4 ms·

> I took that screenshot on my own account. It’s toggled “on”—but I never turned it on myself. There is a consent crisis as well, though I agree it's a smaller

> I took that screenshot on my own account. It’s toggled “on”—but I never turned it on myself. There is a consent crisis as well, though I agree it's a smaller issue related to trust. There needs to be an actionable, legal definition of consent as it applies to website privacy—my naive assumption is that there was, but clearly that's not true, or it's not good enough or actionable enough—and it needs to preclude implying users must positively grant consent to harvest, process, or transfer data to third parties, when in fact the dirty deeds have already been done in secret.

jampekka 3y ago
In GDPR there is. But the companies don't care and neither do the regulators. Big business just has too much power and influence.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  GDPR is not much enforced, unfortunatly.
  - ponector 3y ago
    But it is enforced. Here is a list: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
    - jampekka 3y ago
      Very few of those are about consent. Which is quite striking, as practically all of the spyware nags are illegal and thus the consent is violated probably billions of times every day.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Given that I encounter at least one violation a day, it's really a small list. It should contains hundred of thousands of entries. Like fines for speeding. Imagine if you had a page for parking tickets since 2018 (!) and it contained only a few hundred penalties. This is ridiculous, especially since: - it's not hard to find most cases. Just take any cookie banner that makes harder to opt out than opt in, and that's it, you have a violation. It can even be automated. - it can bring a lot of money to a system that is dying for it.
      - ponector 3y ago
        Are you reporting such violation? How authorities would know about it? Also the jurisdiction is in question. Who should enforce? Country where user is? Country where domain is registered? Country where data center with servers is? Country where nominal owner of the web page is? Country where final beneficiary is? Country where creator of the banner is?
        jampekka 3y ago
        The jurisdiction is EU (GDPR is binding legislation for all member countries, not dissimilar to US federal law), and the enforcer is primarily the country where the company that owns the website has European incorporation. In theory anybody can report to their country's data protection officer, although at least in Finland they don't care about individual citizen complaints. The NGO noyb is sending out batches of these reports. They have some minor wins, but as you can probably tell from all these nags around, by and large there's not much effect. All these questions are sorted, on paper. https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/08/noyb-gdpr-cookie-consent-complaints/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/08/noyb-gdpr-cookie-consent-c...
Log_out_ 3y ago
Whatever comes out of the courts will be just another anchor point to abuse civilian VS cooperate power asymmetry. What we need is the ability to revert laws back to the thrust bust new deal era laws, crush the bad influence and rebuild.
- __loam 3y ago
  Seems like an overly vague, cynical view.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
There already is. There always has been! It's called fraud. If you trick someone into signing a contract, then that contract is fraudulent. If you tell someone that you will ask their permission before doing something; then silently claim you already obtained that permission in a prior contract, you are committing fraud. I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth, but you sure as hell can't blame that on the citizens they are failing to defend.
- rapnie 3y ago
  "I consent to your [legalese with weasel words that only specialist lawyers have any chance to understand the implications of]." See. No fraud.
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    Let me frame this in a story: Dave is a prostitute. He is hired by Sue via contract. In this contract, Dave agrees to have sex with Sue. Also in the contract is the agreement that Sue may introduce any sex toys that will not physically harm Dave. When they get together, Dave notices a camera pointed at them. Sue tells Dave that, "I only record sex with people who consent to my use of a camera." Later, Dave learns that Sue did in fact record the encounter. Sue's defense? The camera was a sex toy! It didn't physically harm you! This was all in the contract! Is Sue's defense valid? Of course not! Sue has committed fraud. --- We should hold corporations every bit as accountable as we would fictional prostitutes.
  - banannaise 3y ago
    That's still fraud in most jurisdictions (although it's no longer provable unless there's a paper trail that says it's intentionally designed to deceive). However, even if fraud can't be proven, it may no longer be a valid contract. A contract is the mutual understanding of an agreement, not the words printed on a piece of paper. The paper can be used as evidence of mutual understanding, but it's not incontrovertible evidence of that. Many kinds of evidence can go the other way, such as unconscionability (terms that there's no way anyone would willingly agree to, thus suggesting coercion or subterfuge). Or, framed another way: consent, in both a moral sense and a legal one, requires awareness from both parties of what you are consenting to. Each party is, to some extent, responsible for using the resources at their disposal to ensure they understand the contract (e.g. a blind person must find someone to read them the contract), but intentionally undermining the process of mutual understanding is at best very good evidence against enforcement of the contract and at worst fraud.
SonicSoul 3y ago
it blew my mind when i logged into dropbox that sharing my data with third party "vetted" AI companies was enabled by default. i just wrote a WTF email to their support, but most likely i will be discontinuing my account. can't imagine what they can possibly say that will make this OK
- trinsic2 3y ago
  I saw the writing on the wall when they started sending ads via their notification system with no way to turn it off. I'm on pCloud now, but its not looking like it's not much better, They recently started spamming my mobile app with thanks giving ads to upgrade to a different tier of their product even though I had offer notifications turned off. I had some words with their support department, here is what they said: >Hello, >Thank you for contacting pCloud's Technical Support. >This is a pCloud banner for Black Friday and it's not a notification. Unfortunately, you won't be able to remove it manually and you should wait until the end of the Black Friday promo - 30.11.2023. >Should you require any further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us. >Regards, >George Lewis >pCloud's Technical Support Like it matters that its not a notification. You still need my consent regardless of what kind of ad it is.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    This sounds like a variation on the line that "it's not an ad if we aren't getting paid to show it to you". Like with Windows notifications "informing" you of other Microsoft products. It's bullshit, and is one of the things that decreases trust.
  - SonicSoul 3y ago
    heh.. here is the response i got. Hi there, Thanks for taking the time to write in to Dropbox Support. My name is Ross, and I will provide assistance with your case. From my understanding, you are inquiring about being opted into Dropbox AI by default. Thank you for alerting us to this problem. Dropbox engineers are aware of the problem and are working on a solution. Also, please note that no files were shared in this case. Sorry for any inconvenience this is causing. We'll update you shortly on this issue. Don't hesitate to reach out to me again for further questions! Best regards, Ross
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jampekka 3y ago

