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I understand that what these companies are doing is illegal, and thus the court ruled correctly. But I cannot help but wonder if we, the public, are really fo

I understand that what these companies are doing is illegal, and thus the court ruled correctly. But I cannot help but wonder if we, the public, are really focusing on the right thing here? Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? Why is the EU regulating privacy topics to the point were we no longer have access to certain social media products, while they are also pushing for backdoors into private messengers? I think that we should focus on the latter - privacy of private encrypted chats from Government scanning. And not spend so much of our time worrying about Facebook targeting me with ads for iPhones, because they know I am in the markt for an iPhone. That's pretty meh.

derivagral 3y ago
IMO, yes - because governments then either compel or buy this data from the private sector.
Warwolt 3y ago
More than one problem can be addressed at a time
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  But you dilute resources and focus.
  - troupo 3y ago
    Companies have had several decades to not do the crap they are doing (laws regarding privacy of people's data have existed in various countries for a long time). How long, in your opinion, should we not dilute our resources and focus? I mean, there's always more stuff to focus on all the time.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    So use the privacy laws against corporations as a wedge.
bombolo 3y ago
norway isn't in the eu -_-'
Etheryte 3y ago
This is utter nonsense. We have the capability to do both, we can both work to stop private companies from tracking us, as well as work to stop our governments snooping on us. Framing it as if we had to choose one or the other is misleading.
- konschubert 3y ago
  I don't think that the public is very good at paying attention to two things at the same time. I think that the "ad targeting privacy" discussion is a borderline red herring that is focusing the debate away from what matters. Giving the public a feeling that they achieved something, while violating privacy through the backdoor.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Or, a more hopeful view, is that "ad targeting privacy" makes "privacy" be a topic at all in society, and that could be leveraged to acquire more privacy in more areas, as people start to realize what it actually means. Problem is that "evil marketing companies" is a lot easier for people to believe in, compared to "evil government", especially in places like in the Nordics where people generally have a much more favorably view of their governments than in other countries (for better or worse).
  - windexh8er 3y ago
    Who's to say they're not the same? We know for a fact that the government uses the "ad targeting privacy" to ingest data on civilians. There's countless articles on resale of those data via data brokers. Conflating the two doesn't minimize the argument IMO. As a counter perspective I would surmise that it would piss people off more if and when a government uses that data against its own citizens. People seem to be grasping the concept that having all of this data in someone else's hands is a bad thing. And while I don't feel the urgency is where it should be, I do feel as though we've made some progress.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > don't think that the public is very good at paying attention to two things at the same time This is a regulatory proceeding. The public isn’t involved. It’s bad strategy to go all in at one point on the front; you’ll be flanked. Focus entirely on government collection, as the U.S. did, and you’ll find companies not only running free but then turning around and selling their data to the government you thought you were on top of.
auveair 3y ago
> Why is the EU regulating privacy topics to the point were we no longer have access to certain social media products, while they are also pushing for backdoors into private messengers? Backdoors are from national governments (Macron in France, Sunak in UK). Privacy stuff is usually from the EU parliament, elected by people proportionally but cannot propose laws, only vote on them.
- alipang 3y ago
  No? https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366537312/Chat-control-EU-lawyers-warn-plans-to-scan-encrypted-messages-for-child-abuse-may-be-unlawful https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366537312/Chat-control-E...
  - cccbbbaaa 3y ago
    And, as the article says, this proposal is likely to be illegal under the ECHR and the CFREU.
- pmontra 3y ago
  Only the Commission can start a new law but the Parliament can amend proposed legislation. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/powers-and-procedures/legislative-powers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/powers-an...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
But its not just used for ad targeting for things you might actually want to buy. It's used for political campaigns, and social manipulation. Governments can also compel the private company to reveal information they have about people.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  > Governments can also compel the private company to reveal information they have about people. This is the big deal. Private companies collect data at volumes, and at levels of detail, that governments would never be allowed to do. It's easier and cheaper to let the private folks do it, then buy it from them. They are already doing this.
  - account-5 3y ago
    Then regulating against them and taking them to court is surely counterproductive?
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    If a government wanted to build such a spyware operation, they'd have to fund it themselves and get budgets approved. But here you have a sustainable spyware operation already running they don't need to justify any budget for.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Nextgrid 3y ago
> "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? The problem is that companies tracking your every move for the purpose of ad targeting means all that data is concentrated in a single place where the government (or another bad actor) can search through.
- thfuran 3y ago
  And, at least in the US, the government can and does freely purchase from third parties information that they aren't able to compell disclosure of, so companies accumulating tons of information about everyone is very much a part of the government surveillance apparatus. Without that (and with some better protection of data that actually does need to be collected), national intelligence agencies would probably still coerce access to information they're not meant to have, but at least local police departments wouldn't be able to just buy it from data brokers.
