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Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

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Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#91

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

This is manifestly bullshit. When I as an Engineer build a physical product, I have to take care that it fulfills the legal and normative requirements of every place I plan to sell it. The product of a software company is said software. The "storefront" is their website. When I cater to a global audience, I have to make sure I fulfill all requirements. Period. No matter what I sell. Now, there are ways around it. Eit…

Why do you have to respect national norms? Because there will be health and safety implications within their country.

In the case of visiting a website, the customer is the one visiting you, there is no good rational to put the burden on the business. It is much more sound and natural to either put it on the consumer, a business may be visited by nationals from hundreds of juridisction, while a consumer will only visit 1 or 2 businesses.

You can also decide that the laws of the country in which the business is based apply.

You make it sound more difficult than it actually is, every website selling software products already mentions the address of the owner, at the very least to define a party for the contract / terms of service.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#92
post #52

I see a lot of comments deriding this law, can someone explain to me why these are bad things? Quoting from this article - https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/landmark-california-privac... - Businesses must disclose what information they collect, what business purpose they do so for and any third parties they share that data with. - Businesses would be required to comply with official consumer requests to delete that d…

I am on board with this law, but I’m curious how these two points will shake out: > - Consumers can opt out of their data being sold, and businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service. > - Businesses can, however, offer “financial incentives” for being allowed to collect data. Seems to me that it’s a distinction without a difference. Is there something I’m missing?

Its intended to fuck over Facebook. If you're charging for a service you can simply offer a discount for allowing data collection after bumping prices for everyone by the same amount, Facebook however isn't charging. Facebook can't offer a discount on free, and they can't just force only users who opt-out to go pay (because that falls afoul of the first quote you put).

Basically this puts Facebook in a real tight situation, I honestly wonder how they will survive it.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#94
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or, you could not start a business that requires you capture every single facet of a person's life as a data point.

But you'll start a business which captures some data, and you're on the hook for proving that everything captured is necessary and compliant in hundreds of jurisdictions.

You could start a different business instead.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#95
post #7

A significant part of the fear comes from how poorly worded it is.

Broad wording means companies have to be conservative (collect less data) and less loopholes. That's a win for the ordinary person.

Or realistically it means they will collect the same and wait for clarification. Since it's worded so poorly they won't be punished for it or going by past examples in California the fine will be so small it was worth it.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#96
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't do stupid privacy violating shit and you'll be fine anywhere. Collect no information. Share no information. You are good - everywhere . And that really ought to be the default behaviour..

That is what they said about GDPR...

And what is your problem complying with that if you collect no information nor share any information?

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#97

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

My favorite example is: If a purchaser calls a suppler from state Y from state X and ask to buy something. Which laws do I follow? * The purchaser follow laws from state X * The supplier from state follows laws from state Y * We then pay any duties to ship from state Y to state X This is the way things have been done, since, well... forever. No one thinks it's weird if this kind of business is conducted in person or…

I'd suggest that in your example, the purchaser isn't having all details about himself being recorded and monetized by the supplier, just simply for contacting the supplier: no agreements of trade have been entered into, but even if they had, there's little cause for selling the information to other 3rd parties.

Surely the purchaser has some rights to sovereignity?

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. You know if you turn that around and say "How come we have to respect the laws of every country we do business in?" it sounds a lot more self servi…

Not everyone has data mining and adtech as a business model. Why should people running legit online businesses that do not involve mining data be punished for unscrupulous actors in the adtech biz?

how do you suggest to solve the adtech situation without regulating all businesses?

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#99
post #52

I see a lot of comments deriding this law, can someone explain to me why these are bad things? Quoting from this article - https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/landmark-california-privac... - Businesses must disclose what information they collect, what business purpose they do so for and any third parties they share that data with. - Businesses would be required to comply with official consumer requests to delete that d…

I am on board with this law, but I’m curious how these two points will shake out: > - Consumers can opt out of their data being sold, and businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service. > - Businesses can, however, offer “financial incentives” for being allowed to collect data. Seems to me that it’s a distinction without a difference. Is there something I’m missing?

IANAL, but I'm guessing it's the difference between opting in and opting out?

For example, I think it would be legal for Verizon to get around this law by increasing their prices by $5 across the board, and offering a $5 rebate for customers who want to opt-in to their data being sold.

But it would not be legal for Verizon to allow customers to opt-out of data collection by paying an extra $5 a month.

In the first approach, Verizon will not track by default and customers have to opt-in.

In the second approach, Verizon will track by default and customers have to opt-out.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#100

What will these laws accomplish in real terms? This just seems like poorly written legislation with the purpose of pandering to the populist public. I guess if it makes you all at least feel better.

Nothing, except soon there will be annoying legalese on every website form. Just like the GDPR. Large businesses will benefit at the expense of smaller ones. Lawyers will make more money selling these legalese templates, and sometimes when a big company doesn’t pay the right bean counter they’ll end up being investigated by regulators, and paying the state money to continue doing the same thing. But it will be celebr…

The GDPR does a lot to protect user data. As someone that’s implemented stuff at a huge company for GDPR and at my startup, it was waaaay harder at the larger company. The ICO has been beyond helpful with the few questions I’ve had recently and implementation for my startup has been fairly straightforward.
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