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Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

theregister.com

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Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#12

Post by dtech »

samizdis wrote: post #2

In hindsight, I find it hard not to feel complicit, having invited friends and family to Gmail back in the day when invites were a thing. I had actually believed Google's "don't be evil" line, when it launched what was a brilliant stripped-down search product. (And yes, I defected from AltaVista with the crowd. Oh, how I miss case-sensitive queries; how I miss all those relevant results.) I was far too gullible.

I'm not sure what we should've done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It's only in the past decade or so that they started to abuse their monopoly.

Putting the blame at government failing to enforce existing and create new anti-trust legislation seems much more sensible than blaming users picking the best products.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#14

Post by samizdis »

dtech wrote: post #12
samizdis wrote: post #2

In hindsight, I find it hard not to feel complicit, having invited friends and family to Gmail back in the day when invites were a thing. I had actually believed Google's "don't be evil" line, when it launched what was a brilliant stripped-down search product. (And yes, I defected from AltaVista with the crowd. Oh, how I miss case-sensitive queries; how I miss all those relevant results.) I was far too gullible.

I'm not sure what we should've done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It's only in the past decade or so that they started to abuse their monopoly. Putting the blame at government failing to enforce existing and create new anti-trust legislation seems much more sensible than blaming users picking the best products.

I'm having an ironic morning of it. I also posted [1] from The Register a piece about China's antitrust watchdog, which seems to be advocating for policies one can only envy. (What emerges in reality, though, is unlikely to live up to my optimism.)

If I were at The Register, I'd look for a way to combine that China news article with the Google opinion piece of this thread.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064865

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#18

Post by kaladin-jasnah »

dade_ wrote: post #15
swiley wrote: post #3

Do not use software that you cannot self host.

I found this rule more practical (and I hold to it): Do not rely on software you cannot self host or holds your data hostage in a proprietary format. Data export must be a supported feature.

Isn't data export a requirement for GDPR compliance? Many apps have this feature (exporting my data) and I usually take advantage of it.
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