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EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

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Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#251
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik wikipedia has no copyright or something. So somebody would create a read-only copy (less than 100GB, I guess), call it wikipedia2.com and everyone would use the copy..

Very few would figure out the clone's location, and it wouldn't be able to be updated really. VPN's would be another solution. But for the 99% it would be very disruptive and prove the point.

>Very few would figure out the clone's location

For this purpose clever people invented search engines. These would detect missing content in the original wikipedia and funnel all traffic to wikipedia clones. Nobody would notice the difference. And no point would be proven.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#252
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are being sarcastic, but honestly yes. I'm not too bothered about being tracked and having targeted ads. It doesn't negatively affect my experience. My ad-blocker takes care of most of the ads anyway. These intrusive popups and banners, on the other hand — especially the new post-GDPR in-your-face ones which I have to dismiss before I can even read a simple article — have ruined the user experience of the…

There are lists that can block these popups, if that's really your main concern. Still, I think saying that they're the bigger problem than the pervasive tracking they try to protect their users against, including only casual users, is a bit much.

I can only speak for myself. The popuips are the bigger problem.

There's a lot of hand wringing about tracking but what harm does it actually do?

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#253
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the opposite of totalitarian, btw, if we're interested in words.

In what way is government-mandated censorship and falsification of history "the opposite of totalitarian"?

In that the government isn’t using people as tools. People are using the government as a tool.

(Edit: without addressing your questionable definition of what it means to control one’s data.)

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can pay extra for HBO Exactly! You pay for HBO, like you already pay for Netflix. You don't pay a surcharge to be allowed to pay for HBO.

I can pay Comcast $30 for "basic cable". This brings every piece of equipment and signal into my home necessary to watch any programming that Comcast has to offer. There are no technical limitations, but there is some flag in Comcast's system that indicates I am only allowed to watch the channels included in basic cable. If I want, I can call them up and add the HBO package. With no technical improvement, simply an u…

Of course, that "nightmare scenario" is exactly what happens; since Comcast, like every major ISP, is also a huge content producer and distributor - including with their cable service, and with Xfinity On Demand, which is a direct competitor to Netflix - they are distorting the market by charging for access to other services, just like MS did by bundling IE.

So you can make an hypothetical argument using a spherical ISP that doesn't follow net neutrality and also doesn't own a content distribution service, but in practice the two can't be separated.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can pay Comcast $30 for "basic cable". This brings every piece of equipment and signal into my home necessary to watch any programming that Comcast has to offer. There are no technical limitations, but there is some flag in Comcast's system that indicates I am only allowed to watch the channels included in basic cable. If I want, I can call them up and add the HBO package. With no technical improvement, simply an u…

Of course, that "nightmare scenario" is exactly what happens; since Comcast, like every major ISP, is also a huge content producer and distributor - including with their cable service, and with Xfinity On Demand, which is a direct competitor to Netflix - they are distorting the market by charging for access to other services, just like MS did by bundling IE. So you can make an hypothetical argument using a spherical…

Where is the nightmare? Before formal net neutrality laws were enacted and since repeal, the vast majority of ISP contracts are unlimited and unmetered. There are instances of violations, and these have pretty much uniformly been handled by the FTC anyway.

Again, noncompetitive behavior is covered under existing legislation. But "no extra for Netflix because I like Netflix" is not an argument that carries weight. Charging extra for something that incurs cost is not anticompetitive. Comcast can distribute its own content for much cheaper if everything stays on its backbones and doesn't require peering with other networks. Why the hell shouldn't they be allowed to offer their product for cheaper?

Why are existing laws and regulations protecting competition insufficient? Especially in light of FCC rulings that punish anticompetitive behavior even in the absence of formal net neutrality laws.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is GDPR a problem at all? Is it so hard to avoid personalized tracking of unregistered users, ask users for their consent at sign-up time and implement a button for them to export and delete their data?

Avoiding personalized tracking of unregistered users means you can't use Google Analytics or something equivalent. Not that it's impossible per se, but these tools have a strong added value, so...

I admit this is a very amateurish view but I don't really understand why do people need Google Analytics or anything like that at all. As a webmaster you can log every request a depersonalized way recording the fact of a request to a particular HTTP resource from a particular country originating from a particular website as a referrer at particular time. You don't need any 3-rd party service for this and this doesn't mean tracking any particular user.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like... Netflix being prevented from streaming through your ISP (the only one available in your area mind) because Google paid it more to prefer YouTube traffic? The things Americans will frame as freedom of choice will continue to baffle me I guess.

Sure, I'll bite. Is Netflix "prevented" or "not preferred". Let's pick our battle before we fight it. But there is some useful grounding here. I use the term consenting adults, but perhaps we should refer to "legal entities". I think it is fair to start from a place where legal entities are allowed to enter into agreements with one another. You are a legal entity. I am a legal entity. Netflix is a legal entity. Googl…

Apologies if that came out as snarky like the other commenter suggested. It's really a genuine question about that point of view there.

>Is Netflix "prevented" or "not preferred". Let's pick our battle before we fight it.

See, in my mind these two are, legalese aside, absolutely identical for the consumer. Legalese included I absolutely realize they are the same, why wouldn't they? It's just contracts between legal entities.

From the view of a society with states that govern and can, where it benefits or would otherwise hurt society, restrict what entities can put in their contracts I'd say that there are plenty of cases to be made for such restrictions (e.g. worker protections, access to elementary resources, ...).

I'm kind of hoping here that we have some common ground there. I feel like our point of disagreement is whether or not governments should be involved in the case of ISPs, right? My point there would be that if one legal entity (consumer) does not have a wide range of choice (ISP), there hardly is any choice to be had and one party can pretty much dictate the terms of their agreement (and a bunch of other arguments for net neutrality others formulated way better). This might really boil down to the question if we personally attribute some societal value to ISPs being a neutral player or pure infrastructure provider I'm afraid.

edit: formatting

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#258
post #41

With the Great Firewall in China and Regressive laws in the EU, the US feels like the only place where users have the freedom to choose what their internet should be. Unfortunately, they have to deal with clicking on cookie notices, GDPR and now this.

Did you forget about net neutrality in US? All of us as Fucked, Australia too, with their encryption thing.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the GDPR makes things difficult for your side business? Every discussion I run into has people claiming this sorta thing, but my reading of the text make it fairly clear that for 90% of non-despicable use cases there's really not that much of a problem...

A client, a large pharmaceutical company, asked me to remove everything that could potentially violate the GDPR from their Android / IOS app. Apple rejected the update despite me stating the reason for the update, because the app could have been a website instead. Some of the functionality I had to remove was mobile specific, like reading measurements from a medical device etc.

I mean, that's just shoddy reasoning or laziness of the client. If you make a medical app like that, you clearly have a lawful basis for processing based on the "contract" lawful basis. So the only issue would be taking care how it's used, and having a policy in place for handling that data.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#260
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the GDPR makes things difficult for your side business? Every discussion I run into has people claiming this sorta thing, but my reading of the text make it fairly clear that for 90% of non-despicable use cases there's really not that much of a problem...

My specific issue was the EU representative; as the sole "employee" of my company, I will not pay a lawyer based in the EU to represent European users with privacy / data concerns. They could just contact me directly.

Ok, that's one I'm willing to concede is annoying for single person companies and there should probably be some fix for dealing with that. On the other hand, I understand why a legal representative within EU jurisdiction is desired.

For the record, your EU representative isn't required to be a lawyer or even legal expert, though.

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