6 ms·

And as important: making it impossible or very hard and annoying to export and own your data.

cnst 1y ago
Some companies somehow blatantly get away with not allowing any export at all. For example, Amazon eero, the overpriced WiFi router that doesn't even work (without phoning back home and having an app installed on your phone). They had an outage like a year ago, and during said outage, all your existing ad blocking stopped working, too, even if you never rebooted during the outage, and even though said blocking is supposed to be performed locally. I think you can't even get the ad blocking unless you or your ISP pays for the special subscription, either. (I imagine the thing could have removed all local ad blocking settings and lists during the time it couldn't confirm you're still a paying customer because their cloud was down?) Does anyone know how exactly does Amazon get away with not providing data export for their eero product? I haven't seen a Blink or Ring exports, either. The main Amazon dot com does have the export, which has some extensive data you may not think they do collect, but it doesn't cover eero, Blink or Ring.
- Someone 1y ago
  > Does anyone know how exactly does Amazon get away with not providing data export for their eero product? I checked eero.com. It seems info about the product other than “it’s a secure WiFi router that doesn’t require users to manage it” is in the videos, if it is on that site at all, but I couldn’t get the videos to play, so I may be wrong, but why would a WiFi router have personal data on the device? It will have the username and password at your internet provider, but what else does it store?
  - williamscales 1y ago
    I’m guessing Amazon could have info on their side about your eero. Without knowing more about the router’s cloud functionality it’s hard to say what exactly they would have.
  - cnst 1y ago
    It collects WiFi Radio Analytics (2.4GHz / 5GHz-Low / 5GHz-High frequency utilisation), Activity History (data usage by device, as well as "scan" and ad blocks by device). For ad blocking and network control, it also has "Block & Allow Sites" with the blacklisted and whitelisted domain names, which you may have to use to block ads and also unblock some domains that stop working as a result of bogus entries in the ad block. All of this information is stored in the cloud, but I found no way to export it in any way. I've actually contacted eero, asking for the export, and they've basically admitted that it's not supported.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    If you share data locally that's almost certainly over HTTP. Also DNS is usually over HTTP. So that's all your websites you visit, plus any data transmitted from your phone to computer or google TV or whatever the fuck.
anonzzzies 1y ago
Yes, I am happy I can export my data with google but boy it is annoying to do.
- yard2010 1y ago
  Those pricks throttled the download to 30 kbps. When I tried to download with aria, after a few failed attempts (not straight forward ofc) I got a message saying I can only download it 6 times, and that I should send a new request. This is evil.
  - dkiebd 1y ago
    I have downloaded my data with google takeout dozens of times without a single issue. Speed was very high (maximum possible for my connection) and never had a download error. I’m talking about multi-gigabyte exports of my email and my drive.
    - anonzzzies 1y ago
      I have 900gb in my account and on my 500mbps connection it took forever to download, not because of my speed but because of theirs and it just 'connection failed' at 80% many many many times and asking to relogin. It should be illegal. Not supporting just wget -c (you can use it with a lot of trouble/hacks and it's not reliable which defeats the point) is just clearly done to annoy you into not doing it.
      - omgwtfbyobbq 1y ago
        I had a similar issue downloading a large file from Google drive (125gb?) over the web. I had to install the drive client on a Windows laptop and download it through that.
    - barbazoo 1y ago
      Different experience for me, ~500Gb so about 10 chunks of 50Gb (largest chunk size) that had to be downloaded by hand because of their auth. When the download got interrupted I had maybe 4 more tries, might have been more, but after trying to many times the entire takeout expired. Automating the process, and using smaller chunks didn't work at the time because of their opaque API and its auth. I feel like this has been made a shitty experience intentionally.
legohead 1y ago
We didn't set out to hide our GDPR requests, we put them behind our Support/Legal button. But we got sued anyway, and we lost. Now we have to have the "delete my data" and "request my data" as part of our main settings list. Result: flooded with requests. People are clicking the buttons just because they are there. For me it's not a big deal, I automate all the requests. But, I still feel like this went too far.
- Slow_Hand 1y ago
  I don’t know what business you work for, but what makes you sure users aren’t clicking the buttons because it’s what they want AND it’s convenient?
- const_cast 1y ago
  Users have basic bare bones functionality that all applications should support is "too far"? If the user can create and account, they should be able to delete one. One is not harder or further than the other. We just don't view it that way because we're all parasites who feed off the current status quo.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    > Users have basic bare bones functionality that all applications should support is "too far"? They were objecting to the idea that putting it behind the "support" button is a violation. If true, that's excessive in terms of mandating accessibility.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      I would never file a support ticket to open an account. If you did that, your business would be under by the end of the week. No, requiring actual application functionality isn't too far. For God's sake, just make normal software like a normal person. This should all be very intuitive. Stop trying to game things, stop trying to maximize conversions and other bullshit metrics, stop trying to implement every dark pattern under the sun and just... Be normal. I promise you will comply without even trying. And, bonus points, your software will be less shit. I know it doesn't feel that way right now, because most software is shit. You shouldn't aspire to be another turd floating around in the cesspool that is the modern web.
Jommi 1y ago
we are in the upcoming golden age of browser automation this will stop being a problem
- jFriedensreich 1y ago
  this is what i HOPE but it could play out in many different ways.

