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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

#391
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many, many people, that is _fine_. I would argue this isn't the case. For many people it is out of sight and out of mind. They don't realize what's happening. I came to this conclusion after talking with people about it. Numerous people didn't believe it. I had to show people documents and articles for them to believe me. Most of the people I've spoken with do not like this behavior and would rather not use a s…

I like that the webshit data robbers downvote me for saying what they're doing is evil, yet if I showed any particular one what kind of information I have access to about them, just as a random private citizen interested in these things, they'd freak out and call me a creep. It's a shame what money does to people.

> yet if I showed any particular one what kind of information I have access to about them

This is where the line is drawn for most - if people from Facebook, Amazon or Google look at information other than machines. Totally fine if it's just a computer with a strong law like GDPR safeguarding it.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sit…

Opt-out for GDPR is under 1%. Most people don't care at the moment, sadly. However, a mass movement to opt-out would absolutely affect them. This lays the groundwork for that, and thats what they should be afraid of.

What's the opt-in? GDPR doesn't allow opt-out as a default.

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

#393
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The entire premise of free exchange is that I give you my services in exchange for something of value of yours. "Something" doesn't mean "anything". You can't offer your services in exchange for e.g. my body parts. Why are we willing to ban that but not our data? > The only reason those services are being provided at all is to get that data. That's effectively a requirement that people provide services for free. We…

> "Something" doesn't mean "anything". You can't offer your services in exchange for e.g. my body parts. Why are we willing to ban that but not our data? Because if you were to run a survey over the general population the large majority is fine not having to pay for gmail, google search, maps and other "free" services while some data may be collected doing so while a much smaller percentage thinks it's OK to sell the…

I strongly suspect that if you asked people 50 years ago whether it was ok for companies to eg. track everywhere most people go, I think the vast majority would have said no. Google et al. just started spying on everyone without any serious debate over whether it was right. Then once people caught on, they either had to stop caring about privacy, or they had be Richard Stallman and eschew pretty much all mainstream computing technology.

If someone went back in time to tell people that this new internet thing was going to lead to the US having more surveillance than East Germany or the Soviet Union, there would have been laws passed and systems designed from the start to prevent it from happening. The fact that it didn't happen this way, and our culture's privacy norms have been destroyed as a consequence, is more reason to act to prevent further damage, not a reason to just give up.

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

#394
post #172
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…

Your quoted statement conflicts with the following: > Businesses can, however, offer “financial incentives” for being allowed to collect data.

Couldn't a financial incentive be charging more?

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

#395
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's a large number of us who want to pay with that data and don't think it's as damaging as cutting off our arms. It is true that there are things we are not allowed to freely exchange: kidneys, livers, most parts of our body. It is true that there are things we are allowed to relatively freely exchange: money, possessions, plasma, blood, and currently data. Lots of us feel that the data thing should be a…

> Because there's a large number of us who want to pay with that data Okay, cool, don't opt out then. I on the other hand would prefer to see ads based on the content I'm viewing for which no other data from me needs to be passed around.

Yeah, and those parts of CCPA I support. I also support the data deletion stuff. Everyone should be able to revoke consent at any time. What I object to is the "you must continue to provide service after opt-out". I think you should be able to say what you're willing to accept and get appropriate service.

In fact, ideally, the User Agent would advertise our privileges. Like a DNT option and websites would respond with a paywall or something instead and be expected (by law) to respect the DNT. Then, on first load, browsers could say, "Do you wish to allow tracking?" and warn about the added paywall cost vs. the tracking cost.

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

#396
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…

Every state will end up having a different law like this, and it will be terrible adhering to each one.

Yeah this is a really good point and with 50 states that's a lot of things to keep track of. Let's hope it isn't able to be broken down like sales tax.

Remember last year when there was a big hoopla about that Massachusetts court case that hinted that any online vendor would now be responsible for collecting and reporting on sales tax for purchases coming from any US state (even if you as the business owner didn't have a business location there). Basically changing the requirement of the buyer to report sales tax for out of state purchases onto the business. The only problem is there's 9,998 different tax jurisdictions (as of 5 years ago)[1] spread across 50 states.

[1]: https://taxfoundation.org/state-sales-tax-jurisdictions-appr...

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

#397

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…

The issue is that with the internet, the default option is “available everywhere” whereas basically any other commercial thing is only available in a physical location, because that’s where the good is being sold/ the service is being offered. The main thing similar to tech is media, but even if someone in a country where some media content is banned is caught consuming that media, the consumer is punished rather tha…

> The issue is that with the internet, the default option is “available everywhere”

This is very often not true. A generic website will be visible everywhere, but new online stores will typically sell domestically only by default and may expand later. Even tech giants like google will roll out services to US customers first, like when they launched the play store. Amazon in Australia is nearly unheard of, not ubiquitous like they seem to be in the US. It took netflix a decade to start here.

The internet is not as universal as you think.

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

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Charging different customers a different price for the same product is illegal under US law Demonstrably untrue. It is illegal to charge a different price based on a protected class like race or gender. But travel sites, for example, are notorious for charging different people different prices based on their GeoIP, whether they're on mobile or desktop, or Windows vs Macintosh.

[deleted]

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

#399
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.

> It also shows a direct discrimination against poor and/or young people who might not afford the service. As opposed to what, treating everybody badly? McDonalds discriminates between people who can afford a Big Mac and people who can't, and that's not a problem.

Poor people can get other services at a discount, for instance electricity, internet or cable service.

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

#400

As much as most browsers have implemented a standardised payment API, a generic, browser-level Privacy related GUI would be helpful. By that I mean something less repetitive than the multitude of consent screens people have to deal with (not to mention dark UX patterns in the existing solutions).

Yes, please!!
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