In GDPR there is. But the companies don't care and neither do the regulators. Big business just has too much power and influence.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
GDPR is not much enforced, unfortunatly.
- ponector 3y ago
  But it is enforced. Here is a list: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Very few of those are about consent. Which is quite striking, as practically all of the spyware nags are illegal and thus the consent is violated probably billions of times every day.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Given that I encounter at least one violation a day, it's really a small list. It should contains hundred of thousands of entries. Like fines for speeding. Imagine if you had a page for parking tickets since 2018 (!) and it contained only a few hundred penalties. This is ridiculous, especially since: - it's not hard to find most cases. Just take any cookie banner that makes harder to opt out than opt in, and that's it, you have a violation. It can even be automated. - it can bring a lot of money to a system that is dying for it.
    - ponector 3y ago
      Are you reporting such violation? How authorities would know about it? Also the jurisdiction is in question. Who should enforce? Country where user is? Country where domain is registered? Country where data center with servers is? Country where nominal owner of the web page is? Country where final beneficiary is? Country where creator of the banner is?
      - jampekka 3y ago
        The jurisdiction is EU (GDPR is binding legislation for all member countries, not dissimilar to US federal law), and the enforcer is primarily the country where the company that owns the website has European incorporation. In theory anybody can report to their country's data protection officer, although at least in Finland they don't care about individual citizen complaints. The NGO noyb is sending out batches of these reports. They have some minor wins, but as you can probably tell from all these nags around, by and large there's not much effect. All these questions are sorted, on paper. https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/08/noyb-gdpr-cookie-consent-complaints/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/08/noyb-gdpr-cookie-consent-c...

