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The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

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Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#71

Post by amelius »

jgeada wrote: post #40

There is an easy way to fix this: make the companies collecting the data be criminally liable for any misuse or leaks of this data. Something with teeth, such x% of total revenue, not our current “sorry, we leaked your data, tough for you” If this data is so important it should be treated with the same care & auditing that their income stream gets.

Two other potentially effective punishments:

1. Removal of all crowd-sourced data from their systems. Let's see if users will want to come back if there are zero network effects. Maybe sad for the users, but I'd feel safer if data-leak==data-removal.

2. Forced modification of their trademarked logos for some period of time. This will warn people to stay away from the company and their products. (Trademarks are all about trust, so this seems fair).

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#72

Post by nicechianti »

ThaDood wrote: post #10

I mean, I know its not practical for everyone or every application - that being said I have made it my highest priority to go out of my way to not use services or products that require apps to be installed. Obviously I make exceptions for stuff I deem "required" but for coffee chains, fast food restaurants, grocery stores and other services if they need an "app" for me to use it. I just won't use it. Or I will go out…

[dead]

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#73

Post by dylan604 »

ThaDood wrote: post #10

I mean, I know its not practical for everyone or every application - that being said I have made it my highest priority to go out of my way to not use services or products that require apps to be installed. Obviously I make exceptions for stuff I deem "required" but for coffee chains, fast food restaurants, grocery stores and other services if they need an "app" for me to use it. I just won't use it. Or I will go out…

I've been this way since the first murmurings about Angry Birds. That was the first time the concept of apps doing things other than the obvious was brought to my mind. After that, some researching shows that this behavior was the norm and not the exception. So, my phone is pretty much boring, and also helps justify why I'm not a continual device upgrader.

You and I seem to be in a very small minority though

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#74

Post by mildchalupa »

voidpepe wrote: post #15
bobim wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

Insurance companies get these information from more direct sources. For example how you drive your car is sourced straight from the car manufacturers. And they pay big time for it. I can confirm this at least for one large automotive company that I cannot mention because of legal reasons, but they were founded by one infamous failed artist.

VW

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#75

Post by dylan604 »

javajosh wrote: post #67
kibwen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the concept of legal tender doesn't mean that you can use the law to force a business to accept dollar bills. If you want to trade your black lotus for my foil charizard, I can't refuse to trade and then sue you to pay you in cash instead. Rather, AIUI, the "debt" referred to there refers to legal debts, so e.g. if my dog gets into your chicken coop and you sue me for damages, you can only ask for an amount in…

IANAL, and I don't think the GP's argument is valid, but his goal is valid: retail businesses should not discriminate against people without phones or credit cards. There are lots of them, and it could be you at some point. There are lots of good articles about accessibility and how we all get old, etc. That same argument applies here: you may be well off, consider having a smartphone and several credit cards "normal…

Retail businesses that don't accept cash are also reducing their risk of being robbed. Prominently placed signs informing customers and criminals to the lack of cash on site means most criminals will go to the next place. It also helps keep the employees' sticky fingers from skimming the till.

I can see why some might be enticed.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#76

Post by Swizec »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #54
Swizec wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I avoid to click anything about cookies' authorisation, i.e. if a page present that kind of requests I immediately close the page itself. At the and, I verified that cookies are presente on browser's storage I have recently had to implement some of these banners. Here’s what I learned: click reject . The way America’s version of the cookie banner law (not sure about EU) works is that cookies are default allowed . T…

In Europe at least, the law doesn't forbid cookies or mandate banners. It's about tracking and informed consent. It turns out companies love tracking, massively use cookies for this, and chose obnoxious cookie banner dark patterns to request consent. But there is not such thing as a "cookie banner law".

> But there is not such thing as a "cookie banner law"

A law that leads to cookie banners -> cookie banner law. We all know exactly what I meant.

But yes on my personal site I solved the problem by not tracking visitors because there’s no need. General traffic numbers are good enough for me.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#77

Post by Spooky23 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #17
bobim wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

Bad drivers should pay more for car insurance.

What’s a bad driver?

This stuff isn’t exactly peer reviewed data, and insurance companies don’t publish the telematics data they produce or how they make decisions.

They are funny with how they evaluate certain things. If you have 3 accidents in a certain period, they’ll drop you regardless of fault because you’re unlucky. But they’ll also penalize you if brake heavily and avoid accidents.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#78

Post by dylan604 »

numpad0 wrote: post #29
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

I think we're all misunderstanding ad relevance. An ad that trick you into buying what you were not intending to is more effective than otherwise. An ad for a MacBook shown to someone dead set on buying one soon, is not effective, and only relevant in end-user perception, not in actuality. Many "irrelevant" ads are probably relevant from that perspective, just we all are not comfortable with the concept of an ad in e…

We should not be looking at this from the user's perspective. Relevance isn't meaning relevant to the user. They are relevant to the ads company.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#79

Post by mindslight »

jgeada wrote: post #40

There is an easy way to fix this: make the companies collecting the data be criminally liable for any misuse or leaks of this data. Something with teeth, such x% of total revenue, not our current “sorry, we leaked your data, tough for you” If this data is so important it should be treated with the same care & auditing that their income stream gets.

That's just beating around the bush hoping some tangential cost might make the fundamental problem moot. What's needed is a comprehensive privacy law that gives individuals legal power to prevent/audit/delete/restore companies' dossiers on us. Critically one that can't just be nullified through more boilerplate legalese "terms" that nobody reads. Something like a US port of the GDPR.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#80

Post by csydas »

thfuran wrote: post #58
23B1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you were right, but unfortunately 'regulations' always have carve-outs for the government itself, and they're one of the largest consumers of this data.

I work in medical software and I can tell you from first hand experience that regulations absolutely affect how companies gather and handle data. That regulations don't constrain what they don't regulate is sort of tautological. That's an argument against specific regulations, not against regulation. At any rate, it simply isn't true that all regulations have special carveouts for government.

i think the idea is less that the regulations aren’t followed, but more that the companies are maliciously compliant.

GDPR and the cookie banners are the perfect example. GDPR never says you need the gigantic banner, just that you cannot track without consent and it must be as easy to retract consent as it is to give it. somehow, this devolved into the cookie banners/walls, which are not required and in fact likely not compliant as very often there is no way to reject everything. i travel a lot in europe and asia and google is a clear example of a sort of malicious compliance. some countries in eu they show the reject all option easily. for others you have to log in and go through many settings pages. most other big companies are not much better or even worse.

that is the issue in my opinion. the goal of the privacy laws is very clear but the companies just do not care usually. i am very happy when a site truly respects my choice on their cookie/tracking consent banner, and even more so if they just don’t collect anything in the first place or ask for telemetry data instead of assuming it’s their right.

that is why i personally am not happy with the regulations from the US so far as they’re anaemic; the companies still treat your privacy and personal life’s details as if it’s their right to mine for data. until there is effectual law stopping all this and making such broad data collection something extremely rare and limited, nothing will change. and with how much of this data governments are buying, i’m not holding my breath that it’s going to get better.

until then i guess we need to continue to teach people that the technology they buy and use often is actively hostile towards the users in favor of giving the companies more personal data.

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