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>which online services they dedicate their time and money to. Ain't nobody dedicating their money to anything. That's exactly why these enormous tech giants a

>which online services they dedicate their time and money to. Ain't nobody dedicating their money to anything. That's exactly why these enormous tech giants are privacy nightmares. How many people complaining about Google have used their services extensively for decades now, and never have once given a cent to Google? Probably over 90%. People were offended when Google launched YouTube Premium because it encroached on their right to "free" everything from Google. Even today people still chain themselves to the hill of "I will never give youtube a penny", despite them probably using a couple percentage points of their entire waking life on google products. Europe is in a tough, if not impossible spot, of having (relatively) heavy privacy protections, while also having a population that is largely offended by the idea of having to pay for something that "has always been free!". Maybe they can launch a taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram.

odyssey7 10mo ago
Have consumers ever been offered the ability to pay Google to opt out of advertisements and to opt into privacy?
- tensor 10mo ago
  Somewhat. You can pay for workspace to keep your email private and ad free.
  - dizhn 10mo ago
    Guarded by a "privacy policy". This is Google. How come this "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" crowd doesn't get that it doesn't matter if you're paying or not, you're always the product?
    - tonyhart7 10mo ago
      I don't like this argument since this is can be applied to everything and You expect people to roll out their own service for everything since everything is a product in some form or another its okay to depends on some product because they are just good, for example people free to use Office alternative which is free btw but people literally dont choose that because MS Office is just better all of this deep talk discussion is irrelevant since User want an working product that they expect them to its just that
    - beambot 10mo ago
      Id be shocked if the freemium privacy policy & obligations for, say, Gmail is the same as the corporate privacy policy under GSuite/Workspace... With the latter, there's a direct contractual relationship since you're paying Google for services
    - tensor 10mo ago
      Because we're not idiots and we read the "privacy policy"? And shock, it's different for their enterprise products? What, do you think all corporations using google are just stupid and giving up all their confidential data?
- earthnail 10mo ago
  It’s the same in all consumer marketplaces. Free or freemium has won. It‘s not Google specific.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    The vast majority of peope put very little value on their time and attention and sense of aesthetics (even if they might say otherwise). It's the only explanation for why advertising is as pervasive as it is.
- woobar 10mo ago
  Facebook offered paid subscription for ad-free experience in Europe.[1] First, europeans complained it is too expensive. After a price cut, they EC still wanted a free version with less personalization.[2] If google offers something similar, I am pretty sure Europeans will find something else to complain about. [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... [2] https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-facebook-and-instagram-users-in-the-eu-share-less-data-183535897.html https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-facebook...
  - LtWorf 10mo ago
    ad-free and "we won't sell your data" are two different things.
- Hnrobert42 10mo ago
  Meta was recently fined 200M€ for offering that choice. Seems unfortunate, but maybe I misunderstood. https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/meta_ec_dma_sulk/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/meta_ec_dma_sulk/
  - buran77 10mo ago
    The law defines what companies can or cannot do around privacy. So Meta can't go around telling users to pay to get the privacy the law affords them anyway or conversely, if users don't pay they don't get the privacy. The root of the issue is probably the "freely given consent" that the law defines. If Meta charges users unless they consent to something, then the consent isn't freely given.
    - zelphirkalt 10mo ago
      I think the issue is not actually how freely given consent is defined, but that these tech giants want to not only offer a useful service, but they also want to be allowed to do whatever they want with user data accumulated through usage of their otherwise useful service. For providing their service, they don't have to use data in the ways that they want to use it. If they were running an honest business, they would be charging the user for using their useful services, not trying to make dime with user data without consent, manufactured "consent", or extorted "consent". They wriggle and wriggle, instead of running an honest business, where people buying access to their platforms would actually reflect the usefulness and real value of people being willing to pay for a service. That would be a very transparent number, and that cannot be made look more than it is to shareholders though. I think if they did this, then their whole value would collapse massively back down to sane levels. Now they have blown this whole ads and attention machinery waaay out of proportion and will do anything to keep it pumped up. Heck, they want to pump it up even more, because we all know iiiinfinite growth! They would not be satisfied, if their business spanned the whole solar system.
