4 ms·

I honestly don’t think this would work. The number of “well why should I care if they have the data” conversations I’ve had is just depressing.

cj 3y ago
We can't force people to care about privacy. That's not the goal. If someone is clearly informed and they still don't care, that's totally fine. The problem is people aren't being clearly informed.
- thfuran 3y ago
  No, the problem is that they don't really have an alternative. To give none of your information to banks, email providers, ISPs, cell service providers, etc. is to remove yourself from society.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > the problem is that they don't really have an alternative. In situations where there isn't an alternative, consent is impossible.
    - 20after4 3y ago
      Companies, courts, and for the most part the congress, obviously don't seem to care. (In the USA, at least. Europe sort of seems to care but even then I'm not sure the solutions have been adequate / appropriate)
  - 20after4 3y ago
    This is the key right here. There should be a clear way to withhold consent because implicit agreement isn't good enough for the kind of data collection and aggregation that is happening.
  - lumb63 3y ago
    I’m not sure of your personal skills, abilities, and background, so this is more of a general call to action: Why not create an alternative? I’ve often heard people talk of a lack of alternatives to certain services, so they use them begrudgingly, or boycott them at large personal cost. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is nothing that I’m aware of that says banks or digital service providers need to collect any more information than is necessary to provide the service they offer. It seems to me that, at least in a this niche community there is a desire for privacy-respecting products and services. A company that oriented itself around meeting that demand would be, I suspect, very lucrative.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      >There is nothing that I’m aware of that says banks or digital service providers need to collect any more information than is necessary to provide the service they offer And what about all the information that is necessary to provide the service they offer, like the real-time location of everyone's cell phone and who calls who when and for how long or all the DNS requests? Sure, a company doesn't have to retain this information and market it for resale, but providing these sorts of services necessarily entails access to a lot of information that most people would consider private, but which the third party doctrine says isn't.
- godelski 3y ago
  > If someone is clearly informed and they still don't care, that's totally fine. Let's be honest here, how many people are "clearly informed?" That's fuzzy definition. I'll give a personal example here[0]. Certainly the implications here are operating through fairly abstract and indirect mechanisms (it's even called "metadata") and most people are not trained to operate within these types of frameworks. FWIW, no one seems happy with the situation but feel that they have no choice in the matter. It's said that you can choose not to use said service, but often the implication of that means no phone, no internet, no computer (at least non-linux), no bank, etc. There may be a literal choice available, but not a reasonable choice. I think we need to have a clear distinction between these two, because the literal choice is often used to justify something that would have major impacts. I think it is difficult to argue that one could create a reasonable and relatively average modern life with no access to phone, internet, or computer. It also then clearly becomes "well I'm forced to share with x people, so I guess I'll share with y" and often x is "the government" (even if it isn't). [0] I've on several occasions had conversations with my family where they've been convinced that their phone is listening to every conversation they have (this dates back to 2010 btw but continues today) because they were served ads for something they were talking to about with a friend, in person. They are convinced that is the only way that such an inference could be made rather than through knowledge that the friend made the purchase (recently), that the companies know these two people are standing right next to one another for an extended period of time, and have a decent knowledge of their interests to infer that this product would be likely discussed by these two people. Ironically the recording is more complex, but it appears simpler. Sure, setting is different in 2023+ but we know the compute costs to process every conversation and energy requirements to be always recording and that this would kill phones of the 2010's.

cj 3y ago

We can't force people to care about privacy. That's not the goal. If someone is clearly informed and they still don't care, that's totally fine. The problem is people aren't being clearly informed.

thfuran 3y ago
No, the problem is that they don't really have an alternative. To give none of your information to banks, email providers, ISPs, cell service providers, etc. is to remove yourself from society.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > the problem is that they don't really have an alternative. In situations where there isn't an alternative, consent is impossible.
  - 20after4 3y ago
    Companies, courts, and for the most part the congress, obviously don't seem to care. (In the USA, at least. Europe sort of seems to care but even then I'm not sure the solutions have been adequate / appropriate)
- 20after4 3y ago
  This is the key right here. There should be a clear way to withhold consent because implicit agreement isn't good enough for the kind of data collection and aggregation that is happening.
- lumb63 3y ago
  I’m not sure of your personal skills, abilities, and background, so this is more of a general call to action: Why not create an alternative? I’ve often heard people talk of a lack of alternatives to certain services, so they use them begrudgingly, or boycott them at large personal cost. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is nothing that I’m aware of that says banks or digital service providers need to collect any more information than is necessary to provide the service they offer. It seems to me that, at least in a this niche community there is a desire for privacy-respecting products and services. A company that oriented itself around meeting that demand would be, I suspect, very lucrative.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    >There is nothing that I’m aware of that says banks or digital service providers need to collect any more information than is necessary to provide the service they offer And what about all the information that is necessary to provide the service they offer, like the real-time location of everyone's cell phone and who calls who when and for how long or all the DNS requests? Sure, a company doesn't have to retain this information and market it for resale, but providing these sorts of services necessarily entails access to a lot of information that most people would consider private, but which the third party doctrine says isn't.
godelski 3y ago
> If someone is clearly informed and they still don't care, that's totally fine. Let's be honest here, how many people are "clearly informed?" That's fuzzy definition. I'll give a personal example here[0]. Certainly the implications here are operating through fairly abstract and indirect mechanisms (it's even called "metadata") and most people are not trained to operate within these types of frameworks. FWIW, no one seems happy with the situation but feel that they have no choice in the matter. It's said that you can choose not to use said service, but often the implication of that means no phone, no internet, no computer (at least non-linux), no bank, etc. There may be a literal choice available, but not a reasonable choice. I think we need to have a clear distinction between these two, because the literal choice is often used to justify something that would have major impacts. I think it is difficult to argue that one could create a reasonable and relatively average modern life with no access to phone, internet, or computer. It also then clearly becomes "well I'm forced to share with x people, so I guess I'll share with y" and often x is "the government" (even if it isn't). [0] I've on several occasions had conversations with my family where they've been convinced that their phone is listening to every conversation they have (this dates back to 2010 btw but continues today) because they were served ads for something they were talking to about with a friend, in person. They are convinced that is the only way that such an inference could be made rather than through knowledge that the friend made the purchase (recently), that the companies know these two people are standing right next to one another for an extended period of time, and have a decent knowledge of their interests to infer that this product would be likely discussed by these two people. Ironically the recording is more complex, but it appears simpler. Sure, setting is different in 2023+ but we know the compute costs to process every conversation and energy requirements to be always recording and that this would kill phones of the 2010's.