Corporate Memphis strikes again!
Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
61–70 of 201 posts
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#62This is an awfully generous way to present what looks like yet another in-browser advertising platform.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#63I understand there is a perfectly legitimate need and reason to do what they do. However “privacy-first data sharing” sounds like doublespeak to me. In the same vein as the famous “war is peace, freedom is slavery.”
> sounds like double speak
That’s rather cynical.
What’s wrong with someone wanting to share their data with certain people while also demanding that those people respect the data’s privacy?
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Common research methods have significant limitations. Web crawls, for instance, usually don't realistically simulate user activity and experiences. Lab studies often involve simplified systems that don't generalize to the real world. Surveys yield self-reported data, which can be very unreliable. Rally studies, by contrast, reflect real-world user activity and experiences. In science jargon, Rally enables field studi…
Thanks for clarifying! Makes sense. A few follow up questions: 1. Do you expect the opt-in nature of these studies to impact their findings? 2. To compensate for the voluntary nature of the studies, do you think researchers in general will still be incentivized to find data sources that are less respectful of people's privacy and don't require an opt-in to the study?
> 1. Do you expect the opt-in nature of these studies to impact their findings?
The Rally participant population is not representative of the U.S. population—these are users who run Firefox (other browsers coming soon), choose to join Rally, and choose to join a study. In research jargon, there's significant sampling bias.
For some studies, that's OK, because the research doesn't depend on a representative sample. For other studies, researchers can approximate U.S. population demographics. When a user joins Rally, they can optionally provide demographic information. Researchers can then use the demographics with reweighting, matching, subsampling, and similar methods to approximate a representative population. Those methods already appear throughout social science; whether they're sufficient also depends on the study.
> 2. To compensate for the voluntary nature of the studies, do you think researchers in general will still be incentivized to find data sources that are less respectful of people's privacy and don't require an opt-in to the study?
Rally is designed to provide a new research capability that didn't exist before. I don't expect a substitution effect like that.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#65Sorry if this is too off topic, but is there a name for the art style they are using in the illustrations? It seems to be all over corporate sites these days.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#66Whoever wrote this piece is way too close to... whatever it is Mozilla is doing here. There seems to be an assumption that users will be gleeful to throw their data at legitimate researchers from legitimate institutions doing legitimate work. What "data"? Browsing history? Identity? Something else? Why? What's in it for them? Since when was giving our data to third parties a good idea? There is literally no motivatio…
> privacy-preserving data collection system I hate this. Viscerally. Why, why, WHY does every “privacy first” system, platform, whatever, start with the presumption that some people should get your data and it’s just a matter of vetting the “good” groups from the “bad” groups. No. That isn’t privacy. No one should get my data. And it’s ridiculous that all of these companies try to position their data grabbing project…
> start with the presumption that some people should get your data
Some people do want others to have their data.
Dropbox is a great example of a successful business that is built on the idea of sharing data.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#67Whoever wrote this piece is way too close to... whatever it is Mozilla is doing here. There seems to be an assumption that users will be gleeful to throw their data at legitimate researchers from legitimate institutions doing legitimate work. What "data"? Browsing history? Identity? Something else? Why? What's in it for them? Since when was giving our data to third parties a good idea? There is literally no motivatio…
Mozilla strikes me as an organisation with too many resources for its own good. They keep pursuing these random side gigs with limited unifying theme other than an excuse to spend money.
Additional reminder that Mozilla just recently had to go through a round of layoffs.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#68Whoever wrote this piece is way too close to... whatever it is Mozilla is doing here. There seems to be an assumption that users will be gleeful to throw their data at legitimate researchers from legitimate institutions doing legitimate work. What "data"? Browsing history? Identity? Something else? Why? What's in it for them? Since when was giving our data to third parties a good idea? There is literally no motivatio…
> Whoever wrote this piece is way too close to... whatever it is Mozilla is doing here.
It does appear that this piece was written by Mozilla, themselves… on their own blog.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#69Whoever wrote this piece is way too close to... whatever it is Mozilla is doing here. There seems to be an assumption that users will be gleeful to throw their data at legitimate researchers from legitimate institutions doing legitimate work. What "data"? Browsing history? Identity? Something else? Why? What's in it for them? Since when was giving our data to third parties a good idea? There is literally no motivatio…
Princeton research collaborator here. Glad to answer questions about Rally. > What "data"? Browsing history? Identity? Something else? That depends on the Rally study, since research questions differ and studies are required to practice data minimization. Each study is opt in, with both short-form and long-form explanations. Academic studies also involve IRB-approved informed consent. Take a look at our launch study…
Personally I don't think that researchers have any more business doing this kind of surveillance than Google and company do.
The idea that this will benefit society seems naive to me. I feel like it will only serve to legitimize the practice by putting ostensibly trustworthy faces on the packaging.
Re: Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is a luxury many researchers that work outside of these big tech companies don't have, which creates a scientific power imbalance. The power imbalance goes far beyond science. Independent research is foundational for platform accountability. An example: when I was working on the Senate staff, before I started teaching at Princeton, a recurring challenge was the lack of rigorous independent research on platform…
I’m curious as to your take on independent scholarship, outside of the domain of academia? Would appropriately rigorous independent scholarship be considered as a trustworthy source within your sphere?
> Would appropriately rigorous independent scholarship be considered as a trustworthy source within your sphere?
Definitely. Academia doesn't have a monopoly on excellent technology and society research. The Markup's data-driven investigative journalism, for example, is outstanding.