  - ruszki 10mo ago
    No, the ruling said that the free version shouldn’t gather/use as much data as now. The problem is with the free part, not that you can pay for the ad free version. If the free part is not that invasive, it’s completely fine to keep the pay-or-use-your-data model.
- Workaccount2 10mo ago
  About a decade ago google trialed a program where you could pay monthly to "buy out" ad spaces. So you wouldn't get served ads, or you would get served fewer ads, and the money would be deducted from what you allotted per month. Of course "What kind of dumbass would pay to not see ads when uBlock Origin is free? lololol" It didn't ever get traction or last very long before being canned. This is the mentality that money-compensation-business-plan tech companies would have to face; "What kind of dumbass would pay for your product?"
  - martin-t 10mo ago
    Because it's extortion just like paying the mafia for "protection" from themselves. See, ads are not a pro-social service. Their fundamental goal is not to inform and facilitate mutually beneficial exchange of goods/services. Their goal is to allow companies who spend ad-money to gain an advantage over competitors who don't, regardless of quality of the product. Ads are a fundamentally anti-competitive practice.
    - tonyhart7 10mo ago
      while I agree that Ads is sucks as a whole but how can you generate revenue from free service ????? I mean its not like paid service that dont have ads and giving privacy is non existent either, we have proton mail for example
      - martin-t 10mo ago
        You can't. So don't advertise it as free. It's just lying, simple as that. People either pay with their data, their attention or their money. Companies should be required to be transparent about how much revenue each of these sources generates.
        tonyhart7 10mo ago
        "You can't. So don't advertise it as free. It's just lying" its free as you paid zero dollar "People either pay with their data, their attention or their money." for some people money is more important than their data, and its vice versa with wealthy customer I agree that in the future maybe we can control how much data/money we can paid for the service but that just not possible in current time
wafflemaker 10mo ago
>People were offended when Google launched YouTube Premium because it encroached on their right to "free" everything from Google. Nope. At least I was offended, because YT Premium wanted $15 from me for hosting other people's videos. That's more than streaming services that pay for production of TV shows and movies. Don't think they really need THAT much to cover hosting costs. Not when they operate on that scale and in addition can hover up and profit on all the usage data. If YT Premium costed $3 or $5, I'd pay and I'd bully any friends and family that watch YT and don't pay into supporting the service. As it is now, my appraisal skill says "SCAM" and I pirate YT with clean conscience.
- Workaccount2 10mo ago
  Youtube has a 60/40 revenue share with creators for long form video (inverse for shorts). 60% to creators 40% to youtube. It's also dependent on watch time and split evenly among channels (unlike spotify where big names get all the money and small guys get nothing). Youtube premium viewers are the juiciest viewers for creators, by a large margin. Also blocking-ads/pirating on youtube provides the creators with nothing. I'm not sure how people justify this besides the established internal conditioning that anything on the internet must be free. Also conversion rates for "watches all their content" to "pays for their patreon" are <1%. meanwhile ad-blocking/pirating rates are around 40-60% depending on your audience. At some point the internet has got to have a reckoning with reality if they want things to improve.
  - afiori 10mo ago
    It depends if Google ranks all users' watch time the same or less profitable users are weighted less in the "algorithm" If all users' are ranked the same then loyal adblocking users can still help a lot
    - Workaccount2 10mo ago
      It's weighted on the individuals watch time, not all of YouTube's watch time. That's why it's so good for small channels. The most amount of your money goes to whatever channels you watch the most, regardless of their size.
ricardo81 10mo ago
>money Android phone contracts seem strangely cheap.
LightBug1 10mo ago
Perhaps if the choice was "forced", it would encourage actual competition. I'm pissing in the wind, but I'd prefer it if the use of personal data - sold for adverts - was banned outright. Particularly for large companies. This would forced Google et al to charge for their services, creating the market that would stimulate competitors (Open Source or otherwise). People will argue against this, but online advertising that got us to where we are is the absolute scourge of modern society ... it's poisoned every decent well of humanity. Even for things like Youtube Premium, I'm certain Google are double dipping ... likely quadruple dipping.
