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People are willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar.* Until and unless that changes, privacy doesn't have sufficient value to cha

People are willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar.* Until and unless that changes, privacy doesn't have sufficient value to change the status quo very much. *Really, they'll even trade it for intangible gold. http://candycrushgametactics.com/get-free-gold-bars-in-candy-crush-saga-surveys/ http://candycrushgametactics.com/get-free-gold-bars-in-candy...

ashark 12y ago
It won't change. There's no way the average person is going to spend the kind of time and effort it would take to fight the pervasive privacy violations we're seeing now. Even if they all say they want better privacy, there's only so much stuff a person can keep up with / so many hours in a day. The market doesn't cater to what we want, it caters to what we have time to understand and the willpower to act on and, outside that very slim set of things, what is most profitable (e.g. selling our data). Coordination problems. Coordination problems as far as the eye can see.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Trading for a snickers bar is the default. How can I stop the default and who gets to decide what my punishment is if I do? Let's say google offers some kind of privacy plan, which is 100% outside of their interests. Do you think they'll give me honest pricing if I opted out of all their tracking? Lets say they actually make $15 off me annually via tracking. What would they charge me to not be spied on? It sure as hell won't be $15. The problem is we're not being offered a fair value in the beginning when we get into a relationship with these companies. Cloud providers are throwing snickers bars at me and not offering to stop. When I do say I don't want them, I'm hit with punitive pricing. Look at AT&T's gigapower charge to not be spied on. Its like $40 a month. Sorry, but I doubt anyone is making $40 a month from someone like me who almost never clicks on ads and whose information can't be that valuable. If advertisers are paying AT&T $40 a month to see how long I'm on reddit, then the whole system is well... fucked. It seems to me that cloud providers and ISPs want their cake and to eat it to. They're double-dipping. I'm still paying somehow, even if its indirectly. I bought $100 worth of apps and movie rentals last quarter via my android device. They sure as hell weren't free. Not only am I subject to market pricing on these items, not to mention my hefty phone bill, I also am being spied on? Where exactly is the 'free' where the products monetize themselves via app store purchases and rentals? VUDU and On Demand charge the exact same amount for these rentals. This narrative that customers won't pay for things is asinine. We're constantly paying for things.
- schimmy_changa 12y ago
  I think we should have a law where any service which is supported by advertising / data selling also have a paid opt-out feature. If I want to pay Google $100/year for email without ads or trackers, I should be able to do that. Sure, pricing will probably be set way too high by the companies at first, but even making that explicit tradeoff and the option to purchase will help show consumers that privacy IS valuable.
belorn 12y ago
I would like to see a experiment where the test subject are informed that the information will be sold afterward. Are people then willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar? Addition parameters that would be interesting: Inform that the information is worth more/less than the Snickers bar, or inform that "the government" will have free access to the information.
- DaveWalk 12y ago
  > Are people then willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar? Not as cheap as a Snickers, but I once had a CS professor do a straw poll of the class for this experiment. Back in the day the most evident tracking was through customer loyalty cards at grocery stores. He asked the class: how much money do you save per visit using your loyalty card? $10? And would you instead pay $10 each time to not be tracked? Perhaps not surprisingly, in 2007 a room full of undergrads would take the discount.
kardos 12y ago
Why is someone else's poor choice regarding privacy a justification for abandoning the fight for privacy? There's always a subset of people who don't care. There was a time when women didn't have the right to vote, and although I wasn't around during that time, I'm sure there was a subset of women who didn't care. Their apathy is not a justification for withholding that right from the rest.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  There's always a subset of people who don't care. The problem is when it's the seeming majority who don't care.
  - OvidNaso 12y ago
    But this is the case in many social issues that are eventually "won". Only a couple of years ago the vast majority of people in the US firmly believed marijuana should remain illegal and that number has dropped enough to change many state laws. How about gay, women or minority rights. All of them were strongly opposed by the masses.
    - stcredzero 12y ago
      Only a couple of years ago the vast majority of people in the US firmly believed marijuana should remain illegal Really? In my circles, even when I lived in "red" states, the attitude was more like it's a damn shame it's illegal, and too bad there isn't a prayer of it changing. How about gay, women or minority rights. All of them were strongly opposed by the masses. In the 1st and 3rd case, of course, because the subject group was a minority. In the case of women, things only changed when enough of the subject group started to demand change. In the case of privacy, the subject group isn't distinct from the masses, it is everyone. So yes, it's a problem for progress until everyone gets more clued in. (It will happen, when enough bad stuff has happened.)
  - click170 12y ago
    If there's one thing that the outrage around the Snowden leaks showed us, it's that people do care. But they just aren't all geeks or programmers or crypto experts, they're welders and baristas and waitresses and cab drivers. They want privacy too, but one could argue that we've failed to educate them about how to use existing tools and failed to make those tools simple enough that they're usable by the average Joe.
hawleyal 12y ago
Newsflash, people are stupid.

