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Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

theregister.com

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Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#11
post #3

How the fuck is that even remotely legal? ... "deidentified" my ass.

Ah, but Google promised to remove PII they found in this deidentified dataset, so worry not. > If you’ve flown Spirit and worry that Google will soon know about a testy conversation you had with the airline’s call center, you’re being told not to worry. The court filing says the data was deidentified before being put on sale and Google has promised to scrub any PII it finds in the trove.

I basically agree, but I'd also say: Every Gmail user has already accepted such a promise as sufficient.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but Google promised to remove PII they found in this deidentified dataset, so worry not. > If you’ve flown Spirit and worry that Google will soon know about a testy conversation you had with the airline’s call center, you’re being told not to worry. The court filing says the data was deidentified before being put on sale and Google has promised to scrub any PII it finds in the trove.

I basically agree, but I'd also say: Every Gmail user has already accepted such a promise as sufficient.

[deleted]

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#14
post #3

How the fuck is that even remotely legal? ... "deidentified" my ass.

You know when we (they) tell you not to do any personal computing on work devices/systems and to keep your devices completely separate from work ones.

Yeah this (and lawsuits/investigations) are why, the employer owns the data, in some contexts (like this one) it can become an asset (or a liability) but in either case it's not yours.

Of course that only gets you part of the way there anyway see Twitch recently opting in all users by default to mined for AI and only adding an opt out after backlash with a quote that was so on the nose it made me stop "If we'd have asked them to opt in, they wouldn't have opted in" (paraphrasing but it was that blunt).

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#17
> 600,000 ServiceNow tickets are another element of the collection, along with 13.7 million active emails addresses from Oracle’s Responsys marketing application, and details of 11 million sales of in-flight Wi-Fi services.

I really doubt all this stuff was “de-identified”

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#19
About twenty years ago, I was taking a flight back from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the US. In the middle of the night the pilot got on the loudspeaker and said "hi! Having some engine trouble, so we are landing in Manaus."

Manaus is in the middle of the Amazon.

Needless to say, a bit scary to hear that, but we landed without issue.

They told us we had two choices: the nice hotel with a shared room, or the lesser nice hotel with no roommate. I chose the latter. When we go there, they said, "oops, sorry, short on rooms!" So I had a roommate.

Wandered around Manaus, took a skiff out on the Rio Negro. Saw pink river dolphins. A little boat approached us and a kid handed me a sloth, and then demanded I return it with a twenty dollar bill.

The airline got us another plane 24 hours later. Made it back to the US safely.

A few weeks later, the airline reached out and said "Here is $100 for your trouble."

I declined to take that offer. I had missed several business meetings that cost me actual money. I couldn't donate blood for years because I had been to the Amazon and was tagged a malaria risk.

During the many arguments with the airline I threatened to take them to small claims court.

I got a really strange response over email which I clearly wasn't supposed to see. A representative from that airline was asking internally if they could put me on the no-fly list. That was really chilling.

But, this is the kind of information I'm worried about when a vendor sells my data. If Google wanted to sell a product to the airlines that offered to keep annoying people like me from purchasing flights, they could do that with that email chain. I'm skeptical it'll be wiped correctly. Isn't my poor writing style basically my signature? How do you wipe that?

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#20
post #18

Anyone else somewhat weirded by current state of affairs that this sort of information is valuable enough to even bother selling... And that it actually happens... It feels like some societies are in really weird place.

I am very much weirder out by it, yeah. Seems some societies are just excessively desperate for some kind, any kind, of fuel for economic growth, to the point this is where attention is now. The term "post capitalism" being thrown around feels less ridiculous than it did in years gone past.
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