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They're not just storing and using this data for their own private/commercial purposes. They're also licensing it and selling it to third parties, which in tur
by 23B1 3y ago
They're not just storing and using this data for their own private/commercial purposes.
They're also licensing it and selling it to third parties, which in turn will sell it to government(s) or other third-parties; the data ramifies and spreads throughout the digital panopticon.
There is very little you can do as an individual to escape this. The privacy settings on your phone, in your apps, on your laptop, your router – they are the illusion of control. Heavy top-down regulation won't work, never has.
All you can do is attempt to limit what you share. The work required to do it well is astronomical, high-friction, and essentially can exclude you from much of society and the economy.
- thfuran 3y ago>Heavy top-down regulation won't work, never has. That's utter nonsense. There will never be perfect compliance, but regulations absolutely can curb undesired behavior.
- 23B1 3y agoI wish you were right, but unfortunately 'regulations' always have carve-outs for the government itself, and they're one of the largest consumers of this data.
- thfuran 3y agoI work in medical software and I can tell you from first hand experience that regulations absolutely affect how companies gather and handle data. That regulations don't constrain what they don't regulate is sort of tautological. That's an argument against specific regulations, not against regulation. At any rate, it simply isn't true that all regulations have special carveouts for government.
- csydas 3y agoi think the idea is less that the regulations aren’t followed, but more that the companies are maliciously compliant. GDPR and the cookie banners are the perfect example. GDPR never says you need the gigantic banner, just that you cannot track without consent and it must be as easy to retract consent as it is to give it. somehow, this devolved into the cookie banners/walls, which are not required and in fact likely not compliant as very often there is no way to reject everything. i travel a lot in europe and asia and google is a clear example of a sort of malicious compliance. some countries in eu they show the reject all option easily. for others you have to log in and go through many settings pages. most other big companies are not much better or even worse. that is the issue in my opinion. the goal of the privacy laws is very clear but the companies just do not care usually. i am very happy when a site truly respects my choice on their cookie/tracking consent banner, and even more so if they just don’t collect anything in the first place or ask for telemetry data instead of assuming it’s their right. that is why i personally am not happy with the regulations from the US so far as they’re anaemic; the companies still treat your privacy and personal life’s details as if it’s their right to mine for data. until there is effectual law stopping all this and making such broad data collection something extremely rare and limited, nothing will change. and with how much of this data governments are buying, i’m not holding my breath that it’s going to get better. until then i guess we need to continue to teach people that the technology they buy and use often is actively hostile towards the users in favor of giving the companies more personal data.
- Nextgrid 3y agoThe GDPR devolved into (non-compliant) consent popups because it's not being enforced strongly enough. The majority of those consent popups aren't compliant with the regulation.
- nerdponx 3y agoThe fact that intelligence agencies get a carve-out is a distraction from the point, and not a reason not to pursue improvements.
- marcosdumay 3y agoIn a democracy, the government is usually the first to adhere to any regulation and is the most compliant. Mostly because it doesn't have to weight it against a profit.
- chaxor 3y agoClearly can't work. That's totally why the ozone layer is entirely gone now. Oh wait.
- nerdponx 3y agoIt's also worth mentioning that "they" includes entities that you have never heard of and have never had a business relationship with. Basically nothing can be done other than strict legislation. Claiming that top down regulation won't work is not based on evidence and is needlessly fatalistic. If anything, history shows that the thing big corporations fear most is having their profits regulated away. Of course they like regulation when it allows them to build a "regulatory moat" around their business, but when the regulations actually come for their own profit margins, they comply.
- 23B1 3y agoI look at the modern privacy environment as behaving the same way rumor does on the internet. Once it's out there, it's out there, and there's no telling who is using it and for what purpose. The "Copy-paste panopticon"