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Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & ent

Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat. I could point to many instances of this but the easiest one is the EU commission currently pushing a ban on encryption.

ahoka 3y ago
As the old saying goes: don’t lie, don’t steal: the government doesn’t like competition. Although I do believe that governments should be liable (is this the best word?) to people and in turn make companies liable too.
- mcv 3y ago
  Accountable? Democratic governments are accountable to people. How well that works in practice varies of course; there's always room to improve democracy, but the basic principle is there. Companies are, according to some ideologies, only really accountable to their shareholders and to the law. If you want to hold them more accountable, the law is generally the way to do that. Autocratic governments are of course not accountable to the people, and autocratic parties in democracies go out of their way to undermine their accountability.
gpderetta 3y ago
Corporations can ruin your life just fine.
- anfogoat 3y ago
  As long as they manage to somehow manipulate the government to help them do it.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Being a gatekeeper to something important is sufficient. If Apple and Google both consider you a persona non grata, you will have a tough time getting by when the businesses you use daily (let alone government agencies) start insisting on interacting only via an app. Meta does that, and businesses that use only Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram all suddenly can't see you. Similar effects with money, though at least PayPal is no longer really a gatekeeper.
    - anfogoat 3y ago
      I don't know about you but ruin your life brings to mind something like what almost happened to Steven Donziger. No corporation is able to do that to you without the help of governments. Not being able to interact with a business on Facebook or on any of the other equally insignificant platforms simply does not rate. And if a governmental agency requires you to use Facebook to interact with them, without any stipulations to bind Meta to serve you, well it's alarming that anyone would have time to say a single thing about Meta instead of address the real issue of the agency having the power to in effect force you to interact with facebook.com.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    What's more common, they manipulate government to not do anything.
SonicScrub 3y ago
I would not assume that there is no data pipeline connection between big-data collectors and government. Now, and especially not in the future. And that data you create now is forever.
squigz 3y ago
Can you elaborate on how a government can 'ruin your life', while a company can't? This might be hard to grok, but we can actually be aware of both threats without minimizing the seriousness of either.
- pembrook 3y ago
  Governments have a monopoly on violence. And as history has proven (especially in the EU), they tend to use it. Even in good times, in countries with mostly balanced institutions, the government can lock you up in prison and throw away the key if you piss off the wrong people. On the other hand, I can assure you the only thing Unilever is aspiring to do is get you to buy more toilet bowl cleaner. And I know the rebuttal will be..."but stupid people (not me of course) will get duped into buying more toilet bowl cleaner than they actually need!" While that is indeed a huge burden of responsibility to place upon all the people you think are less intelligent than you, I think they will be okay. As history has shown, the real risk is the government telling me exactly how much toilet bowl cleaner I get to use.
  - bsenftner 3y ago
    > Governments have a monopoly on violence. Except when they hire security contractors, and then that 3rd party assumes government powers - including police immunity - without the oversight. Which is what happens when cities ban technology uses such as facial recognition by the police - they just hire a 3rd party to do it with zero oversight. Same with large tourist events in non-tourist cities: those are not regular cops during the event, they are contractors with temporary police immunity and very little official oversight.
  - squigz 3y ago
    I have a hard time taking this post seriously since you've now mentioned soap ads twice, as though that's the threat here.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    Others have addressed the surveillance issue plenty (but in case it's still not clear, if your data is for sale commercially, then your government will buy it), but I think it's important to also stress the insidiousness of repeated mass consumer propaganda, given your toilet bowl cleaner example. Consider Oreo O's: a breakfast "food" with 11.5 g sugar and 1.3 g protein. Allegedly (according to the Wikipedia article), it was a very successful "food" and had approval from parents. Now, if you ask someone whether it's appropriate to give your child a pile of sugar or cookies for breakfast, they'll probably tell you no, that's neglect. But somehow people have gotten it into their heads that products from Post or General Mills are acceptable, and weirdly enough now almost half of Americans are obese, and over 10% are diabetic, and how this could have come to be is a total mystery. How did people come to the conclusion that something with marshmallows or cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite is appropriate to give your children every day? Or cans/bottles of sugar water? Something tells me the decades of endless advertising helped normalize it. Look at the website for boxtops for education: big bold letters "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR SCHOOLS" (by giving your child sugar for breakfast). You're making a difference! You're a good person! This kind of propaganda is profoundly evil, and this is without targeting messaging to individuals.
gatinsama 3y ago
*Insert "both" meme* Both can ruin your life, that's the issue. > "The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap." This only works for small companies. We should also care about government surveillance. But, in this case, we are allies.
LightHugger 3y ago
When you realize that large enough corporations are a form of government, your way of thinking really starts falling to bits... But, the government is the solution to when business gets too much power. You can't convince a profit motivated corporation to stop doing something evil as long as it's profitable, so it's the government's job to protect people from corporate governance.
- pembrook 3y ago
  > the government is the solution to when business gets too much power. I totally agree with this. But are personalized Facebook ads really an example of this? And what's the solution when the government gets too much power? Especially in a "democracy," when the people have implicitly given approval for this by voting in the people who are attempting to consolidate power?
  - fsflover 3y ago
    > But are personalized Facebook ads really an example of this? Yes: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health (tau.ac.il) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938622 Facebook collecting people's data even when accounts are deactivated (digiday.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29817297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29817297 Facebook test asks users if they're worried a friend is 'becoming an extremist' (cnn.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27714103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27714103 Testimony to House committee by former Facebook executive Tim Kendall (house.gov) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498
    - hartator 3y ago
      All of this are far from material harms. Compared to what governments can do and are doing.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
absqueued 3y ago
I disagree. EU data practices differ significantly from tech giants; they're governed by strict GDPR rules, requiring consent for personal data processing. No EU nation systematically tracks citizens like tech companies do for ads. It's difficult to compare the data collection practices of EU nations directly with those of large tech companies like Facebook or Google, there are some parallels and distinctions to be made. The encryption debate is separate, focusing on balancing privacy with security. My take (being in EU) is that with weaker encryption, the EU tries to balance privacy with law enforcement needs, aiming to curb illicit communications while raising privacy concerns.
- poisonborz 3y ago
  There is no such thing as "weaker encryption". Either your data is securely encrypted, or you are being deceived.
- rdm_blackhole 3y ago
