Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by 1000units » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

debatem1 wrote: post #270

1000units wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These all sound fine, except I don't know that credit agencies are held to high standards.

Ok, maybe I'm asking questions too close to my own viewpoint. Let me ask some follow-up questions that are a bit further out. Would you approve of a law which forbade advertising of any sort? Would you approve of a law which required service providers to offer their service for free? Would you approve of a law which forbade service providers from offering their service for free? Would you approve of a law banning the…

> Would you approve of a law which forbade advertising of any sort?

No. People are entitled to speech.

> Would you approve of a law which required service providers to offer their service for free?

No. Making money is Virtuous and Good. Acquiring money by theft, deceit, etc is not.

> Would you approve of a law which forbade service providers from offering their service for free?

No. Charity is fine. In the cases people are actually paying with their data and the "free" is just legal trickery then yes. You already can't pay people in blood. Data is just as important.

> Would you approve of a law banning the sale of digital goods or rights to digital goods?

No. However, DRM should be illegal.

> Would you approve of a law banning subscriptions or recurring payments?

No. The only issue here is predatory sign-ons.

> Would you approve of a law forbidding the use of cameras in public places?

This one is difficult. At any earlier time, no.

> Would you approve of a law forbidding companies from having more than $X in revenue, for some X?

No, I wouldn't bother.

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

#292

Post by notTyler » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #271

I can't help but view it with disgust just at the headline of having the wrong kind of mentality. It is a spiteful logical fallacy of the worst kind. "Soviets terrified of plan to nuclear first strike whole world - good!" Just because even the vilest foe dislikes it doesn't mean it is a good idea. The whole article seems to be about shutting down thinking and manipulation via playing with emotions. I am probably an o…

"Shutting down thinking." Reporting on transgressions and laws designed to hold parties accountable is designed to shut down thinking now, and how those who would be affected by it are literally trying to kill the bill is considered "shutting down thinking." This is literally what you just said.

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

#293

Post by sha666sum » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #172

nabnob wrote: 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…

> - Consumers can opt out of their data being sold, and businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service. This is something I object to. It's just fundamentally stupid and doesn't make sense. The entire premise of free exchange is that I give you my services in exchange for something of value of yours. Making it illegal to withhold services if you don't give up your data is crazy. The only reason…

Data mining as a business model is fine, as long as the customer is making an informed decision, there are equally good alternatives out there which you can pay for in other means, and you're not drawn to a particular service because of network effects or platform lock-in.

However, customers aren't well informed, and if they were, they wouldn't use these services. Currently customers are getting scammed for their data. This is why we need regulation.

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

#294

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

ubercow13 wrote: post #124

xwdv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are dead wrong. A completely friction free experience is exactly what you should expect. Every political obstacle we create for data traveling through wires undermines the entire point of having an internet, and cedes more power to legislating bodies who are clueless about technology. An individual should be empowered to serve data to another individual anywhere in the globe without barriers, period. If people ca…

Isn’t this just anarchism?

In the same sense as "Lawerence vs Texas" is anarchism of the bedroom. "If it is between two parties why is it anyone else's business?" as the default assumption instead of coversheet on your TPS report regulations as default.

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

#295

Post by notfromhere » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

morganherlocker wrote: post #235

notfromhere wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that the bill is rushed and the legal bits have a lot of ambiguity. source: CCPA and its potential compliance has been a big PITA

No argument there; just pointing out that many of the common complaints around ambiguity are explicitly addressed in the text of the bill already.

They're really not - the definition of using California household vs resident creates a huge unenforceable gray area for compliance

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

#296

Post by zawerf » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #283

m463 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that will have unintended consequences. It might inadvertently assign a price to the data collected. It also shows a direct discrimination against poor and/or young people who might not afford the service.

There is already a price in the data collected (for FB i think $120 / year). I think making it public is a good thing. I think the law will also force facebook to offer ad free subscription plans, something people have been asking for. My bet is nobody is going to use them though.

I didn't believe that number but it seems like it's true if you restrict it to just north america monthly active users: https://thespring.io/investing/facebook-makes-more-revenue-p...