hulitu 3y ago
> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? Yes. Because the line between companies and government is very thin. (government has access to those companie's data, more or less legaly).
- konschubert 3y ago
  But these companies do not collect chat data. Whatsapp is end to end encrypted. It is my government who wants to break that encryption.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    Yes there are more than one shady way to collect data. Other government, and your own, can access these companies profile of you.
  - josefx 3y ago
    Except from what I can find WhatsApp seems to have an automated content moderation system that will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta for review. So the ability to bypass that encryption is already hardwired into the app.
    - anilgulecha 3y ago
      >will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta Citation please. Specially on automatically..
  - Lio 3y ago
    > these companies do not collect chat data. These companies say they don't collect chat data but they also say they follow local laws and you see from above that they obviously, deliberately don't. Does "end to end encryption" really mean anything if you control decryption at both ends of the connection? It's just harder to intercept over the wire that's all.
troupo 3y ago
> And not spend so much of our time worrying about Facebook targeting me with ads for iPhones, because they know I am in the markt for an iPhone. That's pretty meh. """ The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil """ Governments increasingly rely on the vast amounts of data stored by private companies to target specific people or groups of people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
noselasd 3y ago
> "companies are using your reading history to target ads" Keep in mind that this is also: * "Companies are using your reading history to build a profile of you, including political stance, age, gender, location, religion, group affiliations, network of people you know" and a host of other things. This data is then used to target ads and campains. This is no big deal if it's trying to push you to buy a bit more Mountain Dew, or to figure out that you can better the dental healt in Jefferson County, Idaho by showing up there in a van handing out free samples of toothpaste. It is however a bigger deal when it's used to sway your opinions on political, legal and social matters by feeding you lies. It's a deal when it's used by one country to target individuals in the neighbouring country to leak government secrets by pinpointing local groups and geographic areas where you have a good chance of recruiting such agents. That's why certain countries, in this case Norway don't want this data under contrl of other governments, the U.S. in this case. (While Meta/Facebook owns this data, it's in effect under control of the U.S. government judicially)
- uncletammy 3y ago
  > * "Companies are using your reading history to build a profile of you, including political stance, age, gender, location, religion, group affiliations, network of people you know" ... to then sell that profile to your government, legally.
throwaw12 3y ago
> And not spend so much of our time worrying about Facebook targeting me with ads for iPhones, because they know I am in the markt for an iPhone. That's pretty meh. Let me reverse the question, why anyone is able to target me without me asking for it? why anyone is using my data to do anything without me getting any benefit from it?
glimshe 3y ago
The danger of them having this data is just too great. It's too much concentration of power. Would you trust the government with your voting preferences? Meta can know that with extremely high confidence based on the articles you read, people you follow etc. And while I'm not particularly trusting of the government, I'm even less trusting of zero-accountability, billionaire-led, Meta. Imagine the potential for abuse if this data is in practice usable by large interest groups that want to strongly influence your behavior. Oh, wait a min! This data is usable today by these groups for ads targeting!
- Tangurena2 3y ago
  That sort of unaccountability is why Brexit happened, and why Trump got elected. That level of abuse by special interest groups need to stop.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? This is politically incompetent. A politically competent person uses The System to fight The System. You lobby your government to heavily fine companies for spying. You lobby companies for E2E encryption to stop government spying.
kbf 3y ago
This is about Norway, not the EU.
avgcorrection 3y ago
> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"?' ... And why do you immediately navigate to this dichotomy? What purpose does it serve? Does bifurcating the issue serve any purpose? I can't read minds so I don't know why you in particular are doing it, but the general answer to that is that private interests have waged a decades-long propaganda campaign with the message that everything that the government does is automatically suspect and nefarious, while everything some private interest group is completely okay. But this is a false choice: just say no to both groups violating your privacy.
Devasta 3y ago
Its farcical to suggest that FB is just some middling entity, it has the capability to topple governments if Zuck wanted to. They are already implicated in facilitating multiple ethnic cleansings, what more risk do you want?
troupo 3y ago
Literally right now on HN: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article... --- start quote --- A surprising number (56%) also say they can share your information with the government or law enforcement in response to a “request.” Not a high bar court order, but something as easy as an “informal request.” Yikes -- that’s a very low bar! ... Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.” --- end quote ---
moate 3y ago
Can we all just agree on something: Google and Meta (and a bunch of others) are just the privatization of the government surveillance state. Facebook's product is the user data. That data gets sold and resold and eventually put into the government's hands through gray area retailers. If your issue is "I don't want to be on a government list" one part of the solution would be making sure there's no data to populate the list, and the other part is restricting anyone from assembling such a list. The former is what Norway is doing, but pretending only the latter needs to be addressed is ignoring human nature. "If you aggregate it, they will come".

derivagral 3y ago

IMO, yes - because governments then either compel or buy this data from the private sector.