  > EU data practices differ significantly from tech giants; they're governed by strict GDPR rules, requiring consent for personal data processing. This is false. May I introduce you to chat control or client side scanning on every device that you own? That what is the proposal is currently. All the data would be funneled to Europol, which would have access to every text, every image , every thing you do on your messaging apps. Does that sound like consent to you? > My take (being in EU) is that with weaker encryption, the EU tries to balance privacy with law enforcement needs, aiming to curb illicit communications while raising privacy concerns. You can have encryption or no encryption. If the EU can read your messages, so can China, Russia, Iran and anybody else who either buys their way into the system or breaks in illegally. > It's difficult to compare the data collection practices of EU nations directly with those of large tech companies like Facebook or Google, there are some parallels and distinctions to be made. That's right at least with GDPR, companies have to delete my data after a certain amount of time but some governments of Europe don't have too. There is this thing called data retention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive It's been illegal for some time now but some governments in Europe (France for example) have decided that they don't care and keep doing it. Welcome to the land of privacy.
kuschku 3y ago
Take a look at /r/androiddev and the constant posts from people who've been wrongly banned, for life, from developing android apps. Who don't get any fair trial or hearing, not even a written accusation, it's just over. And everyone who even ever dares to come near them gets banned too, so employers don't want to risk hiring them either. When the Nazis did Berufsverbote, that was an unusual and cruel punishment. When Google does it, that's just the free market baby! Companies can destroy a life just fine.
AlexandrB 3y ago
Reading this, it's like the Snowden leaks never happened. Large companies should basically be regarded as appendages of the government because there's good money in acting as a government contractor and providing data on request. In this respect, privacy from companies ~= privacy from government.
Nextgrid 3y ago
This way of thinking is extremely dangerous as it plays in favor of government surveillance. Without "companies & entrepreneurs", the government would have to build, fund and maintain their own surveillance infrastructure. This might be difficult since nobody would intentionally embed "NSAAnalytics.js" or use "NSABook", so covert methods will be necessary which are costlier and less effective at scale. On the other hand, "companies & entrepreneurs" already built an industrial-scale, financially sustainable surveillance system that the government doesn't even have to pay for, and since it's not technically operated by the government, a lot of the legal protections against direct government surveillance also go out the window. Even better, while people may not use "NSABook" they happily do use "Facebook".
nologic01 3y ago
Gimme a break. For starters the EU is not a "government". Digital state surveillance can only be practiced as a "national competency". More importantly though, the real underlying enemy here has always been citizen apathy, ignorance and distraction about digital privacy (and more general about individual agency in the digital era). Unfortunately in modern times active citizenship has degenerated into polarization and false dichotomies. Unless people are hit in the head with clear and present dangers they stand dazed and confused. This behavior has been actively encouraged by governments worldwide for decades. E.g. they are all still actively promoting citizenry engagement in these platforms. If a certain coalition of countries (for whatever reason) raises warnings about practices in the private sector this can only result in a more informed debate. A debate that has been largely absent so far. BTW: > The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. I don't know what companies exist in your world but in the real world a company can deny you entry to public transport, medical care, access to the financial system (banking and insurance) and salaried employment to name but a few "non-soap" issues.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  > public transport Which public transport company has denied entry to someone? > medical care, financial system (banking and insurance) You mean the government instituted monopoly? > salaried employment This is patently false. No private corporation can deny you employment, outside of their own company.(at the very least, not without government enforcement) Governments deny you salaried employment on a daily basis.
MereInterest 3y ago
> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company can bar the exits, letting you burn to death [0]. A company can send private militias to force you to work [1] (or because you were sent the wrong set of MtG cards [2]). A company can improperly store pesticide, until the resulting explosion kills thousands [3]. A company can own every house and store in a town, managing your expenses to ensure you can't leave [4]. A company can bribe judges to provide them with child labor [5]. Some of these were illegal at the time they were done. Some of these were made illegal as a result of these events. All of them are within the nature of companies, optimizing in pursuit of profit regardless of the human cost. That nature is useful for improving lives, but must be carefully controlled to prevent it from trampling us all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) [2] https://gizmodo.com/magic-the-gathering-leaks-wizards-wotc-pinkertons-1850374546 https://gizmodo.com/magic-the-gathering-leaks-wizards-wotc-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- josephg 3y ago
  Yep. And when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out or, if I want to, get politically active. I can’t vote out Google. Their customers are advertisers, not me. And I don’t know which apps on my phone send my information to Facebook or what they do with it.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    Then don't use google, duh.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Google ad-tech still tracks you as you browse non-google websites.
prmoustache 3y ago
I think we don't have to accept one in order to reject the other but yes we should talk more about those countries (mainly France, Spain, Poland) who are pushing to backdoor end to end encryption.
stcroixx 3y ago
Government routinely abuse their power to coerce companies into behaving as they'd like. So if a company builds a tracking and surveillance network, the government now has that at their disposal.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
But the company can sell your data to the government too. Googles location history can tell a lot about where you've been and when. Social networks can tell who you've been communicating with and what about. Sites like facebook can sell your interests, google can sell them your search topics, etc. Imagine being an evil dictator, who just got to power after years of trying... what's the easiest way to find your strongest opposition? Just buy data from social networks. I mean... look at some stuck up countries with a lot of religious nuts, and some data, that you either bought a butt plug, googled a butt plug, went to an online buttplug store or worse... and it's just a bit of plastic.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  > Googles location history can tell a lot about where you've been and when. Social networks can tell who you've been communicating with and what about. Notice how those two examples aren't restricted. > Sites like facebook can sell your interests, google can sell them your search topics, etc. Governments don't care for that kind of data, that's why they willing to restrict those. Even though the best reason to use Google, is because they know my previous search topics and what I clicked on.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    If you truly believe governments don't care about search data or that the collection is benign, go ahead and log into Google (or use incognito. Probably won't make any difference) and start searching for things like child pornography, how to make pipe bombs, how to convert your guns to full auto, how to build a suppressor at home, how to make a deadly gas bomb, where to find a hitman, how to murder your wife without leaving evidence, etc. Get creative. I imagine Google filters the bad stuff, so you're not likely to actually see anything life scarring with that first search. But go ahead and run the experiment and see if anything comes of it.
asylteltine 3y ago
Why not both? Why can we only pick one? Both things are a problem for a free society
mrtksn 3y ago
This very American point of view, for some reason the Americans believe that politicians are some other kind of breed of people coming from somewhere else and they don't have control over them. The more European point of view is that companies are run by greedy people on who we have no control and we need the government to keep those in check. We have control over the governments and it's O.K. to take them down by force from time to time. Mass protests are a thing and we vote quite often on who are those "government people", what control we have over the companies? It's very scary to let some businessmen to run the the stuff that our lives depend on. Why trust Musk, Gates, Tim Cook or any other magnate act in our benefit when they all show monopolistic tendencies, profit over human lives and rent seeking? I don't know if the Europeans or Americans are right about it but overall it appears that the Europeans are having it better despite the stats about money showing smaller amounts of it.