cnst 1y ago

Some companies somehow blatantly get away with not allowing any export at all. For example, Amazon eero, the overpriced WiFi router that doesn't even work (without phoning back home and having an app installed on your phone). They had an outage like a year ago, and during said outage, all your existing ad blocking stopped working, too, even if you never rebooted during the outage, and even though said blocking is supposed to be performed locally. I think you can't even get the ad blocking unless you or your ISP pays for the special subscription, either. (I imagine the thing could have removed all local ad blocking settings and lists during the time it couldn't confirm you're still a paying customer because their cloud was down?) Does anyone know how exactly does Amazon get away with not providing data export for their eero product? I haven't seen a Blink or Ring exports, either. The main Amazon dot com does have the export, which has some extensive data you may not think they do collect, but it doesn't cover eero, Blink or Ring.

Someone 1y ago
> Does anyone know how exactly does Amazon get away with not providing data export for their eero product? I checked eero.com. It seems info about the product other than “it’s a secure WiFi router that doesn’t require users to manage it” is in the videos, if it is on that site at all, but I couldn’t get the videos to play, so I may be wrong, but why would a WiFi router have personal data on the device? It will have the username and password at your internet provider, but what else does it store?
- williamscales 1y ago
  I’m guessing Amazon could have info on their side about your eero. Without knowing more about the router’s cloud functionality it’s hard to say what exactly they would have.
- cnst 1y ago
  It collects WiFi Radio Analytics (2.4GHz / 5GHz-Low / 5GHz-High frequency utilisation), Activity History (data usage by device, as well as "scan" and ad blocks by device). For ad blocking and network control, it also has "Block & Allow Sites" with the blacklisted and whitelisted domain names, which you may have to use to block ads and also unblock some domains that stop working as a result of bogus entries in the ad block. All of this information is stored in the cloud, but I found no way to export it in any way. I've actually contacted eero, asking for the export, and they've basically admitted that it's not supported.
- const_cast 1y ago
  If you share data locally that's almost certainly over HTTP. Also DNS is usually over HTTP. So that's all your websites you visit, plus any data transmitted from your phone to computer or google TV or whatever the fuck.

anonzzzies 1y ago

Yes, I am happy I can export my data with google but boy it is annoying to do.

yard2010 1y ago
Those pricks throttled the download to 30 kbps. When I tried to download with aria, after a few failed attempts (not straight forward ofc) I got a message saying I can only download it 6 times, and that I should send a new request. This is evil.
- dkiebd 1y ago
  I have downloaded my data with google takeout dozens of times without a single issue. Speed was very high (maximum possible for my connection) and never had a download error. I’m talking about multi-gigabyte exports of my email and my drive.
  - anonzzzies 1y ago
    I have 900gb in my account and on my 500mbps connection it took forever to download, not because of my speed but because of theirs and it just 'connection failed' at 80% many many many times and asking to relogin. It should be illegal. Not supporting just wget -c (you can use it with a lot of trouble/hacks and it's not reliable which defeats the point) is just clearly done to annoy you into not doing it.
    - omgwtfbyobbq 1y ago
      I had a similar issue downloading a large file from Google drive (125gb?) over the web. I had to install the drive client on a Windows laptop and download it through that.
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    Different experience for me, ~500Gb so about 10 chunks of 50Gb (largest chunk size) that had to be downloaded by hand because of their auth. When the download got interrupted I had maybe 4 more tries, might have been more, but after trying to many times the entire takeout expired. Automating the process, and using smaller chunks didn't work at the time because of their opaque API and its auth. I feel like this has been made a shitty experience intentionally.

legohead 1y ago

We didn't set out to hide our GDPR requests, we put them behind our Support/Legal button. But we got sued anyway, and we lost. Now we have to have the "delete my data" and "request my data" as part of our main settings list. Result: flooded with requests. People are clicking the buttons just because they are there. For me it's not a big deal, I automate all the requests. But, I still feel like this went too far.

Slow_Hand 1y ago
I don’t know what business you work for, but what makes you sure users aren’t clicking the buttons because it’s what they want AND it’s convenient?
const_cast 1y ago
Users have basic bare bones functionality that all applications should support is "too far"? If the user can create and account, they should be able to delete one. One is not harder or further than the other. We just don't view it that way because we're all parasites who feed off the current status quo.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > Users have basic bare bones functionality that all applications should support is "too far"? They were objecting to the idea that putting it behind the "support" button is a violation. If true, that's excessive in terms of mandating accessibility.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    I would never file a support ticket to open an account. If you did that, your business would be under by the end of the week. No, requiring actual application functionality isn't too far. For God's sake, just make normal software like a normal person. This should all be very intuitive. Stop trying to game things, stop trying to maximize conversions and other bullshit metrics, stop trying to implement every dark pattern under the sun and just... Be normal. I promise you will comply without even trying. And, bonus points, your software will be less shit. I know it doesn't feel that way right now, because most software is shit. You shouldn't aspire to be another turd floating around in the cesspool that is the modern web.

Jommi 1y ago

we are in the upcoming golden age of browser automation this will stop being a problem

jFriedensreich 1y ago
this is what i HOPE but it could play out in many different ways.