ashark 12y ago

It won't change. There's no way the average person is going to spend the kind of time and effort it would take to fight the pervasive privacy violations we're seeing now. Even if they all say they want better privacy, there's only so much stuff a person can keep up with / so many hours in a day. The market doesn't cater to what we want, it caters to what we have time to understand and the willpower to act on and, outside that very slim set of things, what is most profitable (e.g. selling our data). Coordination problems. Coordination problems as far as the eye can see.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

Trading for a snickers bar is the default. How can I stop the default and who gets to decide what my punishment is if I do? Let's say google offers some kind of privacy plan, which is 100% outside of their interests. Do you think they'll give me honest pricing if I opted out of all their tracking? Lets say they actually make $15 off me annually via tracking. What would they charge me to not be spied on? It sure as hell won't be $15. The problem is we're not being offered a fair value in the beginning when we get into a relationship with these companies. Cloud providers are throwing snickers bars at me and not offering to stop. When I do say I don't want them, I'm hit with punitive pricing. Look at AT&T's gigapower charge to not be spied on. Its like $40 a month. Sorry, but I doubt anyone is making $40 a month from someone like me who almost never clicks on ads and whose information can't be that valuable. If advertisers are paying AT&T $40 a month to see how long I'm on reddit, then the whole system is well... fucked. It seems to me that cloud providers and ISPs want their cake and to eat it to. They're double-dipping. I'm still paying somehow, even if its indirectly. I bought $100 worth of apps and movie rentals last quarter via my android device. They sure as hell weren't free. Not only am I subject to market pricing on these items, not to mention my hefty phone bill, I also am being spied on? Where exactly is the 'free' where the products monetize themselves via app store purchases and rentals? VUDU and On Demand charge the exact same amount for these rentals. This narrative that customers won't pay for things is asinine. We're constantly paying for things.

schimmy_changa 12y ago
I think we should have a law where any service which is supported by advertising / data selling also have a paid opt-out feature. If I want to pay Google $100/year for email without ads or trackers, I should be able to do that. Sure, pricing will probably be set way too high by the companies at first, but even making that explicit tradeoff and the option to purchase will help show consumers that privacy IS valuable.

belorn 12y ago

I would like to see a experiment where the test subject are informed that the information will be sold afterward. Are people then willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar? Addition parameters that would be interesting: Inform that the information is worth more/less than the Snickers bar, or inform that "the government" will have free access to the information.

DaveWalk 12y ago
> Are people then willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar? Not as cheap as a Snickers, but I once had a CS professor do a straw poll of the class for this experiment. Back in the day the most evident tracking was through customer loyalty cards at grocery stores. He asked the class: how much money do you save per visit using your loyalty card? $10? And would you instead pay $10 each time to not be tracked? Perhaps not surprisingly, in 2007 a room full of undergrads would take the discount.

kardos 12y ago

Why is someone else's poor choice regarding privacy a justification for abandoning the fight for privacy? There's always a subset of people who don't care. There was a time when women didn't have the right to vote, and although I wasn't around during that time, I'm sure there was a subset of women who didn't care. Their apathy is not a justification for withholding that right from the rest.

stcredzero 12y ago
There's always a subset of people who don't care. The problem is when it's the seeming majority who don't care.
- OvidNaso 12y ago
  But this is the case in many social issues that are eventually "won". Only a couple of years ago the vast majority of people in the US firmly believed marijuana should remain illegal and that number has dropped enough to change many state laws. How about gay, women or minority rights. All of them were strongly opposed by the masses.
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    Only a couple of years ago the vast majority of people in the US firmly believed marijuana should remain illegal Really? In my circles, even when I lived in "red" states, the attitude was more like it's a damn shame it's illegal, and too bad there isn't a prayer of it changing. How about gay, women or minority rights. All of them were strongly opposed by the masses. In the 1st and 3rd case, of course, because the subject group was a minority. In the case of women, things only changed when enough of the subject group started to demand change. In the case of privacy, the subject group isn't distinct from the masses, it is everyone. So yes, it's a problem for progress until everyone gets more clued in. (It will happen, when enough bad stuff has happened.)
- click170 12y ago
  If there's one thing that the outrage around the Snowden leaks showed us, it's that people do care. But they just aren't all geeks or programmers or crypto experts, they're welders and baristas and waitresses and cab drivers. They want privacy too, but one could argue that we've failed to educate them about how to use existing tools and failed to make those tools simple enough that they're usable by the average Joe.

hawleyal 12y ago

Newsflash, people are stupid.