- konschubert 3y ago
  As a European, this is so embarrassing to read. The US is one of the oldest democracies on earth. "You can give the government infinite power, we will do a revolution, no big deal." Do you have any idea with how much suffering each revolution has been paid for? And remind me again how the revolutionaries overthrew Nazi Germany? The sowjet bloc created decades of suffering and blood but according to you that's fine because we can take them "down by force from time to time"?
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Who said anything about giving government infinite power? It's just difference of attitudes. Europeans tend to trust the government more than the corporations. No need for ridiculous examples, for every bad politician example there exist a bad corporation example. You say nazis, I say Bhopal disaster. No need for that, at least the Nazis payed dearly for it. Corporations are unaccountable. >And remind me again how the revolutionaries overthrew Nazi Germany? Remind me how the Nazis are doing these days?
    - konschubert 3y ago
devjab 3y ago
Are you sure there is a line between the tech companies and the governments? We’re in the middle of a massive intelligence scandal here in Denmark. Which at its core is about how a couple of high level figures might’ve leaked that our own government is sharing all our internet data with the US “illegally”. I put “illegally” in quotes because it’s not technically illegal for the US to use surveillance on us. Just like it’s not illegal for our secret police to gain access to US surveillance, which means that our secret police can use surveillance against Danish citizens indirectly even though it would be illegal for them to do so directly. In the post Snowden world it’s hard to imagine that any massive tech service isn’t hooked directly into the NSA or that it’s being used for what isn’t exactly illegal surveillance but sort of is. Not that you’re wrong of course, but I think we should still work on both issues. Even if you look at the EU the agencies which are working to protect and destroy our privacy aren’t the same. So it’s very possible to support one and not the other. Similarly I think we should absolutely crack down on tech company surveillance. What I don’t personally get is why it stops with Meta. Let’s not pretend TikTok and the others aren’t doing the exact same thing. I also think we should keep in mind that the consumer agencies aren’t only doing it to protect our privacy, they are also doing it to protect our tech industry, so it’s not exactly black and white, but I really don’t think we should stop just because other parts of the EU are also evil. I’m also not convinced that they are doing a good job distracting anyone. Within the EU NGOs there is far more focus on end-to-end encryption and keeping our privacy safe from governments, especially in countries like Germany.
- staunton 3y ago
  > they are also doing it to protect our tech industry Indeed. And due to the fact that such an industry basically doesn't exist, they are able to introduce such regulation.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  > they are also doing it to protect our tech industry With these laws in place, EU companies face worse conditions than US ones. They may be protecting some bigger EU companies, but they definitely aren't protecting our IT industry. GPDR was an annoyance for Google, and a complete disaster for anyone small(think companies that can't hire a Chief Data Protection Officer to work full time) There's a good rationale for placing restrictions and rules on data privacy, but there are also some very ignorant and destructive decisions.
gumballindie 3y ago
> governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs In some countries the separation is unclear. Take ai for instance - regulation demands come from corporations to governments rather than the other way around. And thats happening in basically everything we do. Like in communism, the masses are employed in these massive enterprises that benefit from government money and friendly regulation, but regulation flows from corporations to governments while money flow the other way around (see bailouts and friendly policies). Furthermore politicians use corporations to influence our daily lives and to monitor our behaviour such that they know how to exploit our fears in order to gain and maintain power (see Cambridge analytica). As such corporations are a tool of oppression, anti capitalism and anti freedom. Therefore you have to squeeze them out in order to be able to return to democratic capitalism.
lm28469 3y ago
> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. May I introduce you to my good friend "lobbyism" ? He's very good at connecting people with money and people with political power.
s3p 3y ago
Wow, judging from the replies it seems that most of HN does indeed hate this comment. I agree with you though. Even though it's not apart of the EU, Britain's internet security laws that require browser data collection is particularly disgusting. I am sure that other governments are soon to follow. The EU does appear to be very privacy friendly, and I only hope the governments don't impede corporate privacy regulations when it comes to the public sector (although if they did they would most certainly say it's for national security or child protection).
usrbinbash 3y ago
> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. Why not both? > The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap No, the worst thing a company can do is to propagate the recorded data, willingly or otherwise (companies get hacked, forced by governments, etc.), to entities that won't be content with just using that data to sell more soap. Oh, btw. Do you know who's in general VERY interested in all that sweet data such companies collect? That's right: Governments. And politicians and governments, at least in all countries that I intend to live in, answer to the voter. Who do companies answer to?
- redleader55 3y ago
  Maybe this is why EU has a problem with "Big Tech", while US doesn't?
DudeOpotomus 3y ago
The problem is the data/information is sold to anyone and everyone. Governments, foreign actors, bad actors... It's the collection and dissemination of the data that is the real problem. Everyone deserves privacy and the right to remain private.
FinnKuhn 3y ago
I just want to note that even if you are only afraid of the government in regards to privacy and not companies guess who those companies sell your data and privacy to. As an example the US government already buys location data from companies [1]. Protecting your privacy from the government (while also important) isn't enough due to companies sharing their data with the government, sometimes even for free and without being forced to do so [2]. Therefore you can't protect your privacy from the government without also protecting it from companies. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government-buys-our-cell-phone-location-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-footage/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-f...
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  > Therefore you can't protect your privacy from the government without also protecting it from companies. This is reasonable. Though knowing that the data used to serve ads has very little overlap with the information that governments are interested in, makes this move more pointlessly destructive. Funny enough, the data that governments are interested in isn't getting restricted. There are laws about how to protect that store that data, but that data is not being restricted. Let's not pretend that governments are going to tell companies to stop collecting data, that they are inherently interested in procuring.
  - FinnKuhn 3y ago
    Well, the EU is telling companies to stop collecting data they themselves are very interested in. For example Google was fined for misleading settings that enabled them to track locations [1]. You can't look at governments, but especially the EU, as a single entity. Some parts of it want to collect all data possible while others want to protect your privacy. Here is a good article on how EU courts and the Irish government for example had very different views on this topic [2]. The general pattern you can observe is some political entities and/or countries really like to push surveillance and data retention laws in the name of security, sometimes without possible understanding the amount of misuse this could enable [3]. On the other hand privacy activists and other political entities and/or countries fight back against those and push for laws protecting privacy and your data or prohibit mass surveillance [4]. Sometimes those political "battles" are pretty obvious, with a recent example being the chat-control plans of the European Commission that the European Parliament will hopefully/likely reject [5]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/google-android-location-tracking-australia/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/google-android-location-tr... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/data-retention-europe-mass-surveillance/ https://www.politico.eu/article/data-retention-europe-mass-s... [3] https://netzpolitik.org/2021/urgently-needed-france-spain-push-for-new-eu-data-retention-law/ https://netzpolitik.org/2021/urgently-needed-france-spain-pu... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/11/23719694/eu-ai-act-draft-approved-prohibitions-surveillance-predictive-policing https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/11/23719694/eu-ai-act-draft-... [5] https://www.aol.com/privacy-busting-chat-control-plans-172829143.html?ref=biztoc.com&guccounter=1 https://www.aol.com/privacy-busting-chat-control-plans-17282...
