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84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

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Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#51

Post by mjhay »

zooq_ai wrote: post #27
Retric wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy grows or shrinks with productivity but advertising specifically is zero sum. Coke vs Pepsi makes a great deal of difference to those specific companies and little else. If anything it’s slightly negative due to inefficiency because the winner isn’t the best product.

[flagged]

You're ignoring the fact that a customer buying from a business incurs an opportunity cost from other things they could have spent money on (or invested). In addition, it merely shifts the money. If someone is thinking about getting Subway, but sees a McDonald's ad and goes there instead, that helps McDonald's but hurts Subway.

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#52

Post by repelsteeltje »

seydor wrote: post #28
repelsteeltje wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like flagship corporations have a horrible business model if employees are highly-payed to invade privacy. I'm sure, those companies have enough smart people to figure out some way to create high-paying jobs that do not rely on invasion of privacy. [Added] ...if only they were incentivized to do so

One could say that Norway's flagship corporation has a horrible business model. The Norwegians have never held a referendum whether they should stop drilling , but they are so environmentally conscious that it's not unlikely. Should Norway stop drilling and let its sovereign fund collapse (along with the value of many global companies where it invests)? Is there any State that is purely moral?

Wrt. privacy here at least, I don't think you need to be moral or ethical per se. It's more a matter of incentives: carrots and sticks. Regardless of what the rules are, corporations will react to them.

So if regulation simply maximizes the greatest good for the greatest number of people the rules will likely end up protecting privacy.

So what we see here is that some high paying jobs create a bunch of powerful groups that lobby to keep their current jobs, ie. against stronger regulation.

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#53

Post by codedokode »

linotype wrote: post #18
zooq_ai wrote: post #13

This is just another clueless populist article. The key to actually ask people "What are you willing to give up for X"? Are you ok being more annoyed with popups asking your permissions every time? Are you ok with a recession in Ad-based ecosystem (merchants, ad brokers, stock market depression, fewer IPOs) that may result due to this? Would you be OK with paying for services instead of an Ad model? (and before Virtu…

> Are you ok being more annoyed with popups asking your permissions every time? No, I’m really not. The EU regulation that caused every site to have a stupid cookie pop-up/banner has made the Web a significantly poorer experience.

Disagree, every time I use a EU proxy, I feel like a first-class citizen who has a privilege to opt-out. For comparison, other citizens only have the "agree" button.

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#54

Post by jfernandezr »

linotype wrote: post #18
zooq_ai wrote: post #13

This is just another clueless populist article. The key to actually ask people "What are you willing to give up for X"? Are you ok being more annoyed with popups asking your permissions every time? Are you ok with a recession in Ad-based ecosystem (merchants, ad brokers, stock market depression, fewer IPOs) that may result due to this? Would you be OK with paying for services instead of an Ad model? (and before Virtu…

> Are you ok being more annoyed with popups asking your permissions every time? No, I’m really not. The EU regulation that caused every site to have a stupid cookie pop-up/banner has made the Web a significantly poorer experience.

The cookies popup at least made aware to a lot of people that over 800 companies want to access your data if you visit a site.

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#55

Post by benterix »

eru wrote: post #41
seydor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could say that Norway's flagship corporation has a horrible business model. The Norwegians have never held a referendum whether they should stop drilling , but they are so environmentally conscious that it's not unlikely. Should Norway stop drilling and let its sovereign fund collapse (along with the value of many global companies where it invests)? Is there any State that is purely moral?

I see what you are trying to say, but I'm not quite sure why Norway's sovereign fund would collapse just because the Norwegians would stop adding more money to the fund? And why would the companies they invest in collapse? The companies in the S&P500 don't collapse, when I stop making regular new payments into my retirement fund.

I noticed this post was downvoted. Could anyone explain why? The fund is enormous so the question is pertinent.

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#56

Post by bilbo0s »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #34
soco wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a trickle-down style of argument? Or that corporations are holy? Or that they always have the job takers interests at heart? Or that the elected representatives are elected by the 16% who don't want stronger privacy laws? I'm confused.

I think the argument is that people say they care about privacy, but they really care about money. Online privacy laws will cost at least some people some money, and those people vote too. And their representatives know they vote.

I believe you're correct.

At the same time, we allowed the problem of economic harm to grow worse by not dealing decisively with the problem of online privacy from the outset. For this same reason, an argument could be made that ripping the bandaid off now would be less painful than in the future. (And I'm not blind to the amount of pain this would cause. I realize that what I'm advocating would decimate our own industry.)

Then on the other hand there's the argument, that has apparently found the most resonance, that letting online privacy whither on the vine is the logical way to go. Good or bad, these privacy invasions are funding a sizeable chunk of the economy. I can see people thinking it's nonsensical to get rid of 10% of the nation's jobs. Especially when it's the exact 10% of jobs likely to pay the most.

I'm a privacy advocate, so I fall on the "burn it down" side. But I do understand the other side of the argument. I just think right now, at about 10-12% of the economy, decimation of the tech industry is survivable. If we wait, it could be 20-30% of the economy, at that point, pro-privacy actions would effectively be completely off the table.

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#57

Post by Mistletoe »

glitchc wrote: post #7

The real truth is that strong privacy laws would cause economic harm to flagship corporations. That would have a ripple effect on the economy as those corporations are responsible for thousands of high-paying jobs. The elected representatives know that people care more about the economy (specifically what's in their wallets) than about privacy.

I think you are close but not quite. The real problem is that tech giants rule the SP500 now and Congress all have portfolios laced to the gills with stocks. My only hope is that eventually the rich realize they make more money betting on the market going down than up, the stock market does mean reversion, and we break up the obvious tech monopolies that are causing the dystopia we all find ourselves living in right now.

https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/s&p500-mean-re...

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#58

Post by latexr »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #42

On the one hand, it is a clear indication that citizen's wishes are ignored. On the other, US is supposed to be a republic and politicians are supposed to be smarter than to give in to the mob, who will always vote itself whatever it currently wants. The problem is that while 84% ( I am taking that number at face value for the time being ) say they want stronger privacy laws in aggregate, as individuals they differ o…

> On the other, US is supposed to be a republic and politicians are supposed to be smarter than to give in to the mob, who will always vote itself whatever it currently wants.

Just the other day I learned of the Sunshine Protection Act. From the first paragraph on Wikipedia¹:

> the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent, although several senators stated later that they would have objected if they had known that the bill could pass.

Maybe politicians are “supposed to be smarter”, but they’re not.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Protection_Act

Re: 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

#60

Post by scarface_74 »

seydor wrote: post #28
repelsteeltje wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like flagship corporations have a horrible business model if employees are highly-payed to invade privacy. I'm sure, those companies have enough smart people to figure out some way to create high-paying jobs that do not rely on invasion of privacy. [Added] ...if only they were incentivized to do so

One could say that Norway's flagship corporation has a horrible business model. The Norwegians have never held a referendum whether they should stop drilling , but they are so environmentally conscious that it's not unlikely. Should Norway stop drilling and let its sovereign fund collapse (along with the value of many global companies where it invests)? Is there any State that is purely moral?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
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