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Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#31

Post by mechazawa »

gaadd33 wrote: post #29
mechazawa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal to sell user data without explicit consent in a lot of countries. It should also be illegal in the US tho due to the Fair Information Practices.

What is defined as explicit consent? Most terms of service and EULAs on websites and software do explicitly give the company the right to sell your data. Also aren't the FTC's Fair Information Practices just recommendations with no consequences for violating?

Probably "We are going to disclose your data to party X. Do you consent this?". Saying that you are going to share user information with undisclosed 3rd parties seems like a bit too broad.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#32

Post by eloisant »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #25
JupiterMoon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes you have only US citizen's data. One Canadian in there for example and you're surely breaking the law.

I don't see why. Could you shed light on this view?

Here is how it works in France:

http://www.cnil.fr/english/data-protection/rights-and-obliga...

Practically, if you operate a service in France, you need to have 2 checkboxes at user creation:

* I accept to receive commercial informations and advertising from the service

* I accept to receive commercial informations and advertising from third parties

If you don't have the checkboxes or the user unchecked, no sharing.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#34

Post by MatthewWilkes »

eloisant wrote: post #32
Gustomaximus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why. Could you shed light on this view?

Here is how it works in France: http://www.cnil.fr/english/data-protection/rights-and-obliga... Practically, if you operate a service in France, you need to have 2 checkboxes at user creation: * I accept to receive commercial informations and advertising from the service * I accept to receive commercial informations and advertising from third parties If you don't have the checkboxes or the user unchecked, no sharing.

In the UK, even if you've managed to buy emails it's of no use, you aren't allowed to contact people unless you've had a business relationship for a related product in the last 12 months.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#35

Post by parandroid »

MatthewWilkes wrote: post #34
eloisant wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is how it works in France: http://www.cnil.fr/english/data-protection/rights-and-obliga... Practically, if you operate a service in France, you need to have 2 checkboxes at user creation: * I accept to receive commercial informations and advertising from the service * I accept to receive commercial informations and advertising from third parties If you don't have the checkboxes or the user unchecked, no sharing.

In the UK, even if you've managed to buy emails it's of no use, you aren't allowed to contact people unless you've had a business relationship for a related product in the last 12 months.

This is new to me. How does this exactly work? Can you report the email senders to someone, if you get spam or something?

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#36

Post by avinassh »

siliconc0w wrote: post #10

I've never been contacted but here is a #lifehack if you use gmail sign up with youremail+domain to track who is selling your info.

I used to do this when it was new and not many people were aware of it. Nowadays some sites don't accept emails with '+' at all.

Then I setup an forwarding email server, which forward @mydomain.com to my main email. So I would register at sites like sitename@mydomain.com. Sometimes, if required to send emails from registered email then I would create a new email and send.

Now, I have switched to Abine Blur and free version works fine for me. They have a chrome extension and it generates random email whenever you are filling the email field in web forms. (or you can generate random emails at will). Only caveat is, you cannot reply from that email. So, in such cases, I login to the site, change my email to something else and compose emails.

I suggest everyone to using Blur or similar tools. The guys who are running your site will ever know your real email.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#37

Post by mathrawka »

eloisant wrote: post #33

"Won't say we got it from you" is not protecting you. Many users have a different email for each service, for example username+yourservice@gmail.com (gmail will ignore the '+' and whatever is between it and the @) so you get busted.

This is so well known that places that care will strip it out at the signup process. Also, they will use a simple regex check with their company/service/product name to see if the user is using a highly probably unique email address.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#38

Post by RogerL »

This is why I don't quite understand the common complaints about Google and data. Not that I don't understand the concern, but the unawareness that this happens everywhere. You order a pizza to be delivered? That info is sold. Magazine subscriptions? Info is sold. Order something from the Gap catalog? That info is sold. Signed up for a gym? Sold.

Google skip tracer, or skip tracer database, to see how much info is collected and sold, and that is just for one micro industry.

Everything is sold, everything. Maybe that mom and pop store is not selling your data, but that other mom and pop one is. And the bigger players certainly are.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#39

Post by JupiterMoon »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #25
JupiterMoon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes you have only US citizen's data. One Canadian in there for example and you're surely breaking the law.

I don't see why. Could you shed light on this view?

Don't confuse facts with views.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

#40

Post by kinkora »

atinoda-kestrel wrote: post #15

A long time ago I ran a file hosting service that almost exclusively served one particular "fringe" community (for some reason it got really popular on one site and spread from there). I was running it anonymously at the time (for both me and for the users), and logging was minimal... ... so imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail (at the abuse@ address, no less) offering to buy uploader/downloader info (IPs, f…

I might be a lil late reading this but I have a slightly off tangential question if you could have time to indulge me in.

1. why did you get out of the file host business or why were you glad to?

2. how did you get out of it? sold, fizzled, etc..

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