lock-the-spock 3y ago
> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). No, the worst thing a company can do is to influence your desires, feelings and behaviours, causing you to spend money irresponsibly, getting your kids addicted to useless games, ... All that is also what this kind of tracking aims at. It is quite incredible how people have gotten used to being manipulated on a daily basis. Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery and the more the companies know about you, the better they can modulate it to your wants, needs and worries. Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides. You don't notice it anymore because it is so utterly ubiquitous, but it drains you and affects your feelings and thoughts most of the day.
- pembrook 3y ago
  > Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery...Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides. Wow. I guess if we ban it then, we'll be living in a perfect utopia...like we used to have in the past? Have you ever considered that "Targeted Advertising" could be, for the most part, a way for customers with wants/needs and businesses with products/solutions to efficiently match up? And that the people who have been "duped" by targeted advertising actually just have different wants/desires/needs than you? I think its more likely that the root cause of all the things you mention, is just normal human nature stuff. I think you might be using Targeted advertising as a panacea boogieman instead of confronting the uncomfortable real causes for these things (from election results you don't like to family breakups/suicides)?
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    Advertising has always struggled with being too manipulative. Before targeted internet ads, magazines touched up imperfections on models to enhance the "buy this and be beautiful" message they were selling. Before they could retouch photos as easily, they forced models to barely eat to be "thin and attractive", affecting the mental health of people who felt "bad" for not looking like a model...which made them more susceptible to buying the "fix" the company is pushing. Neutral market speak about "market efficiency" and matching customers with issues to businesses with solutions is fine, but talking about it at the expense of acknowledging that advertising CAN be harmful is against the point the parent comment is making. I remember Enzyte commercials on TV in the 2000s. Manipulative against manhood, people who tried the drug had to have a doctors note saying "No, Enzyte didn't make my client's penis size increase" to be "allowed" to cancel their subscription. I can't even begin to imagine the hell someone with a "has small penis" ad profile lives in with targeted ads.
badwolf 3y ago
Every time this type of discussion comes up, I'm amazed at the cognitive dissonance of the EU. They restrict data transfer to the US because "The US government might spy on your data" while simultaneously pushing to break encryption for everyone so ... the government can spy on all your data.
- dhritzkiv 3y ago
  Is it the EU that keeps pushing it? Or just some (now non-)member states? I'm personally only familiar with the UK being obsessed about it.
not_wyoming 3y ago
The government can also force companies to hand over data. Better that the data is never consolidated in the first place.
masswerk 3y ago
Hum, if these behavioural profiles and assessments spill over to financial institutions, employment, housing, (private) education, etc., these harmless "companies & entrepreneurs" may have more impact on your personal life and your chances in life than government in a democratic country.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  But they don't. These behavioral profiles are literally the core product of Facebook. If you think that Facebook is willing to part with the sole thing that makes them competitive... is crazy.
  - masswerk 3y ago
    On the other hand, the business of data brokers is effectively selling such profiles. It would be crazy, if the wouldn't… (Mind that this isn't about Meta in particular, it's just that Meta has been found in violation of general regulations, which are now enforced.)
    - JAlexoid 3y ago
      If governments force Google and Facebook out of advertising, then they will start selling this information... I would rather Google and Facebook have an financial interest in keeping that data to themselves, than having a financial incentive to sell it outright.
      - masswerk 3y ago
        So, because they are likely to commit a much more severe crime, we must let them violating these regulations? Isn't this already a high-risk lock-in? Also, behavioural tracking is by no means the only road to advertising. We have managed to do this for centuries with much less intrusion and risk.
        JAlexoid 3y ago
Lutger 3y ago
> Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. I don't think this is a contrarian view here, look at the comments a lot of people are very negative about the GDPR and just fine with how Meta collects data. There are quite a lot of libertarians here. > The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company could make you dependent on their services, and then shut you out. Or sell your personal info to future employers. Or massively pollute and destroy the environment and climate. Or sell important medicine for crazy margins. There are even mercenary companies waging war and engaging in torture. Selling me more soap isn't the worst I expect from companies, by far. > The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat. You are suggesting this has some vague evil hidden agenda, I find that entirely implausible. You don't have any evidence for this. I'm not even sure what you are hinting at, the possible ban on encryption? Do you seriously think this case against Meta is a way to make people somehow not notice that kind of legislation, how?
RestlessMind 3y ago
Here is the worst thing you are doing - creating a false dichotomy. We should be weary of both the companies and the governments when it comes to privacy.
- froh 3y ago
  yes! the problem is microtargeting for politics, no matter who sponsors it. I couldn't care less about toothpaste. I care about disinformation and divisiveness campaigns on topics like LGBT+, POC, workplace protection, environment, healthcare, food safety, unionization, gun safety, etc etc etc. those are not about a little more revenue, those are about how we live, as a society. and _that_ should be a taboo for microtargeting. our ancestors fought long and hard to end feudal aristocracy. and no less is at stake than our freedom. phew sorry for the rant.
_Algernon_ 3y ago
The companies literally sell this data to governments. Stopping companies from having the data is limiting government access to the data.
codexb 3y ago
True, but if data is available commercially, it's available to the government, as we learnt earlier this year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36300410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36300410 Even when companies are only selling anonymized data, with enough money and sources, it's possible to cross-reference enough information to de-anonymize it.
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
At this point dozens of elections across the world have been strongly influenced, perhaps determined, by data collection by social media, and the targeted ads on social media. Anything that moves democracy away from one-person-one-vote to one-dollar-one-vote (which you need to buy ads), needs to be made illegal.
gorbachev 3y ago
This is a really limited view on the problem. For a terrifying counter-example do some research into how easy it is for a stalker to abuse data about their victims. The free-for-all collection and market of data about all of us is the real problem. Anyone with a few bucks can get around the "safeguards" around accessing it. Governments, your employer, your neighbor, your opponents in an election, criminals.
deleted 3y ago
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EZ-E 3y ago
> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs Thankfully, governments are incompetent and inefficient enough to prove a real threat on this matter when it comes to tech

