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Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

digital-lab.consumerreports.org

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Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#11

Post by kerkeslager »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #4
m463 wrote: post #2

I stopped using consumer reports online because they LOST their independence. Their website connected very intimately with the sales channels and they made their money from referrals. This reminds me of apple touting privacy, while simultaneously tracking all your activity with little or no recourse.

It’s like how VPN providers say to use them to protect yourself from your ISP. Don’t get me wrong, Comcast has its many many issues, but I still trust them more than I would most VPNs. I guess it’s easier to create anonymity with VPNs, but still, most people just think they have a VPN so they’re good.

The word "trust" is pretty meaningless in a void--if you can't answer "trust to do what?" I think you're missing some nuance to the concept.

For example, I trust my parents to do what they think is best for me, because I have decades of experience showing that is genuinely their goal. But would I trust my father to perform open-heart surgery on me? Absolutely not! The man doesn't have a medical degree of any kind.

With corporations, my trust is largely based on their incentives.

I trust Comcast not to sell my credit card data to Nigerian scammers, because they're clearly making more money by being a cable provider than they would by being a credit card data darknet wholesaler, and selling my credit card data to Nigerian scammers would put their more profitable business at risk.

VPNs... might sell my credit card data to Nigerian scammers, because their profit margins aren't as high and their reputations are already not great.

I don't trust Comcast not to report my metadata to the NSA or to reject MPAA requests for torrent data, because they already did both those things and have incentives to continue.

I trust VPNs to request MPAA requests for torrent data, because as soon as that became known it would hurt their business model. I don't trust VPNs not to report my metadata to the NSA because acting as a honey trap for the NSA could be pretty profitable and probably wouldn't become public, so it wouldn't hurt their business model.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#12

Post by kmoser »

bradknowles wrote: post #6

The landing page tells me nothing useful about this app. So, I'm not inclined to trust it at all, because anyone can claim they are "Powered by Consumer Reports", and without any evidence to back that up, it's just an empty claim. Can someone please explain to me why I'm wrong?

For that matter, could this have been done as a website rather than a mobile app?

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#13

Post by 1123581321 »

bradknowles wrote: post #6

The landing page tells me nothing useful about this app. So, I'm not inclined to trust it at all, because anyone can claim they are "Powered by Consumer Reports", and without any evidence to back that up, it's just an empty claim. Can someone please explain to me why I'm wrong?

Besides the press/announcement post, if you opened the App Store link you’d have seen the publisher is Consumer Reports, with one of the other apps being the official CR app.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#14

Post by bradknowles »

bradknowles wrote: post #9
tony101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refer to https://digital-lab.consumerreports.org/2022/11/16/introduci...

Okay. That link explains a little bit. Enough that I'd be willing to check it out now, in comparison to other tools like DeleteMe. But it would have been nice to see that same information on the landing page for the software. Or at least have that link included in the original post here on HN.

Well that was a fast fail. I decided to try to have them request that Home Depot stop selling my data, and then the program seems to have hung on a blank page.

I hope the problem is that their servers are overloaded due to "HN Hug-o-Death", and not something else.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#15

Post by bradknowles »

kmoser wrote: post #12
bradknowles wrote: post #6

The landing page tells me nothing useful about this app. So, I'm not inclined to trust it at all, because anyone can claim they are "Powered by Consumer Reports", and without any evidence to back that up, it's just an empty claim. Can someone please explain to me why I'm wrong?

For that matter, could this have been done as a website rather than a mobile app?

Agreed. A web site would have been a much better solution that would have better served their members.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#16

Post by KyeRussell »

bradknowles wrote: post #6

The landing page tells me nothing useful about this app. So, I'm not inclined to trust it at all, because anyone can claim they are "Powered by Consumer Reports", and without any evidence to back that up, it's just an empty claim. Can someone please explain to me why I'm wrong?

What do you see as the ideal response to your comment?

Do you feel that what you’ve said has been in service of soliciting that response?

I looked at the website for this app and got an idea of what it’s meant to do. I don’t think I’m particularly smart and found this to be along the lines of any other SaaS app marketing site.

If your gripe is that “anyone can claim that they’re powered by consumer reports”, are you also the sort of person to verify the claim yourself instead of outsourcing that to Hacker News? As made evident by another replier, more information was easily findable.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#17

Post by KyeRussell »

bcherny wrote: post #3

Downloaded! Funny, I suggested building an app exactly like this a month ago. In unusual HN fashion, I was immediately shot down as “that would never work” [1]. I feel vindicated that Consumer Reports built this :p. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34194778

“YC et al would never fund this! You’d barely even become a billionaire.” Is how I read those responses when they come from Hacker News.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#18

Post by KyeRussell »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #4
m463 wrote: post #2

I stopped using consumer reports online because they LOST their independence. Their website connected very intimately with the sales channels and they made their money from referrals. This reminds me of apple touting privacy, while simultaneously tracking all your activity with little or no recourse.

It’s like how VPN providers say to use them to protect yourself from your ISP. Don’t get me wrong, Comcast has its many many issues, but I still trust them more than I would most VPNs. I guess it’s easier to create anonymity with VPNs, but still, most people just think they have a VPN so they’re good.

This particular situation feels sufficiently far from the original point that I’d say it isn’t that fair a comparison.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#19

Post by bradknowles »

1123581321 wrote: post #13
bradknowles wrote: post #6

The landing page tells me nothing useful about this app. So, I'm not inclined to trust it at all, because anyone can claim they are "Powered by Consumer Reports", and without any evidence to back that up, it's just an empty claim. Can someone please explain to me why I'm wrong?

Besides the press/announcement post, if you opened the App Store link you’d have seen the publisher is Consumer Reports, with one of the other apps being the official CR app.

If they're going to have a web landing page at all, then it needs to tell you more than just giving you a link to the App Store and nothing else. At that point, it's just a pure waste of time. They shouldn't have bothered to build a web page at all, if that's what they were going to do with it.

Re: Permission Slip: App to take back control of your data

#20

Post by bradknowles »

KyeRussell wrote: post #16
bradknowles wrote: post #6

The landing page tells me nothing useful about this app. So, I'm not inclined to trust it at all, because anyone can claim they are "Powered by Consumer Reports", and without any evidence to back that up, it's just an empty claim. Can someone please explain to me why I'm wrong?

What do you see as the ideal response to your comment? Do you feel that what you’ve said has been in service of soliciting that response? I looked at the website for this app and got an idea of what it’s meant to do. I don’t think I’m particularly smart and found this to be along the lines of any other SaaS app marketing site. If your gripe is that “anyone can claim that they’re powered by consumer reports”, are you…

The link that was provided to the CR press release was a suitable response. That was enough to tell me that this thing probably actually is associated with CR, where I've been a member for over thirty years.

I still find it ironic that I learn about this thing here as opposed to official CR channels to their membership, but whatever.

Now, as it turns out, the product may well actually be associated with CR, but it's still a fail. At least for now, because they give me nothing beyond a blank page when I select the option to have them tell Home Depot not to sell my data.

I probably won't delete it yet, because I want to see where this product goes. And I want to see what it can do for me that DeleteMe (and other similar tools) cannot. But as of today, it's like the announcement of Twitter, and then getting nothing but a fail whale when I go there.

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