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Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

arstechnica.com

1–10 of 47 posts

Re: Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

#3
post #2

This was just the push I needed to delete my account. Now to find alternative paths to support the folks I like.

Same. This is a bad look for them, and a full attack against a major privacy law

…and done. You have to go to the privacy center and “make a privacy request” and it takes 14 days

Re: Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

#5
> But Patreon engineer Jason Byttow has said that complying with the VPPA's consent requirement imposes "unnecessary burdens" on Patreon by requiring "substantial engineering work" to build a new consent regime that would ultimately "degrade the user experience."

Our privacy is inconvenient for them.

Re: Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

#7
Sounds like Patreon are using knowledge of their members' subscriptions to then sell this 'viewing data' to third parties. Patreon aren't even first-party to which videos are 'watched', they're just a middle-man for payments from end-user to provider.

It doesn't feel like a huge stretch beyond all the other personal data point selling gross-ness going on between big-tech and advertising, but it makes it feel as if there's nowhere to hide from this scraping of layers off one's digital soul.

And it could hurt the providers of content. I'm not paying for anything if all the parties in the payment chain are attempting to extract more value from me (my data) than I'm attempting to pay to a provider. Sorry provider, there are no safe avenues.

Re: Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

#8

Wait, how is targeted advertising on YouTube compliant?

I think this is about sharing the viewing history with other peopl, whereas targetted advertising is you giving YT an ad, asking them to show it to people who watch X/Y/Z, and trusting they are doing that with your ad.

Re: Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

#9
post #2

This was just the push I needed to delete my account. Now to find alternative paths to support the folks I like.

Same. This is a bad look for them, and a full attack against a major privacy law …and done. You have to go to the privacy center and “make a privacy request” and it takes 14 days

> You have to go to the privacy center and “make a privacy request” and it takes 14 days

Yet another reason to leave them. Removing the ability to close the account from inside patreon and instead needing to allow an additional third-party to access my account is very user-hostile.

Re: Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

#10

> But Patreon engineer Jason Byttow has said that complying with the VPPA's consent requirement imposes "unnecessary burdens" on Patreon by requiring "substantial engineering work" to build a new consent regime that would ultimately "degrade the user experience." Our privacy is inconvenient for them.

Additionally, isn't the "Patreon user experience" merely "pay money to selected provider".

I'm admittedly mostly unfamiliar, but how is the user experience degraded? Are they attempting to classify not-as-targetted advertising as a degradation of user experience? If so, they'll never be speaking for me.

There are quite a few laws that are inconvenient to quite a few businesses, but usually those businesses know to say the quiet part quietly.

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