ahoka 3y ago

As the old saying goes: don’t lie, don’t steal: the government doesn’t like competition. Although I do believe that governments should be liable (is this the best word?) to people and in turn make companies liable too.

mcv 3y ago
Accountable? Democratic governments are accountable to people. How well that works in practice varies of course; there's always room to improve democracy, but the basic principle is there. Companies are, according to some ideologies, only really accountable to their shareholders and to the law. If you want to hold them more accountable, the law is generally the way to do that. Autocratic governments are of course not accountable to the people, and autocratic parties in democracies go out of their way to undermine their accountability.

gpderetta 3y ago

Corporations can ruin your life just fine.

anfogoat 3y ago
As long as they manage to somehow manipulate the government to help them do it.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Being a gatekeeper to something important is sufficient. If Apple and Google both consider you a persona non grata, you will have a tough time getting by when the businesses you use daily (let alone government agencies) start insisting on interacting only via an app. Meta does that, and businesses that use only Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram all suddenly can't see you. Similar effects with money, though at least PayPal is no longer really a gatekeeper.
  - anfogoat 3y ago
    I don't know about you but ruin your life brings to mind something like what almost happened to Steven Donziger. No corporation is able to do that to you without the help of governments. Not being able to interact with a business on Facebook or on any of the other equally insignificant platforms simply does not rate. And if a governmental agency requires you to use Facebook to interact with them, without any stipulations to bind Meta to serve you, well it's alarming that anyone would have time to say a single thing about Meta instead of address the real issue of the agency having the power to in effect force you to interact with facebook.com.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  What's more common, they manipulate government to not do anything.

SonicScrub 3y ago

I would not assume that there is no data pipeline connection between big-data collectors and government. Now, and especially not in the future. And that data you create now is forever.

squigz 3y ago

Can you elaborate on how a government can 'ruin your life', while a company can't? This might be hard to grok, but we can actually be aware of both threats without minimizing the seriousness of either.

pembrook 3y ago
Governments have a monopoly on violence. And as history has proven (especially in the EU), they tend to use it. Even in good times, in countries with mostly balanced institutions, the government can lock you up in prison and throw away the key if you piss off the wrong people. On the other hand, I can assure you the only thing Unilever is aspiring to do is get you to buy more toilet bowl cleaner. And I know the rebuttal will be..."but stupid people (not me of course) will get duped into buying more toilet bowl cleaner than they actually need!" While that is indeed a huge burden of responsibility to place upon all the people you think are less intelligent than you, I think they will be okay. As history has shown, the real risk is the government telling me exactly how much toilet bowl cleaner I get to use.
- bsenftner 3y ago
  > Governments have a monopoly on violence. Except when they hire security contractors, and then that 3rd party assumes government powers - including police immunity - without the oversight. Which is what happens when cities ban technology uses such as facial recognition by the police - they just hire a 3rd party to do it with zero oversight. Same with large tourist events in non-tourist cities: those are not regular cops during the event, they are contractors with temporary police immunity and very little official oversight.
- squigz 3y ago
  I have a hard time taking this post seriously since you've now mentioned soap ads twice, as though that's the threat here.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  Others have addressed the surveillance issue plenty (but in case it's still not clear, if your data is for sale commercially, then your government will buy it), but I think it's important to also stress the insidiousness of repeated mass consumer propaganda, given your toilet bowl cleaner example. Consider Oreo O's: a breakfast "food" with 11.5 g sugar and 1.3 g protein. Allegedly (according to the Wikipedia article), it was a very successful "food" and had approval from parents. Now, if you ask someone whether it's appropriate to give your child a pile of sugar or cookies for breakfast, they'll probably tell you no, that's neglect. But somehow people have gotten it into their heads that products from Post or General Mills are acceptable, and weirdly enough now almost half of Americans are obese, and over 10% are diabetic, and how this could have come to be is a total mystery. How did people come to the conclusion that something with marshmallows or cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite is appropriate to give your children every day? Or cans/bottles of sugar water? Something tells me the decades of endless advertising helped normalize it. Look at the website for boxtops for education: big bold letters "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR SCHOOLS" (by giving your child sugar for breakfast). You're making a difference! You're a good person! This kind of propaganda is profoundly evil, and this is without targeting messaging to individuals.

gatinsama 3y ago

*Insert "both" meme* Both can ruin your life, that's the issue. > "The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap." This only works for small companies. We should also care about government surveillance. But, in this case, we are allies.

LightHugger 3y ago

When you realize that large enough corporations are a form of government, your way of thinking really starts falling to bits... But, the government is the solution to when business gets too much power. You can't convince a profit motivated corporation to stop doing something evil as long as it's profitable, so it's the government's job to protect people from corporate governance.

pembrook 3y ago
> the government is the solution to when business gets too much power. I totally agree with this. But are personalized Facebook ads really an example of this? And what's the solution when the government gets too much power? Especially in a "democracy," when the people have implicitly given approval for this by voting in the people who are attempting to consolidate power?
- fsflover 3y ago
  > But are personalized Facebook ads really an example of this? Yes: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health (tau.ac.il) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938622 Facebook collecting people's data even when accounts are deactivated (digiday.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29817297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29817297 Facebook test asks users if they're worried a friend is 'becoming an extremist' (cnn.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27714103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27714103 Testimony to House committee by former Facebook executive Tim Kendall (house.gov) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498
  - hartator 3y ago
    All of this are far from material harms. Compared to what governments can do and are doing.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

absqueued 3y ago

I disagree. EU data practices differ significantly from tech giants; they're governed by strict GDPR rules, requiring consent for personal data processing. No EU nation systematically tracks citizens like tech companies do for ads. It's difficult to compare the data collection practices of EU nations directly with those of large tech companies like Facebook or Google, there are some parallels and distinctions to be made. The encryption debate is separate, focusing on balancing privacy with security. My take (being in EU) is that with weaker encryption, the EU tries to balance privacy with law enforcement needs, aiming to curb illicit communications while raising privacy concerns.

poisonborz 3y ago
There is no such thing as "weaker encryption". Either your data is securely encrypted, or you are being deceived.
rdm_blackhole 3y ago
> EU data practices differ significantly from tech giants; they're governed by strict GDPR rules, requiring consent for personal data processing. This is false. May I introduce you to chat control or client side scanning on every device that you own? That what is the proposal is currently. All the data would be funneled to Europol, which would have access to every text, every image , every thing you do on your messaging apps. Does that sound like consent to you? > My take (being in EU) is that with weaker encryption, the EU tries to balance privacy with law enforcement needs, aiming to curb illicit communications while raising privacy concerns. You can have encryption or no encryption. If the EU can read your messages, so can China, Russia, Iran and anybody else who either buys their way into the system or breaks in illegally. > It's difficult to compare the data collection practices of EU nations directly with those of large tech companies like Facebook or Google, there are some parallels and distinctions to be made. That's right at least with GDPR, companies have to delete my data after a certain amount of time but some governments of Europe don't have too. There is this thing called data retention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive It's been illegal for some time now but some governments in Europe (France for example) have decided that they don't care and keep doing it. Welcome to the land of privacy.

kuschku 3y ago

Take a look at /r/androiddev and the constant posts from people who've been wrongly banned, for life, from developing android apps. Who don't get any fair trial or hearing, not even a written accusation, it's just over. And everyone who even ever dares to come near them gets banned too, so employers don't want to risk hiring them either. When the Nazis did Berufsverbote, that was an unusual and cruel punishment. When Google does it, that's just the free market baby! Companies can destroy a life just fine.

