Earlier quoted context omitted.
August, when I saw the changes. I have to admit I'm not babysitting all of our vendor's TOS so am glad these things get surfaced on HN.
It would be great if there was a tool that could compare TOS of many services and tell me what changed since the last version. Basically diff the two. There’s already tosdr.org but I’m not sure they have that feature.
How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
171–180 of 185 posts
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Like slapping Google on the wrist with a $125m fine. "oh no, an amount we can make back in about an hour, whatever shall we do!" If the specific misconduct they got caught for netted them $x, and they got fined for $5x, who cares how much % of their global revenue is? That specific crime was still a net negative for them. I'm not sure why conglomerates should be punished more harshly just because they have more reve…
I get where you're coming from, but corporations should be fined massively for bad behavior to act as a deterrent. Personally I think that C levels should automatically be disbarred if the corporation is found guilty of criminality as that puts responsibility on the people with the power to prevent it.
The issue that government has is that if they’re too harsh the companies move a lot of employment/operations out of their country.
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
The TOS has been updated to state the following: > Notwithstanding the above, Zoom will not use audio, video or chat Customer Content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent.
It's gone. They removed this part. https://www.diffchecker.com/RLiqgAaA/
Aaaand now it's back
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always wise to remember Hanlon's razor: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" Occam's razor also applies here.
Let's please not pretend like philosophical razors are anything other than rhetorical devices. There's exactly zero data to back any of them up and it wouldn't matter if there was since each case is unique. There is however research (that aligns with a lot of people's experience) to suggest psychopaths and sociopaths are very over represented in leadership: https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/babiak2010.pdf
I think as a rhetorical device it's good. Which is more likely:
1) Company has actively decided to burn all good will by being evil (we will use your private meeting content to train our ai without any way to opt out)
2) Company is dumb in their terms of service
The HN commenters tend to assume #1 when it comes to big companies, while more likely it's #2. The razors capture this situation well.
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked in technical support when techniques like that were de rigeur. Your average adult would be exponentially less likely to navigate that process successfully than a zoom invite. Sure, it's more simple from a technical perspective, but not even close to as simple from a user flow standpoint.
I notice in these comments it’s really hard to drive home User Experience and friction (sometimes!) and what seems easy to you (just an IP address!) is really like talking magic to your average user.
Those in HN even today continue to echo the famous Dropbox comment with gusto.
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#176Called it a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022827 It's baffling how many people in previous threads thought a company that gets most of its money from enterprise/business clients, will burn all their reputation by surreptitiously using client data to train their AI.
Always wise to remember Hanlon's razor: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" Occam's razor also applies here.
Never ascribe to a hasty overgeneralisation that which is adequately explainable by observation and evidence.
I think attributing everything to incompetence vastly underrepresents intent. Maybe not all bad acts are malice, but too many are attributed to incompetence. Maybe it is not malice, but it can still be intentional actions against or indifferent to your interests.
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually consider the act of doublespeak potentially insinuating ill intent. What you and what you say need to be consistent to preserve user trust and then being inconsistent shows mismanagement by senior leadership or even potentially intent to deceive or spin the situation while still implementing the policy. It’s the PR classic do one thing say another. Edit: Oh, and then this hits almost at the same time… http…
>I actually consider the act of doublespeak potentially insinuating ill intent I agree with this sentiment and it feels like a heuristic at this point. I think it comes from a decade of watching when corporate officers get caught red handed then try and denial of service the bad press with their jingoistic pablum.
> I agree with this sentiment and it feels like a heuristic at this point.
Well I might just take that heuristic and do some basic sentiment analysis to rank companies on their doublespeak.
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I actually consider the act of doublespeak potentially insinuating ill intent I agree with this sentiment and it feels like a heuristic at this point. I think it comes from a decade of watching when corporate officers get caught red handed then try and denial of service the bad press with their jingoistic pablum.
> I agree with this sentiment and it feels like a heuristic at this point. Well I might just take that heuristic and do some basic sentiment analysis to rank companies on their doublespeak.
If you do I’d love to see the results
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not compelled; you get to choose your employer. It's much the same as the issue that was raised a few days ago, where your employer instructs or expects you to lie. The only way they have to "force" you is to threaten dismissal; this is insufficient to justify the terms "compel" or "force". A police officer holding a Glock can compel you. Your boss cannot.
Resigning with a 3 months notice period would not fix the issue anyway. I would still have to use Zoom for that period. I had the same issue when my EU-based employer was sold to an US company. My personal data suddenly went from EU to US-based HR systems without my consent. Resigning would not have fixed anything. My personal data will be in the US forever.
You don't even need to resign - you just simply refuse to use Zoom.
Re: How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get where you're coming from, but corporations should be fined massively for bad behavior to act as a deterrent. Personally I think that C levels should automatically be disbarred if the corporation is found guilty of criminality as that puts responsibility on the people with the power to prevent it.
The issue that government has is that if they’re too harsh the companies move a lot of employment/operations out of their country.
Good. If you cannot afford the price of doing business illegally, close up shop or leave. And then you will be charged as foreign company when you try to sneak your way back into doing business in the country you left with the much more fun threat of being declared illegal and your products and/or services pulled from the market.
While you thought you presented an argument against hefty fines, you actually gave the perfect reason for why they should be hefty. If illegal practices are affordable, they're not illegal. They're just the price of doing business. So make them hurt.