity as powerful as the government has the resources to disincentivize surveillance advertising. If they set penalties high enough, it will not "just become a business cost."

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wpietri 4y ago

I doubt it. Surveillance advertising is mainly the domain of huge businesses, because you need scale to get eyes on all the people. Small companies may find it easy to be scofflaws. Large companies tend to be quite conservative, because they are big and slow, making them easy regulatory targets. A good example here is cheating standards. It's in the interests of pretty much every car company to cheat on mileage standards, safety standards, emissions standards, etc. But very few cheat and then pay the fines. Why? Because the regulators know how to size a fine to make them pay attention. Volkswagen got hit with a $2.8 billion fine for the emissions scandal, and total costs to them were estimated as over $30 billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

theshrike79 4y ago

GDPR is a privacy law, it's quite effective. The solution is to make the fine a percentage of global turnover, not a static fee. That way the "cost of business" will be big enough to put the fear of law even to the largest corporation.