esbranson 10mo ago
> taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram I believe an EU member state could create any service that American companies already proved are desirable, make it free for nationals and residents and require payment for others, and use EUDI as the login and verification. Probably for quite cheap. They're just too incompetent.
- LtWorf 10mo ago
  Assuming the USA doesn't send their ambassadors (yes the government is concerned if you want to replace microsoft and similar) to show them the carrot and the stick for not buying software from the USA. It's a thing they have done already.
martin-t 10mo ago
How about the other perspective? The current modus operandi for tech companies is to offer something for free or below market price, gain a userbase, lock them in and destroy competitors who don't have cash to burn, then alter the deal. If I start using a company's offerings, I have certain expectations, such as the terms and conditions suddenly not changing from under me. Now, you can argue that they are required by law to inform me of any changes to the literal Terms and Conditions. Well, yes, except: 1) They are often worded so carefully from the beginning that they can start doing something exploitative at a later date, only after gaining goodwill and users by not doing it. 2) I can't very well stop using a service if doing so incurs a loss to me. Phone operators are required by law in some countries to allow customers to transfer their phone number to a competitor. I am not aware of a similar law for email addresses. And email is at least 1:1, what any other operator offers it technologically compatible due to open protocols, so a transfer is possible. There are services with no 1:1 alternative. ( Hopefully Open Social will change that but we're not there yet: https://overreacted.io/open-social/ https://overreacted.io/open-social/ ) --- There's also informed consent. Most countries don't allow people below a certain age to have sex because they might not understand all the implications and consequences. How many people do truly understand how tracking and profiling works, the risks of data breaches, doxxing, stalking, surveillance, etc? I argue informed consent cannot be formed unless people are aware of _exactly_ where each bit of data about them is stored and accessed; and also are made aware of the probabilities of all the possible adverse events over their lifetime.
xandrius 10mo ago
I would be very happy to discuss the matter with you but there seems to be some hostility and edge in the way you argue your point which makes it hard to engage with. Anyway, in short, everything you said applies to literally any human or even animal: if you give them something for free and then take it away unless they pay for it, they won't accept it (google maps). On the other hand, if you provide something for a price, and it's needed, people will pay even if there is an alternative (e.g. Netflix). The difference is that many/most people are ok with ads as a form of payment for the free services, while others (including Europeans) are not ok with the additional hidden clauses regarding how their personal data is used. Is that wrong? I don't think so. To make it more realistic, imagine getting a TV for free because it will insert ads every X minutes. The tradeoffs are pretty clear: Good TV for my time/attention. But if someone then started also recording from said TV the inside of my room, my and my family's faces to be sold to unknown parties for unknown uses (and sometimes even to antagonists) then I don't think anyone would believe it is a fair implementation of the original and presented "agreement" (even if it is stated in their 1000 pages ToS). Now, if Europeans start being vocal politically that such an invasion of privacy is not acceptable, does that make their claims invalid because there is no valid alternative to such services? I'm pretty sure today's tech giants would be profitable even without the privacy invasion and the selling of the data; furthermore if their premium versions did not actually show you ads (some show you ads even if you pay), I'm sure people will slowly start gravitating there as they stop being ok trading their attention/time for money. But if Facebook explicitly told you "pay us X/mo or we will sell your personal data to Russia", would people actually pay them or, perhaps, would they start considering other saner alternatives? I guess we'll never know.
- Workaccount2 10mo ago
  I think the ideal solution is forcing companies to offer privacy focused ad-free options as a subscription, with a cost calculated from the average revenue per fully tracked/ad-riddled user, maybe plus some small premium. Of course, this would likely receive a lot of blow-back in the form of "Looks like now you have to be rich to not get your life sold to third parties" and "Google used to be equal for all and now they are just going to prey on the most vulnerable in society" The only way to win in this situation is for people to understand that things cost money. They probably cost more than you expect, and you probably will want your ads and tracking back once you see the true cost. After all, at the end of the day, the downside to these decades of tracking to most people has been "Damn, how does google know I buy Tide detergent!".