Warwolt 3y ago

More than one problem can be addressed at a time

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
But you dilute resources and focus.
- troupo 3y ago
  Companies have had several decades to not do the crap they are doing (laws regarding privacy of people's data have existed in various countries for a long time). How long, in your opinion, should we not dilute our resources and focus? I mean, there's always more stuff to focus on all the time.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  So use the privacy laws against corporations as a wedge.

bombolo 3y ago

norway isn't in the eu -_-'

Etheryte 3y ago

This is utter nonsense. We have the capability to do both, we can both work to stop private companies from tracking us, as well as work to stop our governments snooping on us. Framing it as if we had to choose one or the other is misleading.

konschubert 3y ago
I don't think that the public is very good at paying attention to two things at the same time. I think that the "ad targeting privacy" discussion is a borderline red herring that is focusing the debate away from what matters. Giving the public a feeling that they achieved something, while violating privacy through the backdoor.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Or, a more hopeful view, is that "ad targeting privacy" makes "privacy" be a topic at all in society, and that could be leveraged to acquire more privacy in more areas, as people start to realize what it actually means. Problem is that "evil marketing companies" is a lot easier for people to believe in, compared to "evil government", especially in places like in the Nordics where people generally have a much more favorably view of their governments than in other countries (for better or worse).
- windexh8er 3y ago
  Who's to say they're not the same? We know for a fact that the government uses the "ad targeting privacy" to ingest data on civilians. There's countless articles on resale of those data via data brokers. Conflating the two doesn't minimize the argument IMO. As a counter perspective I would surmise that it would piss people off more if and when a government uses that data against its own citizens. People seem to be grasping the concept that having all of this data in someone else's hands is a bad thing. And while I don't feel the urgency is where it should be, I do feel as though we've made some progress.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > don't think that the public is very good at paying attention to two things at the same time This is a regulatory proceeding. The public isn’t involved. It’s bad strategy to go all in at one point on the front; you’ll be flanked. Focus entirely on government collection, as the U.S. did, and you’ll find companies not only running free but then turning around and selling their data to the government you thought you were on top of.

auveair 3y ago

> Why is the EU regulating privacy topics to the point were we no longer have access to certain social media products, while they are also pushing for backdoors into private messengers? Backdoors are from national governments (Macron in France, Sunak in UK). Privacy stuff is usually from the EU parliament, elected by people proportionally but cannot propose laws, only vote on them.

alipang 3y ago
No? https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366537312/Chat-control-EU-lawyers-warn-plans-to-scan-encrypted-messages-for-child-abuse-may-be-unlawful https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366537312/Chat-control-E...
- cccbbbaaa 3y ago
  And, as the article says, this proposal is likely to be illegal under the ECHR and the CFREU.
pmontra 3y ago
Only the Commission can start a new law but the Parliament can amend proposed legislation. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/powers-and-procedures/legislative-powers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/powers-an...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

But its not just used for ad targeting for things you might actually want to buy. It's used for political campaigns, and social manipulation. Governments can also compel the private company to reveal information they have about people.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> Governments can also compel the private company to reveal information they have about people. This is the big deal. Private companies collect data at volumes, and at levels of detail, that governments would never be allowed to do. It's easier and cheaper to let the private folks do it, then buy it from them. They are already doing this.
- account-5 3y ago
  Then regulating against them and taking them to court is surely counterproductive?
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  If a government wanted to build such a spyware operation, they'd have to fund it themselves and get budgets approved. But here you have a sustainable spyware operation already running they don't need to justify any budget for.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Nextgrid 3y ago

> "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? The problem is that companies tracking your every move for the purpose of ad targeting means all that data is concentrated in a single place where the government (or another bad actor) can search through.

thfuran 3y ago
And, at least in the US, the government can and does freely purchase from third parties information that they aren't able to compell disclosure of, so companies accumulating tons of information about everyone is very much a part of the government surveillance apparatus. Without that (and with some better protection of data that actually does need to be collected), national intelligence agencies would probably still coerce access to information they're not meant to have, but at least local police departments wouldn't be able to just buy it from data brokers.

hulitu 3y ago

> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? Yes. Because the line between companies and government is very thin. (government has access to those companie's data, more or less legaly).

