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Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

qz.com

101–110 of 263 posts

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#101
post #49

Tbh if you are concerned about the privacy and ethics concerns here the biggest red flag is in the subtitle: Meta's Twitter rival launched in over 100 countries today—but not in the EU Anything more is simply detail - if a major launch of this sort of service omits the EU we immediately know exactly why.

Not sure I buy this. Some of the EU stuff is good, I think a lot of it goes to far and it's a terrible nightmare to navigate now, never mind in a decade when we're all using software that doesn't exist yet.

[deleted]

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#102

If your problem is with the ownership of Twitter, I don’t understand why you would run from the arms of one wannabe cage-fighter into another’s. If your problem is with ethics, FB isn’t a beacon of good behavior. If your problem is getting rate-limited or losing your blue checkmark, I guess go wild, but you probably already loved Twitter too much to leave.

I expect that Meta will filter out a lot more antivax, nazi, MAGA, and racist drivel that I don't want to see which is readily available just about anytime I read the comment on just about any news story.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#103
post #60
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I buy this. Some of the EU stuff is good, I think a lot of it goes to far and it's a terrible nightmare to navigate now, never mind in a decade when we're all using software that doesn't exist yet.

If anything, the GDPRs wording of "legitimate interest" makes it too weak, where corporations can justify every use of data that makes them money as legitimate until a court stops them, as happened to Facebook very recently over ad microtargeting.

I think GDPR is pretty clear there.

That companies like Facebook push fancy theories of what is and isn't legitimate interest is not the fault of the law. People will always try to push the limits to see what they can get away with, esp. when there is money to be made. That doesn't mean it will fly - like Facebook has just discovered (and others before them).

Law cannot enumerate every single possible existing and future use case. It outlines the intent - and if there is a grey area somewhere, it will be ultimately tested and decided in court.

That's how it has always worked.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#104

Tbh if you are concerned about the privacy and ethics concerns here the biggest red flag is in the subtitle: Meta's Twitter rival launched in over 100 countries today—but not in the EU Anything more is simply detail - if a major launch of this sort of service omits the EU we immediately know exactly why.

why are you going so far though?

it's right there: "Meta"

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#105
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say specifically what goes too far? I don't find it onerous or unreasonable at all, but my business model doesn't improve by violating it either.

How do you know you aren’t violating it? Even with the best of intentions, these laws can be labyrinthian and ambiguous, and therefore expensive to (try to) observe. And there is still always the risk that you are found guilty of something. For a small or medium business, you are likely to be far enough out of the radar to avoid issues. But as a large company you may easily end up in legal crosshairs, costing million…

Whilst this is all true, I'm not sure what's specific to EU privacy law here.

Any modern western jurisdiction has practically indecipherable layers of legal complexity affecting nearly every facet of life.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#106
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right to be forgotten has some really nasty edge csaes.

Can you elaborate a full argument here? Or link somewhere that does?

politicians and other shady individuals know how to use this to their advantage

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#107

I must be missing something obvious here. Allegedly Threads has launched to the public by now, which is how all these revelations are being uncovered. But threads.net still points to a generic landing page with a QR code, no obvious way to create an account, sign in, etc. How am I even supposed to access this?

It's app-only for now, no web version

The web version works as read only e.g. https://www.threads.net/@crumbler

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#108
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say specifically what goes too far? I don't find it onerous or unreasonable at all, but my business model doesn't improve by violating it either.

> Can you say specifically what goes too far? Twenty-eight independent data regulators on a complain-investigate model. I’ve seen folks bury early-stage competitors with regulatory inundation as an effective, if unethical, strategy. Zero chance Musk wouldn’t have armadas of randos complaining raining in on Threads.

For EU-based business: The DPA of your country is responsible for you.

For non-EU-based business: Appoint a representative in the EU. The DPA of that representative's country is responsible for you.

So where do the other 20+ DPAs come in? They might be responsible for your customers - in which case, they'll contact your DPA and sort it out among themselves. You still won't have to become an expert in the nuances of Bulgarian, Swedish and Portuguese privacy law.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#109
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say specifically what goes too far? I don't find it onerous or unreasonable at all, but my business model doesn't improve by violating it either.

How do you know you aren’t violating it? Even with the best of intentions, these laws can be labyrinthian and ambiguous, and therefore expensive to (try to) observe. And there is still always the risk that you are found guilty of something. For a small or medium business, you are likely to be far enough out of the radar to avoid issues. But as a large company you may easily end up in legal crosshairs, costing million…

People keep saying this and yet it’s never happened despite the GDPR being in place for 5 years now.

As a tech manager for an EU company, I can honestly say that it isn’t that hard to be GDPR compliant.

Even when I worked for a company that did need to collect customer information, we pretty well understood what we could and couldn’t do under GDPR.

This whole “GDPR is dangerous” meme needs to die because businesses aren’t being dragged in court over trivial things because of it. The only people moaning are those who were abusing peoples data to begin with. And those are exactly the types of companies this law is protecting people from.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#110
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say specifically what goes too far? I don't find it onerous or unreasonable at all, but my business model doesn't improve by violating it either.

> Can you say specifically what goes too far? Twenty-eight independent data regulators on a complain-investigate model. I’ve seen folks bury early-stage competitors with regulatory inundation as an effective, if unethical, strategy. Zero chance Musk wouldn’t have armadas of randos complaining raining in on Threads.

> Zero chance Musk wouldn’t have armadas of randos complaining raining in on Threads.

Note that Musk has zero need to tell anyone to do this. Some fans will do so on their own initiative and that will suffice.

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