Average revenue per user is around $25 for global users.

This brings up a related issue that not all users are equal. Even in non-data mining business models, you still have some segment of the users subsidizing another.

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

#297

Post by danShumway » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #268

danShumway wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've commented in the past that the privacy community is diverse. I divide the community into (at least) two major groups: - People who believe that privacy means being able to anonymously use services. - People who believe that privacy means being able to control what other people do with data about you. These are not compatible views, and they often conflict with each other -- both philosophically and practically.…

I think this is a very important distinction you make, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are fundamentally incompatible. It today's world, data about a person is an asset. A person should own their assets, and have control over them. If there were only one option, this would have to be it - it's the only one that aligns with business interests. If you instead go purely the route of anonymous data collection,…

In practice, this doesn't really work. You can compromise and build a system out of elements of each individual philosophy (and many people do), but there are going to be conflicts, and at that point you're going to have decide which system takes precedence.

The first issue is that many privacy advocates who believe in anonymity do not believe in data ownership (or believe it should be much weaker). To them, the jump from "data is an asset" to "I own my data" to "because I own it, I should be able to control what people do with it" is begging the question.

The second issue is that in practice, most anonymous systems also make it hard to verify data ownership. In order for regional restrictions to work, you need a way to tell what regions your users are in. The "anonymous" side's solution here is, "anybody should be able to convincingly and legally lie about their physical location to (virtually) any business." If that solution is implemented, GDPR and Right to Be Forgotten don't work because it's impossible to verify jurisdiction.

This is part of why efforts around GDPR and Right to Be Forgotten are focused on businesses. Businesses have a physical address, they're easy to track, it's easy to prove that they're advertising to a specific region, and you can force them to share internal data with a judge. It's a compromise, because applying GDPR to non-commercial entities or individuals would require tracking them on a mass scale.

It's not impossible to compromise -- I mean, privacy advocates do compromise all the time. We work together even though we're different, because we have lots of shared goals. But the differences aren't trivial in the real world. When someone sits down to build a system, they're either thinking about managing data, or eliminating data. That approach is a big indicator into whether you'll end with GDPR or Tor.

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

#298

Post by vonmoltke » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

joshklein wrote: post #207

darawk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Consumers can opt out of their data being sold, and businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service. This is something I object to. It's just fundamentally stupid and doesn't make sense. The entire premise of free exchange is that I give you my services in exchange for something of value of yours. Making it illegal to withhold services if you don't give up your data is crazy. The only reason…

Charging different customers a different price for the same product is illegal under US law, and California laws don’t change that. EDIT: Several comments below point out the innumerable businesses operating in such a way as to make mine an impossible claim. Enumerating the established methods to avoid meeting the legal parameters of price discrimination is not the same as price discrimination being legal. My bar for…

> that is not the same as price discrimination being legal

From refurb's link below:

"Price discriminations are generally lawful"

See https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

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

#299

Post by laughinghan » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #244

JohnFen wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am voluntarily giving information to a company, and have been completely informed of all the purposes that it will be put to (especially which companies it may be transmitted to), then I have no problem with it at all, personally. And I particularly would not be inclined to say that others can't decide this for themselves. The problem is the rampant data collection that is engaged in without my permission and/or…

>If I am voluntarily giving information to a company, and have been completely informed of all the purposes that it will be put to (especially which companies it may be transmitted to), then I have no problem with it at all, personally. And I particularly would not be inclined to say that others can't decide this for themselves. I fully agree, but it seems like under this legislation it becomes illegal to conduct a b…

Nope, not illegal:

> Businesses can, however, offer “financial incentives” for being allowed to collect data.

The change is from opt-out to opt-in.

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

#300

Post by lacampbell » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #178

lacampbell wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US scrapped alcohol prohibition due to its unintended side effects, and is increasingly scrapping marijuana prohibitions. Often the downsides do outweigh their utility.

"Someone passed a bad law once, therefore all laws are bad." Guess we don't need food safety laws anymore, prohibition was bad! Surely you can understand the difference between prohibition and consumer-protection laws? They aren't even like, the same field of laws.

Odd way to paraphrase my argument.