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Google’s GDPR Workaround

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Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#151

Post by kart23 »

hobofan wrote: post #87
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should their point of view just not be heard then, in such discussions?

Not if it's disguised as a private individual (which is the default assumption in discussion forums such as this one). If a company wants to present its views, they can do so via press releases or clearly mark their posts as such (or via verified accounts like on Twitter).

Honest question: under which law? Does anything actually prohibit companies from employing people from going on forums and shilling? I think it's perfectly fine for the third party platform to have a policy forbidding this, but the government enforcing something like this would not be ok.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#152

Post by paul7986 »

Aunche wrote: post #125
NullPrefix wrote: post #49

>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.

I'm no marketing expert, but I doubt that the best way Google can think of to sway public opinion is to call people privacy nuts. Google employs over 100,000 people and even more people work at similar companies like Facebook or buy targeted ads. Many of these people browse Hackernews and get offended if others accuse their livelihoods of being evil.

I can attest to that as when you point of things like Google gets caught stealing IP from a MIT student they invited for an interview (a popular thread here on HN) it gets downvoted voraciously.

Either its employees, hired guns and or something...

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#153

Post by kaibee »

thekyle wrote: post #133
kaibee wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi kspacewalk2, I'm John and I have views on privacy that are completely genuine and happen to align with what benefits the corporation(s) that my company, TotallyLegitimateComments LLC, contracts for. I believe advertisement is a force for good in the world and can bring together people and products that enrich their lives while creating value for shareholders! While I'd love to share what wonderful businesses my co…

This is a total straw man.

Is it? Remember how the FCC got millions of anti net-neutrality comments from some group using stolen identities of people?

https://gizmodo.com/how-an-investigation-of-fake-fcc-comment...

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#154

Post by ajna91 »

derefr wrote: post #106
tboyd47 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean how there are somehow always commenters in every topic ready to leap to the defense of China and major US tech companies?

I would guess that those are, more often than not, not paid shills but rather just people who like taking devil’s-advocate sides in arguments “for fun”, i.e. just for the challenge of seeing if they can construct a valid rebuttal to a comment. (I say this because I believe I’ve done this myself more than once, and I know my personality-type isn’t uncommon on HN.)

Agreed, I see this often. To be honest if the devil is far more powerful in a given situation, I find it distasteful to fight for him against the hurt party.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#155

Post by philwelch »

Aunche wrote: post #125
NullPrefix wrote: post #49

>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.

I'm no marketing expert, but I doubt that the best way Google can think of to sway public opinion is to call people privacy nuts. Google employs over 100,000 people and even more people work at similar companies like Facebook or buy targeted ads. Many of these people browse Hackernews and get offended if others accuse their livelihoods of being evil.

Every company I've worked at has had an explicit policy of not commenting on that company's business on the internet.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#156

Post by kerkeslager »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #76
NullPrefix wrote: post #49

>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.

Should their point of view just not be heard then, in such discussions?

If they want their view heard, they're welcome to share it like everyone else.

Paying someone else to share a very sanitized, market researched version of your opinion while pretending that they're organically sharing their own opinion isn't that. It's dishonest, and it's eroding honest conversations for the sake of advertising.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#157

Post by stonogo »

thekyle wrote: post #133
kaibee wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi kspacewalk2, I'm John and I have views on privacy that are completely genuine and happen to align with what benefits the corporation(s) that my company, TotallyLegitimateComments LLC, contracts for. I believe advertisement is a force for good in the world and can bring together people and products that enrich their lives while creating value for shareholders! While I'd love to share what wonderful businesses my co…

This is a total straw man.

I'm not sure it is.

https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/116191039733676851...

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#158

Post by luckylion »

v7p1Qbt1im wrote: post #72
hexadec wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very not legal, but I think the parent was saying these regulations are more onerous to small dev shops rather than Google and the fine for this will be minuscule. Hopefully companies will find paths to revenue that do not require selling out there users to this level, maybe by just having ad auctions without any identifying information at all.

Like it or not. Currently the internet would not exist without the ad-supported business model. Regular users expect everything on the internet to be free. I know people that categorically refuse to buy a 1-dollar app. It‘s starting to change now with people getting used to subscription models (Netflix, etc). But it will take a while until we start paying for news again, for example. Apple news + and google news init…

> Currently the internet would not exist without the ad-supported business model.

In it's current form, yes. However, I'm not so sure that everybody here would agree that "the web today" is fundamentally better than the web ten years ago, technological advances aside. Everybody smelling gold and starting a blog to mindlessly shill for products in hopes of getting a commission, super low quality texts written/generated/spinned entirely for SEO reasons to place ads between the paragraphs etc doesn't come to mind when I ask myself "what could be better on the web?" If those things disappear tomorrow, I don't think a lot of us would miss them. We'd notice them being gone because it might feel like being able to breath freely after a strong cold, but I don't think many would miss them.

> But it will take a while until we start paying for news again, for example.

Plenty of people pay for news. They won't pay for Gawker or Buzzfeed though. I don't think that's a problem for anybody not invested in or working for those companies.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#159

Post by plankers »

lalos wrote: post #127
NullPrefix wrote: post #49

>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.

Could also be selfishness, I remember reading an article about leaked internal Facebook employees where some employees would pressure others to not talk about privacy or sensitive topics because it would hurt the stock price further and therefore hurt all employees. I can't seem to find the article. I can see employees of big companies trying to sway or minimize decisions to feel like they are protecting their future…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

--Upton Sinclair

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#160

Post by philwelch »

tboyd47 wrote: post #77
kaolti wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the feeling this is much more prevalent than any of us realize. Would explain why most comments seem ridiculous.

You mean how there are somehow always commenters in every topic ready to leap to the defense of China and major US tech companies?

I'm fairly confident China (and for that matter Russia, but we all knew that) do this.

As for tech companies, I would honestly mark a lot of that down to fanboyism. Not that I'd be entirely surprised, but I somewhat doubt that Elon Musk, in particular, is actually paying all of those people. And Tesla seems to have the most defensive supporters on the internet. People talk about Facebook and Google for their privacy practices, Apple for their crappy laptop keyboards, but it's a tiny minority that goes after Tesla when they're the company least capable of hiring people to argue on the internet.

(I would also assume that it's a little bit overrated how often this happens, for the sole reason that I spend a lot of time arguing on the internet and never once have I received an offer to go pro!)

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