6 ms·

No. Because most people don't care about privacy that much. See TSA scanners, foursquare, hell GMail scans your data everytime you read mails, Facebook doesn't

by runn1ng 13y ago

No. Because most people don't care about privacy that much. See TSA scanners, foursquare, hell GMail scans your data everytime you read mails, Facebook doesn't even pretend there is a privacy. Damn, first thing any Apple computer do is taking your picture, getting your details and sending it all to Cupertino, before you even load the OS. Android tries to track all your phones under one account you have to add before starting up. People don't really care about privacy. (Disclaimer: I am no better.) There will be some anti NSA rallies, sure. Photos of those rallies will be geotagged with EXIF data and posted on tumblr, facebook and twitter from iphones and androids.

yen223 13y ago
So true. The real danger here is that it's now easier for foreign governments to justify censoring the web, to "protect us against US invasion of privacy" or something.
- Ziomislaw 13y ago
  I certainly wouldn't mind if PSA[1] got cut off of the rest of internet. [1]: Police State of America
coopdog 13y ago
I don't care about privacy for my personal (not corporate) information from Google. The worst they can do is disconnect me, and I can always leave them. I do care about that an organisation with the power to legally kill or imprison me without trial, with the world's strongest military and a penchant for punishing anyone who embarasses them has all of my data, including who I associate with, what I say and whereever I go. In fact not just my data, the data of their political opponents and the journalists that keep the system honest. If not Obama, someone at the head of the table is going to abuse this information one day.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > The worst they can do is disconnect me, and I can always leave them. No, the worst thing that Google,[1] can do is share that information with credit card companies, HR departments, health insurance companies, etc, who do have the power to ruin your life and are much more likely to do it than the government. What happens when the advertising money hits the wall and can't support revenue growth sufficient to keep the Wall Street analysts happy? At some point some MBA is going to figure out that HR departments would love to be notified about e.g. their employees joining say a cancer support page. It sounds inconceivable today, but I bet people who started using credit cards in the 1960's and 1970's never expected that one day the various credit organizations would band together and sell your information to literally everyone, so that you could be denied a job because of your credit history. I think it's important to keep some perspective, and I feel like people on HN aren't doing that here when they direct all their blame to the government over this issue and hold Google, Facebook, etc, who created this surveillance apparatus, blameless. Corporate America is much more likely to screw you over than the government. They have a profit motive to do so, and can get away with screwing you over on a mass scale in a way the government cannot. I don't know a single person who has been screwed over by the government. I do know people who have been screwed over by credit ratings agencies, having job offers revoked because they struggled financially in college. Maybe it's not inevitable or even very likely that Google and Facebook will sell your information to the highest bidder. But it's a failure of imagination not to pretend that it isn't possible, and if we're going to engage in slippery slope reasoning with respect to the NSA, let's be intellectually honest and admit that we've built a vast surveillance apparatus in both the public and the private sector, and there are numerous entities within both sectors who have the ability and perhaps the motive to use that information to hurt you. [1] Or Facebook or whatever. It doesn't matter. One day these companies will become mature and will be headed by some MBA who has never written a line of code...
  - unimpressive 13y ago
    >I think it's important to keep some perspective, and I feel like people on HN aren't doing that here when they direct all their blame to the government over this issue and hold Google, Facebook, etc, who created this surveillance apparatus, blameless. Yes. The only reason the NSA/etc/all has this data is that people (probably a lot like you, dear reader) built these popular systems that make their money from tracking users. Worse still, they will always beat out a paid service because of friction and network effects. We didn't just stand by and watch the creation of this situation, we actively participated.
- wwweston 13y ago
  > If not Obama, someone at the head of the table is going to abuse this information one day. I'd worry less about someone at the head of the table -- who has a lot of visibility and responsibility -- and more about the legion of prosecutors and officers (plus their friends they owe favors to) who all have incentives to catch bad guys... whether they're actually bad, or just barely find themselves on the wrong side of an interpretation of some statute, or just fit the profile. And of course, the occasional less duty-oriented reasons for making your life difficult.
locusm 13y ago
My personal experience with reselling Google Apps here in Australia is quite different, privacy of data is almost always the first or second question they ask. I also rejoiced at AWS coming to Sydney, but having servers physically located in Australia does nothing to protect data by law from the US Govt.

by runn1ng 13y ago

yen223 13y ago

So true. The real danger here is that it's now easier for foreign governments to justify censoring the web, to "protect us against US invasion of privacy" or something.

