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Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

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Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#201

Post by emodendroket »

taeric wrote: post #195
emodendroket wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really see what’s different, honestly. They’re moving it from one system they control to another, big deal. Plus who says I even saw the original e-mail?

If they have given a side channel to impact my calendar, that will cause issues. Sure, for many folks this will be fine. But it seems an unnecessary denial of service attack vector that needs more engineering to protect than makes sense.

I would guess in the many years they've had this they've had to iron out some issues, but allowing you to receive e-mail at all is a denial of service attack vector.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#202

Post by jareklupinski »

poidos wrote: post #34

It gets grosser by the day. This is something that is endemic not just to ad-tech companies, but regular brick and mortar stores as well: it isn't enough to just be consuming, to actually be producing value for the business: they must monetize as many seconds of our attention as possible! If I'm buying gas, I'm being served ads via the little screen. If I'm at the grocery store, there's ads plastered onto my cart. Bu…

"We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPE85Jogjw

i guess 81% is the end :P

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#203

Post by quickthrowman »

dang wrote: post #196
quickthrowman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On behalf all the non-millionaires out there, Fuck You. Money took away your ethics and morals and broke your brain. A right to privacy should be something we strive for, not maximizing profit by spying on people. We do not have a free market in the US either.

Please don't do this on HN. I don't want to ban you and we can't have this kind of thing here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Noted, you can [dead] my post if you haven’t already. I’ll refrain from personal attacks in the future.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#204

Post by dang »

quickthrowman wrote: post #203
dang wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't do this on HN. I don't want to ban you and we can't have this kind of thing here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Noted, you can [dead] my post if you haven’t already. I’ll refrain from personal attacks in the future.

Appreciated!

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#205

Post by taeric »

emodendroket wrote: post #201
taeric wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they have given a side channel to impact my calendar, that will cause issues. Sure, for many folks this will be fine. But it seems an unnecessary denial of service attack vector that needs more engineering to protect than makes sense.

I would guess in the many years they've had this they've had to iron out some issues, but allowing you to receive e-mail at all is a denial of service attack vector.

True. But it is only a denial of your email service. Allowing it to leak over to other services is not good.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#206

Post by o8r3oFTZPE »

p_j_w wrote: post #183
o8r3oFTZPE wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Gmail, it used to be common to have an email account through one's ISP. No need for Google. IIRC, when Zuckerberg was testifying before Congress, one senator said his terms of service "sucked". Was he wrong.

>Before Gmail, it used to be common to have an email account through one's ISP. No need for Google. I have internet at home through Spectrum, who offers email service. I don't use it, though, because the experience of ISP email, from my memory, was not good. Syncing up new devices with IMAP always took an annoyingly long time and my client would occasionally seem to forget that it had already got the headers for a me…

Never said "good old days". POP3 and IMAP were not part of the original design of email. The point of difference between then and now worth considering, IMO, is that the ISP's business plan was not personal data mining and online advertising services, it was internet service.

Perhaps it is a mistake to attribute improvements in syncing solely to the existence of a gigantic webmail service run by an online ad services company. There have been vast improvements in computers and networks since then.

What was arguably "good" about the "old days" was a relative absence of third party middlemen trying to make money from online advertising, and investing in surveillance as a "business model".

As for spam filtering, I agree. However I do not think "webmail" hosted by a third party is the final solution to the problems with email. The original SMTP-to-SMTP design used on a LAN overlay performs very well and attracts no spam, for example.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#207

Post by jamiequint »

mehlmao wrote: post #75
jamiequint wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not, and should not, have a right not to be tracked. You should have a right to know if a given company wants to track you, and to decide if you want to still do business with them as a result. Similarly, they should have the right to know if you are going to block/evade tracking and be able to decide if they still want to do business with you as a result. This is how a free market works.

Oh hey, the "growth consultant" thinks we shouldn't have privacy. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Better than being a self-important navel-gazing privacy nerd.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#208

Post by emodendroket »

taeric wrote: post #205
emodendroket wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess in the many years they've had this they've had to iron out some issues, but allowing you to receive e-mail at all is a denial of service attack vector.

True. But it is only a denial of your email service. Allowing it to leak over to other services is not good.

You could think of them as different facets of the same service, like Exchange.

Re: Even if you’re paying, you’re still the product

#209

Post by starky »

corpdrone2021 wrote: post #13

I realized this when Microsoft started reading the emails and attachments in my office 365 account, and having Cortana "helpfully" suggest various to-do items from them. The degree to which this seems to be the case has me convinced that the only way I will actually have any control of my data is if it's on a hard drive in my physical possession. And frankly I don't have time to maintain my own IT infrastructure.

It irritates me to no end how Microsoft keeps updating their programs to make them be "helpful". I literally NEVER want their suggestions, I just want their programs to get out of my fucking way so I can do my work.
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