Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#131

Post by Gibbon1 » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 7:08 AM UTC

AntiImperialist wrote: post #129

ragebol wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A right in itself costs nothing, to exercise a right is something else. If you've always had (some level of) privacy and that is (suddenly) taken away. With gun, you don't have one by default and getting one costs something. With privacy you (should) have it by default and now it would cost something to keep it. I wonder if people would accept to have to give up a gun they already had and then get paid to not have on…

You're talking as if Google is getting into your home and taking away your privacy. A milkman knew where you lived, a plumber knows what your interiors looked like. You sacrifice your privacy for service. Google is no different. You used their services in exchange for your information. It costs you nothing to not use these services.

The milkman and plumber aren't in the business of spying on me and selling that information to people that will use it to harm me.

The deal with google is their spying goes beyond any business relationship.

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#132

Post by AntiImperialist » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 8:34 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #131

AntiImperialist wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking as if Google is getting into your home and taking away your privacy. A milkman knew where you lived, a plumber knows what your interiors looked like. You sacrifice your privacy for service. Google is no different. You used their services in exchange for your information. It costs you nothing to not use these services.

The milkman and plumber aren't in the business of spying on me and selling that information to people that will use it to harm me. The deal with google is their spying goes beyond any business relationship.

No, Google is neither spying on your nor selling your information to third parties.

When you use their service, they know about you. When they filter our spam for you in Gmail, their software reads your emails. When you look up in Maps where you are, their service tracks where you are. By the way, you can delete your data and stop tracking anytime while continuing to use the service (something you could not do with your milkman or your plumber). They could always continue doing it behind your backs, but the milkman could also poison you. You have to trust them and take legal action if you catch them doing something that they are they aren't.

When advertisers want to use Google, they tell Google where they want their ads. For example, a dental clinic can tell Google something along the lines of "Show my ads in search engines to people in my area who are searching for 'affordable dentist'" and pay Google when people click the ads. The dental clinic never gets any user data from Google.

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#133

Post by anoncake » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #117

skummetmaelk wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disgusting

Why? In any transaction there's a non-negative spread between how much the buyer and seller value the item being exchanged. Why is it disgusting if the seller captures that spread but not if the buyer captures it, or is there some other distinction you're drawing? Off-topic: this same idea has been cropping up a lot on HN recently with respect to salaries when moving to lower CoL areas. The argument on one side is th…

The buyer is a person. Their needs should be satisfied as much as possible, that's the whole point of having an economy.

The seller is a company. Its only purpose is to satisfy its customers' needs.