Jaygles 10mo ago
If services offered a paid version that guaranteed privacy, such that I stay anonymous and only data points that are strictly necessary to provide the service are persisted in the company's servers, I would happily pay. And I mean guaranteed in a way that I would have legal recourse against the company if they go back on their word or screw up
- amunozo 10mo ago
  You will, most people won't.
  - LtWorf 10mo ago
    Because they know that even if you pay it's very unlikely that they will respect the deal anyways.
  - zelphirkalt 10mo ago
    Baiting people with "no cost" services, and then using their data in ways that people might not agree with, hiding behind 10 subpages to click through or a huge "how we protect your data (NOT)" text is no solution though. What would be a solution, but one that the companies don't want, is to offer a service either as a paid service or truly at no cost which includes no privacy cost. But they are afraid of doing that, because they fear that then they can't hitch the ride on data taken from users, who are not informed and who only clicked some accept button, because the business kept nagging them about it, instead of accepting a "no". I have to admit though, that Google did better than most other big techs, as they do provide a consent dialog, where rejecting is as easy as accepting. See for example YouTube. And not sure about Google search, since I don't use it these days. However, I did not research (and that's how one would have to call it), whether rejecting is truly adhered to, or they sneak in not actually needed things as "functional cookies" or something. However, lets not have any illusions here. If the EU didn't demand things to improve and didn't impose fines, big tech would have done exactly nothing of the sort.
- iepathos 10mo ago
  What specific legal recourse beyond what exists? You can already sue for breach of contract if a company violates their privacy policy. The real problems are: (1) detecting violations in the first place, and (2) proving/quantifying damages. A 'guarantee' doesn't solve either.
allenrb 10mo ago
> Maybe they can launch a taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram. Ok, but only if one of them is called “EuroVision”.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
robotnikman 10mo ago
This really is a major issue imho. Many of the people here and those who are more tech savvy would be willing to pay for such a thing, but we are a very small minority. 90% of people don't care, or are unable or unwilling to understand the consequences of having all their data vacuumed up by corporations like Google and Facebook. Its a Tyranny of the majority type of situation. I'm not sure what the solution to this would be other than maybe better educating the populace.
- lazide 10mo ago
  Most of these things are emotionally driven. Education won’t do shit unless it’s coupled with some kind of training action. People will just laugh it off or accept it. Most people have literally come to accept their phone is listening to them for ads! Either regulation, or it needs to get so shitty and painful that people get a reflexive avoidance thing going on.
  - Workaccount2 10mo ago
    The real problem is that all the downsides of the "tracking and advertising" tech world are largely hypotheticals and/or so subtle and divorced from day to day life as to be almost imperceptible. There hasn't really been a "reap what you sow" moment for people who threw privacy caution to the wind for free stuff.
    - lazide 10mo ago
      Yup, though the current US gov’t is working hard to make that happen, near as I can tell. We’ll see what happens!
- prewett 10mo ago
  Maybe accepting that they do not agree with you?
lazide 10mo ago
Dons psychic hat - and EuroTube and EuroGram will be widely ignored because most people are not only apparently fine with getting taken advantage of if it’s shiny and they don’t notice it. The reason for all the data/lack of privacy stuff is because most people get something from it - the next shiny manipulative BS thing, or shiny gadget or whatever.
intended 10mo ago
>People were offended when Google launched YouTube Premium because it encroached on their right to "free" everything from Google. Markets outcomes are not a prophecy. If it was so simple - why put the unsubscrube or privacy rules behind UI/UX features that required A/B testing and behavioral analysis to make it as onerous as possible? People aren't happy that they to sell their privacy, and had to be reassured that this is the best option. Not to mention, this was during an era of camraderie between the US and Europe, not a potential opponent. The idea of a taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram or CountryThing will pick up steam. Why have your information farmed by a nation which acts in a hostile manner to its erstwhile allies?