AlexandrB 3y ago

Reading this, it's like the Snowden leaks never happened. Large companies should basically be regarded as appendages of the government because there's good money in acting as a government contractor and providing data on request. In this respect, privacy from companies ~= privacy from government.

Nextgrid 3y ago

This way of thinking is extremely dangerous as it plays in favor of government surveillance. Without "companies & entrepreneurs", the government would have to build, fund and maintain their own surveillance infrastructure. This might be difficult since nobody would intentionally embed "NSAAnalytics.js" or use "NSABook", so covert methods will be necessary which are costlier and less effective at scale. On the other hand, "companies & entrepreneurs" already built an industrial-scale, financially sustainable surveillance system that the government doesn't even have to pay for, and since it's not technically operated by the government, a lot of the legal protections against direct government surveillance also go out the window. Even better, while people may not use "NSABook" they happily do use "Facebook".

nologic01 3y ago

Gimme a break. For starters the EU is not a "government". Digital state surveillance can only be practiced as a "national competency". More importantly though, the real underlying enemy here has always been citizen apathy, ignorance and distraction about digital privacy (and more general about individual agency in the digital era). Unfortunately in modern times active citizenship has degenerated into polarization and false dichotomies. Unless people are hit in the head with clear and present dangers they stand dazed and confused. This behavior has been actively encouraged by governments worldwide for decades. E.g. they are all still actively promoting citizenry engagement in these platforms. If a certain coalition of countries (for whatever reason) raises warnings about practices in the private sector this can only result in a more informed debate. A debate that has been largely absent so far. BTW: > The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. I don't know what companies exist in your world but in the real world a company can deny you entry to public transport, medical care, access to the financial system (banking and insurance) and salaried employment to name but a few "non-soap" issues.

JAlexoid 3y ago
> public transport Which public transport company has denied entry to someone? > medical care, financial system (banking and insurance) You mean the government instituted monopoly? > salaried employment This is patently false. No private corporation can deny you employment, outside of their own company.(at the very least, not without government enforcement) Governments deny you salaried employment on a daily basis.

MereInterest 3y ago

> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company can bar the exits, letting you burn to death [0]. A company can send private militias to force you to work [1] (or because you were sent the wrong set of MtG cards [2]). A company can improperly store pesticide, until the resulting explosion kills thousands [3]. A company can own every house and store in a town, managing your expenses to ensure you can't leave [4]. A company can bribe judges to provide them with child labor [5]. Some of these were illegal at the time they were done. Some of these were made illegal as a result of these events. All of them are within the nature of companies, optimizing in pursuit of profit regardless of the human cost. That nature is useful for improving lives, but must be carefully controlled to prevent it from trampling us all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) [2] https://gizmodo.com/magic-the-gathering-leaks-wizards-wotc-pinkertons-1850374546 https://gizmodo.com/magic-the-gathering-leaks-wizards-wotc-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

josephg 3y ago
Yep. And when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out or, if I want to, get politically active. I can’t vote out Google. Their customers are advertisers, not me. And I don’t know which apps on my phone send my information to Facebook or what they do with it.
- konschubert 3y ago
  Then don't use google, duh.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Google ad-tech still tracks you as you browse non-google websites.

prmoustache 3y ago

I think we don't have to accept one in order to reject the other but yes we should talk more about those countries (mainly France, Spain, Poland) who are pushing to backdoor end to end encryption.

stcroixx 3y ago

Government routinely abuse their power to coerce companies into behaving as they'd like. So if a company builds a tracking and surveillance network, the government now has that at their disposal.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

But the company can sell your data to the government too. Googles location history can tell a lot about where you've been and when. Social networks can tell who you've been communicating with and what about. Sites like facebook can sell your interests, google can sell them your search topics, etc. Imagine being an evil dictator, who just got to power after years of trying... what's the easiest way to find your strongest opposition? Just buy data from social networks. I mean... look at some stuck up countries with a lot of religious nuts, and some data, that you either bought a butt plug, googled a butt plug, went to an online buttplug store or worse... and it's just a bit of plastic.

JAlexoid 3y ago
> Googles location history can tell a lot about where you've been and when. Social networks can tell who you've been communicating with and what about. Notice how those two examples aren't restricted. > Sites like facebook can sell your interests, google can sell them your search topics, etc. Governments don't care for that kind of data, that's why they willing to restrict those. Even though the best reason to use Google, is because they know my previous search topics and what I clicked on.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  If you truly believe governments don't care about search data or that the collection is benign, go ahead and log into Google (or use incognito. Probably won't make any difference) and start searching for things like child pornography, how to make pipe bombs, how to convert your guns to full auto, how to build a suppressor at home, how to make a deadly gas bomb, where to find a hitman, how to murder your wife without leaving evidence, etc. Get creative. I imagine Google filters the bad stuff, so you're not likely to actually see anything life scarring with that first search. But go ahead and run the experiment and see if anything comes of it.

asylteltine 3y ago

Why not both? Why can we only pick one? Both things are a problem for a free society

mrtksn 3y ago

This very American point of view, for some reason the Americans believe that politicians are some other kind of breed of people coming from somewhere else and they don't have control over them. The more European point of view is that companies are run by greedy people on who we have no control and we need the government to keep those in check. We have control over the governments and it's O.K. to take them down by force from time to time. Mass protests are a thing and we vote quite often on who are those "government people", what control we have over the companies? It's very scary to let some businessmen to run the the stuff that our lives depend on. Why trust Musk, Gates, Tim Cook or any other magnate act in our benefit when they all show monopolistic tendencies, profit over human lives and rent seeking? I don't know if the Europeans or Americans are right about it but overall it appears that the Europeans are having it better despite the stats about money showing smaller amounts of it.