Log_out_ 3y ago

Whatever comes out of the courts will be just another anchor point to abuse civilian VS cooperate power asymmetry. What we need is the ability to revert laws back to the thrust bust new deal era laws, crush the bad influence and rebuild.

__loam 3y ago
Seems like an overly vague, cynical view.

thomastjeffery 3y ago

There already is. There always has been! It's called fraud. If you trick someone into signing a contract, then that contract is fraudulent. If you tell someone that you will ask their permission before doing something; then silently claim you already obtained that permission in a prior contract, you are committing fraud. I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth, but you sure as hell can't blame that on the citizens they are failing to defend.

rapnie 3y ago
"I consent to your [legalese with weasel words that only specialist lawyers have any chance to understand the implications of]." See. No fraud.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  Let me frame this in a story: Dave is a prostitute. He is hired by Sue via contract. In this contract, Dave agrees to have sex with Sue. Also in the contract is the agreement that Sue may introduce any sex toys that will not physically harm Dave. When they get together, Dave notices a camera pointed at them. Sue tells Dave that, "I only record sex with people who consent to my use of a camera." Later, Dave learns that Sue did in fact record the encounter. Sue's defense? The camera was a sex toy! It didn't physically harm you! This was all in the contract! Is Sue's defense valid? Of course not! Sue has committed fraud. --- We should hold corporations every bit as accountable as we would fictional prostitutes.
- banannaise 3y ago
  That's still fraud in most jurisdictions (although it's no longer provable unless there's a paper trail that says it's intentionally designed to deceive). However, even if fraud can't be proven, it may no longer be a valid contract. A contract is the mutual understanding of an agreement, not the words printed on a piece of paper. The paper can be used as evidence of mutual understanding, but it's not incontrovertible evidence of that. Many kinds of evidence can go the other way, such as unconscionability (terms that there's no way anyone would willingly agree to, thus suggesting coercion or subterfuge). Or, framed another way: consent, in both a moral sense and a legal one, requires awareness from both parties of what you are consenting to. Each party is, to some extent, responsible for using the resources at their disposal to ensure they understand the contract (e.g. a blind person must find someone to read them the contract), but intentionally undermining the process of mutual understanding is at best very good evidence against enforcement of the contract and at worst fraud.

SonicSoul 3y ago

it blew my mind when i logged into dropbox that sharing my data with third party "vetted" AI companies was enabled by default. i just wrote a WTF email to their support, but most likely i will be discontinuing my account. can't imagine what they can possibly say that will make this OK

trinsic2 3y ago
I saw the writing on the wall when they started sending ads via their notification system with no way to turn it off. I'm on pCloud now, but its not looking like it's not much better, They recently started spamming my mobile app with thanks giving ads to upgrade to a different tier of their product even though I had offer notifications turned off. I had some words with their support department, here is what they said: >Hello, >Thank you for contacting pCloud's Technical Support. >This is a pCloud banner for Black Friday and it's not a notification. Unfortunately, you won't be able to remove it manually and you should wait until the end of the Black Friday promo - 30.11.2023. >Should you require any further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us. >Regards, >George Lewis >pCloud's Technical Support Like it matters that its not a notification. You still need my consent regardless of what kind of ad it is.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This sounds like a variation on the line that "it's not an ad if we aren't getting paid to show it to you". Like with Windows notifications "informing" you of other Microsoft products. It's bullshit, and is one of the things that decreases trust.
- SonicSoul 3y ago
  heh.. here is the response i got. Hi there, Thanks for taking the time to write in to Dropbox Support. My name is Ross, and I will provide assistance with your case. From my understanding, you are inquiring about being opted into Dropbox AI by default. Thank you for alerting us to this problem. Dropbox engineers are aware of the problem and are working on a solution. Also, please note that no files were shared in this case. Sorry for any inconvenience this is causing. We'll update you shortly on this issue. Don't hesitate to reach out to me again for further questions! Best regards, Ross

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]