odyssey7 10mo ago

Have consumers ever been offered the ability to pay Google to opt out of advertisements and to opt into privacy?

tensor 10mo ago
Somewhat. You can pay for workspace to keep your email private and ad free.
- dizhn 10mo ago
  Guarded by a "privacy policy". This is Google. How come this "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" crowd doesn't get that it doesn't matter if you're paying or not, you're always the product?
  - tonyhart7 10mo ago
    I don't like this argument since this is can be applied to everything and You expect people to roll out their own service for everything since everything is a product in some form or another its okay to depends on some product because they are just good, for example people free to use Office alternative which is free btw but people literally dont choose that because MS Office is just better all of this deep talk discussion is irrelevant since User want an working product that they expect them to its just that
  - beambot 10mo ago
    Id be shocked if the freemium privacy policy & obligations for, say, Gmail is the same as the corporate privacy policy under GSuite/Workspace... With the latter, there's a direct contractual relationship since you're paying Google for services
  - tensor 10mo ago
    Because we're not idiots and we read the "privacy policy"? And shock, it's different for their enterprise products? What, do you think all corporations using google are just stupid and giving up all their confidential data?
earthnail 10mo ago
It’s the same in all consumer marketplaces. Free or freemium has won. It‘s not Google specific.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  The vast majority of peope put very little value on their time and attention and sense of aesthetics (even if they might say otherwise). It's the only explanation for why advertising is as pervasive as it is.
woobar 10mo ago
Facebook offered paid subscription for ad-free experience in Europe.[1] First, europeans complained it is too expensive. After a price cut, they EC still wanted a free version with less personalization.[2] If google offers something similar, I am pretty sure Europeans will find something else to complain about. [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... [2] https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-facebook-and-instagram-users-in-the-eu-share-less-data-183535897.html https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-facebook...
- LtWorf 10mo ago
  ad-free and "we won't sell your data" are two different things.
Hnrobert42 10mo ago
Meta was recently fined 200M€ for offering that choice. Seems unfortunate, but maybe I misunderstood. https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/meta_ec_dma_sulk/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/meta_ec_dma_sulk/
- buran77 10mo ago
  The law defines what companies can or cannot do around privacy. So Meta can't go around telling users to pay to get the privacy the law affords them anyway or conversely, if users don't pay they don't get the privacy. The root of the issue is probably the "freely given consent" that the law defines. If Meta charges users unless they consent to something, then the consent isn't freely given.
  - zelphirkalt 10mo ago
    I think the issue is not actually how freely given consent is defined, but that these tech giants want to not only offer a useful service, but they also want to be allowed to do whatever they want with user data accumulated through usage of their otherwise useful service. For providing their service, they don't have to use data in the ways that they want to use it. If they were running an honest business, they would be charging the user for using their useful services, not trying to make dime with user data without consent, manufactured "consent", or extorted "consent". They wriggle and wriggle, instead of running an honest business, where people buying access to their platforms would actually reflect the usefulness and real value of people being willing to pay for a service. That would be a very transparent number, and that cannot be made look more than it is to shareholders though. I think if they did this, then their whole value would collapse massively back down to sane levels. Now they have blown this whole ads and attention machinery waaay out of proportion and will do anything to keep it pumped up. Heck, they want to pump it up even more, because we all know iiiinfinite growth! They would not be satisfied, if their business spanned the whole solar system.
- ruszki 10mo ago
  No, the ruling said that the free version shouldn’t gather/use as much data as now. The problem is with the free part, not that you can pay for the ad free version. If the free part is not that invasive, it’s completely fine to keep the pay-or-use-your-data model.
Workaccount2 10mo ago
About a decade ago google trialed a program where you could pay monthly to "buy out" ad spaces. So you wouldn't get served ads, or you would get served fewer ads, and the money would be deducted from what you allotted per month. Of course "What kind of dumbass would pay to not see ads when uBlock Origin is free? lololol" It didn't ever get traction or last very long before being canned. This is the mentality that money-compensation-business-plan tech companies would have to face; "What kind of dumbass would pay for your product?"
- martin-t 10mo ago
  Because it's extortion just like paying the mafia for "protection" from themselves. See, ads are not a pro-social service. Their fundamental goal is not to inform and facilitate mutually beneficial exchange of goods/services. Their goal is to allow companies who spend ad-money to gain an advantage over competitors who don't, regardless of quality of the product. Ads are a fundamentally anti-competitive practice.
  - tonyhart7 10mo ago
    while I agree that Ads is sucks as a whole but how can you generate revenue from free service ????? I mean its not like paid service that dont have ads and giving privacy is non existent either, we have proton mail for example
    - martin-t 10mo ago
      You can't. So don't advertise it as free. It's just lying, simple as that. People either pay with their data, their attention or their money. Companies should be required to be transparent about how much revenue each of these sources generates.
      - tonyhart7 10mo ago
        "You can't. So don't advertise it as free. It's just lying" its free as you paid zero dollar "People either pay with their data, their attention or their money." for some people money is more important than their data, and its vice versa with wealthy customer I agree that in the future maybe we can control how much data/money we can paid for the service but that just not possible in current time