konschubert 3y ago
As a European, this is so embarrassing to read. The US is one of the oldest democracies on earth. "You can give the government infinite power, we will do a revolution, no big deal." Do you have any idea with how much suffering each revolution has been paid for? And remind me again how the revolutionaries overthrew Nazi Germany? The sowjet bloc created decades of suffering and blood but according to you that's fine because we can take them "down by force from time to time"?
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Who said anything about giving government infinite power? It's just difference of attitudes. Europeans tend to trust the government more than the corporations. No need for ridiculous examples, for every bad politician example there exist a bad corporation example. You say nazis, I say Bhopal disaster. No need for that, at least the Nazis payed dearly for it. Corporations are unaccountable. >And remind me again how the revolutionaries overthrew Nazi Germany? Remind me how the Nazis are doing these days?
  - konschubert 3y ago

devjab 3y ago

Are you sure there is a line between the tech companies and the governments? We’re in the middle of a massive intelligence scandal here in Denmark. Which at its core is about how a couple of high level figures might’ve leaked that our own government is sharing all our internet data with the US “illegally”. I put “illegally” in quotes because it’s not technically illegal for the US to use surveillance on us. Just like it’s not illegal for our secret police to gain access to US surveillance, which means that our secret police can use surveillance against Danish citizens indirectly even though it would be illegal for them to do so directly. In the post Snowden world it’s hard to imagine that any massive tech service isn’t hooked directly into the NSA or that it’s being used for what isn’t exactly illegal surveillance but sort of is. Not that you’re wrong of course, but I think we should still work on both issues. Even if you look at the EU the agencies which are working to protect and destroy our privacy aren’t the same. So it’s very possible to support one and not the other. Similarly I think we should absolutely crack down on tech company surveillance. What I don’t personally get is why it stops with Meta. Let’s not pretend TikTok and the others aren’t doing the exact same thing. I also think we should keep in mind that the consumer agencies aren’t only doing it to protect our privacy, they are also doing it to protect our tech industry, so it’s not exactly black and white, but I really don’t think we should stop just because other parts of the EU are also evil. I’m also not convinced that they are doing a good job distracting anyone. Within the EU NGOs there is far more focus on end-to-end encryption and keeping our privacy safe from governments, especially in countries like Germany.

staunton 3y ago
> they are also doing it to protect our tech industry Indeed. And due to the fact that such an industry basically doesn't exist, they are able to introduce such regulation.
JAlexoid 3y ago
> they are also doing it to protect our tech industry With these laws in place, EU companies face worse conditions than US ones. They may be protecting some bigger EU companies, but they definitely aren't protecting our IT industry. GPDR was an annoyance for Google, and a complete disaster for anyone small(think companies that can't hire a Chief Data Protection Officer to work full time) There's a good rationale for placing restrictions and rules on data privacy, but there are also some very ignorant and destructive decisions.

gumballindie 3y ago

> governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs In some countries the separation is unclear. Take ai for instance - regulation demands come from corporations to governments rather than the other way around. And thats happening in basically everything we do. Like in communism, the masses are employed in these massive enterprises that benefit from government money and friendly regulation, but regulation flows from corporations to governments while money flow the other way around (see bailouts and friendly policies). Furthermore politicians use corporations to influence our daily lives and to monitor our behaviour such that they know how to exploit our fears in order to gain and maintain power (see Cambridge analytica). As such corporations are a tool of oppression, anti capitalism and anti freedom. Therefore you have to squeeze them out in order to be able to return to democratic capitalism.

lm28469 3y ago

> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. May I introduce you to my good friend "lobbyism" ? He's very good at connecting people with money and people with political power.

s3p 3y ago

Wow, judging from the replies it seems that most of HN does indeed hate this comment. I agree with you though. Even though it's not apart of the EU, Britain's internet security laws that require browser data collection is particularly disgusting. I am sure that other governments are soon to follow. The EU does appear to be very privacy friendly, and I only hope the governments don't impede corporate privacy regulations when it comes to the public sector (although if they did they would most certainly say it's for national security or child protection).

usrbinbash 3y ago

> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. Why not both? > The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap No, the worst thing a company can do is to propagate the recorded data, willingly or otherwise (companies get hacked, forced by governments, etc.), to entities that won't be content with just using that data to sell more soap. Oh, btw. Do you know who's in general VERY interested in all that sweet data such companies collect? That's right: Governments. And politicians and governments, at least in all countries that I intend to live in, answer to the voter. Who do companies answer to?

redleader55 3y ago
Maybe this is why EU has a problem with "Big Tech", while US doesn't?

DudeOpotomus 3y ago

The problem is the data/information is sold to anyone and everyone. Governments, foreign actors, bad actors... It's the collection and dissemination of the data that is the real problem. Everyone deserves privacy and the right to remain private.

FinnKuhn 3y ago

I just want to note that even if you are only afraid of the government in regards to privacy and not companies guess who those companies sell your data and privacy to. As an example the US government already buys location data from companies [1]. Protecting your privacy from the government (while also important) isn't enough due to companies sharing their data with the government, sometimes even for free and without being forced to do so [2]. Therefore you can't protect your privacy from the government without also protecting it from companies. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government-buys-our-cell-phone-location-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-footage/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-f...

JAlexoid 3y ago
> Therefore you can't protect your privacy from the government without also protecting it from companies. This is reasonable. Though knowing that the data used to serve ads has very little overlap with the information that governments are interested in, makes this move more pointlessly destructive. Funny enough, the data that governments are interested in isn't getting restricted. There are laws about how to protect that store that data, but that data is not being restricted. Let's not pretend that governments are going to tell companies to stop collecting data, that they are inherently interested in procuring.
- FinnKuhn 3y ago
  Well, the EU is telling companies to stop collecting data they themselves are very interested in. For example Google was fined for misleading settings that enabled them to track locations [1]. You can't look at governments, but especially the EU, as a single entity. Some parts of it want to collect all data possible while others want to protect your privacy. Here is a good article on how EU courts and the Irish government for example had very different views on this topic [2]. The general pattern you can observe is some political entities and/or countries really like to push surveillance and data retention laws in the name of security, sometimes without possible understanding the amount of misuse this could enable [3]. On the other hand privacy activists and other political entities and/or countries fight back against those and push for laws protecting privacy and your data or prohibit mass surveillance [4]. Sometimes those political "battles" are pretty obvious, with a recent example being the chat-control plans of the European Commission that the European Parliament will hopefully/likely reject [5]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/google-android-location-tracking-australia/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/google-android-location-tr... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/data-retention-europe-mass-surveillance/ https://www.politico.eu/article/data-retention-europe-mass-s... [3] https://netzpolitik.org/2021/urgently-needed-france-spain-push-for-new-eu-data-retention-law/ https://netzpolitik.org/2021/urgently-needed-france-spain-pu... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/11/23719694/eu-ai-act-draft-approved-prohibitions-surveillance-predictive-policing https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/11/23719694/eu-ai-act-draft-... [5] https://www.aol.com/privacy-busting-chat-control-plans-172829143.html?ref=biztoc.com&guccounter=1 https://www.aol.com/privacy-busting-chat-control-plans-17282...

