Live data from Hacker News

A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

protocol.com

131–140 of 229 posts

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#131
post #69
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the vulgarity dilutes the weight of the message Actually vulgarity was invented (and has historically been used) to improve the weight of such messages. It works too: "Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception." [1] Can…

Vulgarity was is descended from the inappropriate use of existing sacred words. It evolved into a comparative tone device. But it was always a cheap trick (just like the magic words it corrupted). ... That report doesn't say what you want it to. "Honesty" is not necessarily reality. Someone who is moved to high expressiveness is plausibly sincere , but they are not necessarily rational, reasonable, or correct. Appeal…

>Vulgarity was is descended from the inappropriate use of existing sacred words. It evolved into a comparative tone device. But it was always a cheap trick (just like the magic words it corrupted).

No, that's a puritan misconception.

Not only is a powerful (and culturally significant) method (as opposed to some mere trick), it also has evolutionary and psysiological benefits.

Among tons of other things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoalgesic_effect_of_swearing

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#132
post #48

I used to be of the mind that ad tech et. al. weren’t really hurting anyone, and that the more extreme examples of privacy offenses were simple edge cases. That is until I switched to iOS and was given the option to hide my true email address, tell an app not to track me, and otherwise get visibility into just how much my data is getting sniffed for stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the service I’m using.

Well, good, but you traded one bad apple for another. Apple is in the process of locking down freedom. And while you might not be tracked by Google, your quality of life in a closed ecosystem is just as bad in other ways. How many people have to contend with iCloud endlessly begging for money because they took a few photos of their child? Isn't iCloud data backed up on Chinese servers? I'm pretty sure that means you'…

I don't think I've ever had iCloud "beg me for money". I've had it where iCloud tells me I am about to run out of space and should probably buy more, which seems reasonable.

iCloud data is backed up on Chinese servers? Without being E2EE to boot? Do you have a source on this?

If consumers seriously want easily repairable devices, it seems like such a phone would compete easily in the free market.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought their first iPad last week, I wonder the exact same thing. A nice cuddle from Apple telling me how they're protecting me from evil, but you hold all the same shit about me. So now I just trust a _different_ for profit company? Until when? At one stage Google wasn't evil, now it's evil as fuck.

Yes, Apple is a for profit company. On the side they are collecting your data for themselves and blocking others from getting it. Their profits come from products and services. Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others. Yes, I personally trust one over the other in this case. Although I don’t know what “for profit” has to do with a…

> Their profits come from selling your data to others

It is a common misconception that FB and Google sell user data.

E.g. see https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583

"Google has also played a leadership role in creating industry standards for transparency and data protection. More than a dozen privacy employees at Google spoke to WIRED about how they make sense of the paradox of their work, insisting that there’s no internal pressure to compromise privacy protections to make a larger profit." -Wired (https://www.wired.com/story/wired-guide-personal-data-collec...)

Google also sells a plethora of physical products (Pixel devices, Nest devices, etc.) and services (Storage[Drive], YouTube premium, Stadia, Nest, Fibit, etc.).

This would be similar to calling Amazon "just a [book]store or a marketplace", whereas they also have their hands in Cloud Computing, logistics, grocery, iot, etc.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care much about tracking, but this ad is very effective. It's kinda dishonest about what tracking is (it's not bunch of people making job and purchase decisions for you, come on). But effective.

No one made any decision for the main character. A shop employee recommended an anti itch cream. It looked like he asked her to. The others snooped and gave out his information.

And they also took all the space on the sofa, which is the primary reason why I ban tracking cookies. /s

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#135
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My tipping point was noticing that about 30% of my DNS traffic on my home network was Android devices calling out to tracking and advertising networks. Moving to iOS has dropped that dramatically, more than an order of magnitude. The fact that we're now seeing multiple lawsuits, PR campaigns, and lobbying to damage Apple since they put a requirement to disclose privacy details in the App Store shows how much surveill…

An alternative to giving your money to one of the largest tax-dodgers on the planet is a $30 raspberry pi with "pi-hole" installed. Browsing on my phone at home with all those ad networks blocked okay... until you go outside your home network and get all the ads again. It's almost made my stop using my phone outside of my home network.

Don’t worry, DoH will fix that pi hole loophole

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought their first iPad last week, I wonder the exact same thing. A nice cuddle from Apple telling me how they're protecting me from evil, but you hold all the same shit about me. So now I just trust a _different_ for profit company? Until when? At one stage Google wasn't evil, now it's evil as fuck.

Yes, Apple is a for profit company. On the side they are collecting your data for themselves and blocking others from getting it. Their profits come from products and services. Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others. Yes, I personally trust one over the other in this case. Although I don’t know what “for profit” has to do with a…

s/selling your data to others/selling access to you to others/

By collecting data about you, usually without you being consciously aware of it, they can offer access not just to a name/address but to a "profile". You are being profiled.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#137
>It was January 2020, and Google had just announced key details of its plan to increase privacy in its Chrome browser by getting rid of third-party cookies and essentially breaking the tools that businesses use to track people across the web.

Good one. Google doesn't care about privacy, it just wants to monopolize the tracking with FLOC.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#138
post #125
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users pick browsers and their OS. They don't pick the latest iteration of Bonsai Buddy.

For the average users there's only two choices, Windows or Mac, and Chrome-based or Firefox (or if they're on a Mac they get Safari as a 3rd choice).

The average user doesn't exist. It's an abstraction used by techies to make arguments they cannot defend.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought their first iPad last week, I wonder the exact same thing. A nice cuddle from Apple telling me how they're protecting me from evil, but you hold all the same shit about me. So now I just trust a _different_ for profit company? Until when? At one stage Google wasn't evil, now it's evil as fuck.

Yes, Apple is a for profit company. On the side they are collecting your data for themselves and blocking others from getting it. Their profits come from products and services. Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others. Yes, I personally trust one over the other in this case. Although I don’t know what “for profit” has to do with a…

> Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others.

Google does not sell the data to others. (In fact, much of Google's profits would remain intact even without any user data. That is the great thing about search ads -- the user tells you exactly what they want. There is no need to guess)

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#140

It's easy to mock the pettiness of all parties described here, and it's common for people on this forum to take absolutist stances with regards to privacy/advertising, but it's also important to recognize that these arguments will actually define the future of the internet for the average user. There are trillion dollar companies on both sides of the argument, and their eventual compromise will establish the defaults…

There aren't trillion dollar companies that advocate for privacy. Private data is a market, I think you know that with that username.

Increasing privacy doesn't decrease competition, it would force businesses to not deal with private data. There is no conflict here. There is no net loss here aside for specialized advertisers.

Post reply on HN