wafflemaker 10mo ago

>People were offended when Google launched YouTube Premium because it encroached on their right to "free" everything from Google. Nope. At least I was offended, because YT Premium wanted $15 from me for hosting other people's videos. That's more than streaming services that pay for production of TV shows and movies. Don't think they really need THAT much to cover hosting costs. Not when they operate on that scale and in addition can hover up and profit on all the usage data. If YT Premium costed $3 or $5, I'd pay and I'd bully any friends and family that watch YT and don't pay into supporting the service. As it is now, my appraisal skill says "SCAM" and I pirate YT with clean conscience.

Workaccount2 10mo ago
Youtube has a 60/40 revenue share with creators for long form video (inverse for shorts). 60% to creators 40% to youtube. It's also dependent on watch time and split evenly among channels (unlike spotify where big names get all the money and small guys get nothing). Youtube premium viewers are the juiciest viewers for creators, by a large margin. Also blocking-ads/pirating on youtube provides the creators with nothing. I'm not sure how people justify this besides the established internal conditioning that anything on the internet must be free. Also conversion rates for "watches all their content" to "pays for their patreon" are <1%. meanwhile ad-blocking/pirating rates are around 40-60% depending on your audience. At some point the internet has got to have a reckoning with reality if they want things to improve.
- afiori 10mo ago
  It depends if Google ranks all users' watch time the same or less profitable users are weighted less in the "algorithm" If all users' are ranked the same then loyal adblocking users can still help a lot
  - Workaccount2 10mo ago
    It's weighted on the individuals watch time, not all of YouTube's watch time. That's why it's so good for small channels. The most amount of your money goes to whatever channels you watch the most, regardless of their size.

ricardo81 10mo ago

>money Android phone contracts seem strangely cheap.

LightBug1 10mo ago

Perhaps if the choice was "forced", it would encourage actual competition. I'm pissing in the wind, but I'd prefer it if the use of personal data - sold for adverts - was banned outright. Particularly for large companies. This would forced Google et al to charge for their services, creating the market that would stimulate competitors (Open Source or otherwise). People will argue against this, but online advertising that got us to where we are is the absolute scourge of modern society ... it's poisoned every decent well of humanity. Even for things like Youtube Premium, I'm certain Google are double dipping ... likely quadruple dipping.

esbranson 10mo ago

> taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram I believe an EU member state could create any service that American companies already proved are desirable, make it free for nationals and residents and require payment for others, and use EUDI as the login and verification. Probably for quite cheap. They're just too incompetent.