lock-the-spock 3y ago

> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). No, the worst thing a company can do is to influence your desires, feelings and behaviours, causing you to spend money irresponsibly, getting your kids addicted to useless games, ... All that is also what this kind of tracking aims at. It is quite incredible how people have gotten used to being manipulated on a daily basis. Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery and the more the companies know about you, the better they can modulate it to your wants, needs and worries. Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides. You don't notice it anymore because it is so utterly ubiquitous, but it drains you and affects your feelings and thoughts most of the day.

pembrook 3y ago
> Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery...Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides. Wow. I guess if we ban it then, we'll be living in a perfect utopia...like we used to have in the past? Have you ever considered that "Targeted Advertising" could be, for the most part, a way for customers with wants/needs and businesses with products/solutions to efficiently match up? And that the people who have been "duped" by targeted advertising actually just have different wants/desires/needs than you? I think its more likely that the root cause of all the things you mention, is just normal human nature stuff. I think you might be using Targeted advertising as a panacea boogieman instead of confronting the uncomfortable real causes for these things (from election results you don't like to family breakups/suicides)?
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  Advertising has always struggled with being too manipulative. Before targeted internet ads, magazines touched up imperfections on models to enhance the "buy this and be beautiful" message they were selling. Before they could retouch photos as easily, they forced models to barely eat to be "thin and attractive", affecting the mental health of people who felt "bad" for not looking like a model...which made them more susceptible to buying the "fix" the company is pushing. Neutral market speak about "market efficiency" and matching customers with issues to businesses with solutions is fine, but talking about it at the expense of acknowledging that advertising CAN be harmful is against the point the parent comment is making. I remember Enzyte commercials on TV in the 2000s. Manipulative against manhood, people who tried the drug had to have a doctors note saying "No, Enzyte didn't make my client's penis size increase" to be "allowed" to cancel their subscription. I can't even begin to imagine the hell someone with a "has small penis" ad profile lives in with targeted ads.

badwolf 3y ago

Every time this type of discussion comes up, I'm amazed at the cognitive dissonance of the EU. They restrict data transfer to the US because "The US government might spy on your data" while simultaneously pushing to break encryption for everyone so ... the government can spy on all your data.

dhritzkiv 3y ago
Is it the EU that keeps pushing it? Or just some (now non-)member states? I'm personally only familiar with the UK being obsessed about it.

not_wyoming 3y ago

The government can also force companies to hand over data. Better that the data is never consolidated in the first place.

masswerk 3y ago

Hum, if these behavioural profiles and assessments spill over to financial institutions, employment, housing, (private) education, etc., these harmless "companies & entrepreneurs" may have more impact on your personal life and your chances in life than government in a democratic country.

JAlexoid 3y ago
But they don't. These behavioral profiles are literally the core product of Facebook. If you think that Facebook is willing to part with the sole thing that makes them competitive... is crazy.
- masswerk 3y ago
  On the other hand, the business of data brokers is effectively selling such profiles. It would be crazy, if the wouldn't… (Mind that this isn't about Meta in particular, it's just that Meta has been found in violation of general regulations, which are now enforced.)
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    If governments force Google and Facebook out of advertising, then they will start selling this information... I would rather Google and Facebook have an financial interest in keeping that data to themselves, than having a financial incentive to sell it outright.
    - masswerk 3y ago
      So, because they are likely to commit a much more severe crime, we must let them violating these regulations? Isn't this already a high-risk lock-in? Also, behavioural tracking is by no means the only road to advertising. We have managed to do this for centuries with much less intrusion and risk.
      - JAlexoid 3y ago

Lutger 3y ago

> Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. I don't think this is a contrarian view here, look at the comments a lot of people are very negative about the GDPR and just fine with how Meta collects data. There are quite a lot of libertarians here. > The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company could make you dependent on their services, and then shut you out. Or sell your personal info to future employers. Or massively pollute and destroy the environment and climate. Or sell important medicine for crazy margins. There are even mercenary companies waging war and engaging in torture. Selling me more soap isn't the worst I expect from companies, by far. > The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat. You are suggesting this has some vague evil hidden agenda, I find that entirely implausible. You don't have any evidence for this. I'm not even sure what you are hinting at, the possible ban on encryption? Do you seriously think this case against Meta is a way to make people somehow not notice that kind of legislation, how?

RestlessMind 3y ago

Here is the worst thing you are doing - creating a false dichotomy. We should be weary of both the companies and the governments when it comes to privacy.

froh 3y ago
yes! the problem is microtargeting for politics, no matter who sponsors it. I couldn't care less about toothpaste. I care about disinformation and divisiveness campaigns on topics like LGBT+, POC, workplace protection, environment, healthcare, food safety, unionization, gun safety, etc etc etc. those are not about a little more revenue, those are about how we live, as a society. and _that_ should be a taboo for microtargeting. our ancestors fought long and hard to end feudal aristocracy. and no less is at stake than our freedom. phew sorry for the rant.

_Algernon_ 3y ago

The companies literally sell this data to governments. Stopping companies from having the data is limiting government access to the data.

codexb 3y ago

True, but if data is available commercially, it's available to the government, as we learnt earlier this year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36300410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36300410 Even when companies are only selling anonymized data, with enough money and sources, it's possible to cross-reference enough information to de-anonymize it.

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

At this point dozens of elections across the world have been strongly influenced, perhaps determined, by data collection by social media, and the targeted ads on social media. Anything that moves democracy away from one-person-one-vote to one-dollar-one-vote (which you need to buy ads), needs to be made illegal.

gorbachev 3y ago

This is a really limited view on the problem. For a terrifying counter-example do some research into how easy it is for a stalker to abuse data about their victims. The free-for-all collection and market of data about all of us is the real problem. Anyone with a few bucks can get around the "safeguards" around accessing it. Governments, your employer, your neighbor, your opponents in an election, criminals.

deleted 3y ago

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EZ-E 3y ago

> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs Thankfully, governments are incompetent and inefficient enough to prove a real threat on this matter when it comes to tech