Ziomislaw 13y ago
I certainly wouldn't mind if PSA[1] got cut off of the rest of internet. [1]: Police State of America

coopdog 13y ago

I don't care about privacy for my personal (not corporate) information from Google. The worst they can do is disconnect me, and I can always leave them. I do care about that an organisation with the power to legally kill or imprison me without trial, with the world's strongest military and a penchant for punishing anyone who embarasses them has all of my data, including who I associate with, what I say and whereever I go. In fact not just my data, the data of their political opponents and the journalists that keep the system honest. If not Obama, someone at the head of the table is going to abuse this information one day.

rayiner 13y ago
> The worst they can do is disconnect me, and I can always leave them. No, the worst thing that Google,[1] can do is share that information with credit card companies, HR departments, health insurance companies, etc, who do have the power to ruin your life and are much more likely to do it than the government. What happens when the advertising money hits the wall and can't support revenue growth sufficient to keep the Wall Street analysts happy? At some point some MBA is going to figure out that HR departments would love to be notified about e.g. their employees joining say a cancer support page. It sounds inconceivable today, but I bet people who started using credit cards in the 1960's and 1970's never expected that one day the various credit organizations would band together and sell your information to literally everyone, so that you could be denied a job because of your credit history. I think it's important to keep some perspective, and I feel like people on HN aren't doing that here when they direct all their blame to the government over this issue and hold Google, Facebook, etc, who created this surveillance apparatus, blameless. Corporate America is much more likely to screw you over than the government. They have a profit motive to do so, and can get away with screwing you over on a mass scale in a way the government cannot. I don't know a single person who has been screwed over by the government. I do know people who have been screwed over by credit ratings agencies, having job offers revoked because they struggled financially in college. Maybe it's not inevitable or even very likely that Google and Facebook will sell your information to the highest bidder. But it's a failure of imagination not to pretend that it isn't possible, and if we're going to engage in slippery slope reasoning with respect to the NSA, let's be intellectually honest and admit that we've built a vast surveillance apparatus in both the public and the private sector, and there are numerous entities within both sectors who have the ability and perhaps the motive to use that information to hurt you. [1] Or Facebook or whatever. It doesn't matter. One day these companies will become mature and will be headed by some MBA who has never written a line of code...
- unimpressive 13y ago
  >I think it's important to keep some perspective, and I feel like people on HN aren't doing that here when they direct all their blame to the government over this issue and hold Google, Facebook, etc, who created this surveillance apparatus, blameless. Yes. The only reason the NSA/etc/all has this data is that people (probably a lot like you, dear reader) built these popular systems that make their money from tracking users. Worse still, they will always beat out a paid service because of friction and network effects. We didn't just stand by and watch the creation of this situation, we actively participated.
wwweston 13y ago
> If not Obama, someone at the head of the table is going to abuse this information one day. I'd worry less about someone at the head of the table -- who has a lot of visibility and responsibility -- and more about the legion of prosecutors and officers (plus their friends they owe favors to) who all have incentives to catch bad guys... whether they're actually bad, or just barely find themselves on the wrong side of an interpretation of some statute, or just fit the profile. And of course, the occasional less duty-oriented reasons for making your life difficult.

locusm 13y ago

My personal experience with reselling Google Apps here in Australia is quite different, privacy of data is almost always the first or second question they ask. I also rejoiced at AWS coming to Sydney, but having servers physically located in Australia does nothing to protect data by law from the US Govt.