LtWorf 10mo ago
Assuming the USA doesn't send their ambassadors (yes the government is concerned if you want to replace microsoft and similar) to show them the carrot and the stick for not buying software from the USA. It's a thing they have done already.

martin-t 10mo ago

How about the other perspective? The current modus operandi for tech companies is to offer something for free or below market price, gain a userbase, lock them in and destroy competitors who don't have cash to burn, then alter the deal. If I start using a company's offerings, I have certain expectations, such as the terms and conditions suddenly not changing from under me. Now, you can argue that they are required by law to inform me of any changes to the literal Terms and Conditions. Well, yes, except: 1) They are often worded so carefully from the beginning that they can start doing something exploitative at a later date, only after gaining goodwill and users by not doing it. 2) I can't very well stop using a service if doing so incurs a loss to me. Phone operators are required by law in some countries to allow customers to transfer their phone number to a competitor. I am not aware of a similar law for email addresses. And email is at least 1:1, what any other operator offers it technologically compatible due to open protocols, so a transfer is possible. There are services with no 1:1 alternative. ( Hopefully Open Social will change that but we're not there yet: https://overreacted.io/open-social/ https://overreacted.io/open-social/ ) --- There's also informed consent. Most countries don't allow people below a certain age to have sex because they might not understand all the implications and consequences. How many people do truly understand how tracking and profiling works, the risks of data breaches, doxxing, stalking, surveillance, etc? I argue informed consent cannot be formed unless people are aware of _exactly_ where each bit of data about them is stored and accessed; and also are made aware of the probabilities of all the possible adverse events over their lifetime.

xandrius 10mo ago

I would be very happy to discuss the matter with you but there seems to be some hostility and edge in the way you argue your point which makes it hard to engage with. Anyway, in short, everything you said applies to literally any human or even animal: if you give them something for free and then take it away unless they pay for it, they won't accept it (google maps). On the other hand, if you provide something for a price, and it's needed, people will pay even if there is an alternative (e.g. Netflix). The difference is that many/most people are ok with ads as a form of payment for the free services, while others (including Europeans) are not ok with the additional hidden clauses regarding how their personal data is used. Is that wrong? I don't think so. To make it more realistic, imagine getting a TV for free because it will insert ads every X minutes. The tradeoffs are pretty clear: Good TV for my time/attention. But if someone then started also recording from said TV the inside of my room, my and my family's faces to be sold to unknown parties for unknown uses (and sometimes even to antagonists) then I don't think anyone would believe it is a fair implementation of the original and presented "agreement" (even if it is stated in their 1000 pages ToS). Now, if Europeans start being vocal politically that such an invasion of privacy is not acceptable, does that make their claims invalid because there is no valid alternative to such services? I'm pretty sure today's tech giants would be profitable even without the privacy invasion and the selling of the data; furthermore if their premium versions did not actually show you ads (some show you ads even if you pay), I'm sure people will slowly start gravitating there as they stop being ok trading their attention/time for money. But if Facebook explicitly told you "pay us X/mo or we will sell your personal data to Russia", would people actually pay them or, perhaps, would they start considering other saner alternatives? I guess we'll never know.

Workaccount2 10mo ago
I think the ideal solution is forcing companies to offer privacy focused ad-free options as a subscription, with a cost calculated from the average revenue per fully tracked/ad-riddled user, maybe plus some small premium. Of course, this would likely receive a lot of blow-back in the form of "Looks like now you have to be rich to not get your life sold to third parties" and "Google used to be equal for all and now they are just going to prey on the most vulnerable in society" The only way to win in this situation is for people to understand that things cost money. They probably cost more than you expect, and you probably will want your ads and tracking back once you see the true cost. After all, at the end of the day, the downside to these decades of tracking to most people has been "Damn, how does google know I buy Tide detergent!".