konschubert 3y ago
But these companies do not collect chat data. Whatsapp is end to end encrypted. It is my government who wants to break that encryption.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Yes there are more than one shady way to collect data. Other government, and your own, can access these companies profile of you.
- josefx 3y ago
  Except from what I can find WhatsApp seems to have an automated content moderation system that will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta for review. So the ability to bypass that encryption is already hardwired into the app.
  - anilgulecha 3y ago
    >will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta Citation please. Specially on automatically..
- Lio 3y ago
  > these companies do not collect chat data. These companies say they don't collect chat data but they also say they follow local laws and you see from above that they obviously, deliberately don't. Does "end to end encryption" really mean anything if you control decryption at both ends of the connection? It's just harder to intercept over the wire that's all.

troupo 3y ago

> And not spend so much of our time worrying about Facebook targeting me with ads for iPhones, because they know I am in the markt for an iPhone. That's pretty meh. """ The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil """ Governments increasingly rely on the vast amounts of data stored by private companies to target specific people or groups of people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

noselasd 3y ago

> "companies are using your reading history to target ads" Keep in mind that this is also: * "Companies are using your reading history to build a profile of you, including political stance, age, gender, location, religion, group affiliations, network of people you know" and a host of other things. This data is then used to target ads and campains. This is no big deal if it's trying to push you to buy a bit more Mountain Dew, or to figure out that you can better the dental healt in Jefferson County, Idaho by showing up there in a van handing out free samples of toothpaste. It is however a bigger deal when it's used to sway your opinions on political, legal and social matters by feeding you lies. It's a deal when it's used by one country to target individuals in the neighbouring country to leak government secrets by pinpointing local groups and geographic areas where you have a good chance of recruiting such agents. That's why certain countries, in this case Norway don't want this data under contrl of other governments, the U.S. in this case. (While Meta/Facebook owns this data, it's in effect under control of the U.S. government judicially)

uncletammy 3y ago
> * "Companies are using your reading history to build a profile of you, including political stance, age, gender, location, religion, group affiliations, network of people you know" ... to then sell that profile to your government, legally.

throwaw12 3y ago

> And not spend so much of our time worrying about Facebook targeting me with ads for iPhones, because they know I am in the markt for an iPhone. That's pretty meh. Let me reverse the question, why anyone is able to target me without me asking for it? why anyone is using my data to do anything without me getting any benefit from it?

glimshe 3y ago

The danger of them having this data is just too great. It's too much concentration of power. Would you trust the government with your voting preferences? Meta can know that with extremely high confidence based on the articles you read, people you follow etc. And while I'm not particularly trusting of the government, I'm even less trusting of zero-accountability, billionaire-led, Meta. Imagine the potential for abuse if this data is in practice usable by large interest groups that want to strongly influence your behavior. Oh, wait a min! This data is usable today by these groups for ads targeting!

Tangurena2 3y ago
That sort of unaccountability is why Brexit happened, and why Trump got elected. That level of abuse by special interest groups need to stop.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? This is politically incompetent. A politically competent person uses The System to fight The System. You lobby your government to heavily fine companies for spying. You lobby companies for E2E encryption to stop government spying.

kbf 3y ago

This is about Norway, not the EU.

avgcorrection 3y ago

> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"?' ... And why do you immediately navigate to this dichotomy? What purpose does it serve? Does bifurcating the issue serve any purpose? I can't read minds so I don't know why you in particular are doing it, but the general answer to that is that private interests have waged a decades-long propaganda campaign with the message that everything that the government does is automatically suspect and nefarious, while everything some private interest group is completely okay. But this is a false choice: just say no to both groups violating your privacy.

Devasta 3y ago

Its farcical to suggest that FB is just some middling entity, it has the capability to topple governments if Zuck wanted to. They are already implicated in facilitating multiple ethnic cleansings, what more risk do you want?

troupo 3y ago

Literally right now on HN: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article... --- start quote --- A surprising number (56%) also say they can share your information with the government or law enforcement in response to a “request.” Not a high bar court order, but something as easy as an “informal request.” Yikes -- that’s a very low bar! ... Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.” --- end quote ---

moate 3y ago

Can we all just agree on something: Google and Meta (and a bunch of others) are just the privatization of the government surveillance state. Facebook's product is the user data. That data gets sold and resold and eventually put into the government's hands through gray area retailers. If your issue is "I don't want to be on a government list" one part of the solution would be making sure there's no data to populate the list, and the other part is restricting anyone from assembling such a list. The former is what Norway is doing, but pretending only the latter needs to be addressed is ignoring human nature. "If you aggregate it, they will come".