Jaygles 10mo ago

If services offered a paid version that guaranteed privacy, such that I stay anonymous and only data points that are strictly necessary to provide the service are persisted in the company's servers, I would happily pay. And I mean guaranteed in a way that I would have legal recourse against the company if they go back on their word or screw up

amunozo 10mo ago
You will, most people won't.
- LtWorf 10mo ago
  Because they know that even if you pay it's very unlikely that they will respect the deal anyways.
- zelphirkalt 10mo ago
  Baiting people with "no cost" services, and then using their data in ways that people might not agree with, hiding behind 10 subpages to click through or a huge "how we protect your data (NOT)" text is no solution though. What would be a solution, but one that the companies don't want, is to offer a service either as a paid service or truly at no cost which includes no privacy cost. But they are afraid of doing that, because they fear that then they can't hitch the ride on data taken from users, who are not informed and who only clicked some accept button, because the business kept nagging them about it, instead of accepting a "no". I have to admit though, that Google did better than most other big techs, as they do provide a consent dialog, where rejecting is as easy as accepting. See for example YouTube. And not sure about Google search, since I don't use it these days. However, I did not research (and that's how one would have to call it), whether rejecting is truly adhered to, or they sneak in not actually needed things as "functional cookies" or something. However, lets not have any illusions here. If the EU didn't demand things to improve and didn't impose fines, big tech would have done exactly nothing of the sort.
iepathos 10mo ago
What specific legal recourse beyond what exists? You can already sue for breach of contract if a company violates their privacy policy. The real problems are: (1) detecting violations in the first place, and (2) proving/quantifying damages. A 'guarantee' doesn't solve either.

allenrb 10mo ago

> Maybe they can launch a taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram. Ok, but only if one of them is called “EuroVision”.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

robotnikman 10mo ago

This really is a major issue imho. Many of the people here and those who are more tech savvy would be willing to pay for such a thing, but we are a very small minority. 90% of people don't care, or are unable or unwilling to understand the consequences of having all their data vacuumed up by corporations like Google and Facebook. Its a Tyranny of the majority type of situation. I'm not sure what the solution to this would be other than maybe better educating the populace.

lazide 10mo ago
Most of these things are emotionally driven. Education won’t do shit unless it’s coupled with some kind of training action. People will just laugh it off or accept it. Most people have literally come to accept their phone is listening to them for ads! Either regulation, or it needs to get so shitty and painful that people get a reflexive avoidance thing going on.
- Workaccount2 10mo ago
  The real problem is that all the downsides of the "tracking and advertising" tech world are largely hypotheticals and/or so subtle and divorced from day to day life as to be almost imperceptible. There hasn't really been a "reap what you sow" moment for people who threw privacy caution to the wind for free stuff.
  - lazide 10mo ago
    Yup, though the current US gov’t is working hard to make that happen, near as I can tell. We’ll see what happens!
prewett 10mo ago
Maybe accepting that they do not agree with you?

lazide 10mo ago

Dons psychic hat - and EuroTube and EuroGram will be widely ignored because most people are not only apparently fine with getting taken advantage of if it’s shiny and they don’t notice it. The reason for all the data/lack of privacy stuff is because most people get something from it - the next shiny manipulative BS thing, or shiny gadget or whatever.

intended 10mo ago

>People were offended when Google launched YouTube Premium because it encroached on their right to "free" everything from Google. Markets outcomes are not a prophecy. If it was so simple - why put the unsubscrube or privacy rules behind UI/UX features that required A/B testing and behavioral analysis to make it as onerous as possible? People aren't happy that they to sell their privacy, and had to be reassured that this is the best option. Not to mention, this was during an era of camraderie between the US and Europe, not a potential opponent. The idea of a taxpayer funded EuroTube and EuroGram or CountryThing will pick up steam. Why have your information farmed by a nation which acts in a hostile manner to its erstwhile allies?