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Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

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Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#101

Post by Shivetya »

edmundsauto wrote: post #91
shadowgovt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people are profoundly bad at understanding how modern online advertising works and the companies profiting from it have done a notably bad job of consumer education. The most common behavior people observe that makes them think companies are selling their data is when they visit some site P that sells widget p and then on completely unrelated site Q they start seeing ads for p. The obvious conclusion to draw…

There is also an element of people (esp. on this forum) who strongly dislike big tech companies, and want to use inflammatory language to strengthen their point.

well politicians certainly can make hay of it, in fact they seem to be the biggest spreaders of misinformation. most don't get called out on it because of either that it sounds good or because people who could aren't in positions to be heard.

throw these companies have lots of money to pay fines, suits, and campaign donations with, and the outcome is decided

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#102

Post by shadowgovt »

skybrian wrote: post #94
shadowgovt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. The better analogy is the salesman asking the bartender that when someone orders X drink, give them Y drink also for free. The salesman never actually gets to find out what customers got Y, though they can learn how many Y were given away and thereby get some secondary signal on how popular X is (and, of course, if individual bar patrons walk directly out of the bar and say "Hey, can I buy more Y?" the sales…

It's too simple to say they don't learn anything. If you actually click on the ad, advertisers sometimes gain some information (based on IP address, third-party cookies, and maybe browser fingerprinting) Sometimes they might get some information just by running the ad via analytics. It's a bit murky whether the amounts to being able to identify you. It's not clear how much advertisers care about identifying people wh…

You're absolutely correct. That's what I was trying to capture in the parenthetical; clicking on an ad is like wandering directly out of the bar and straight into the salesman's shop.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#103

Post by mnm1 »

> Google and Facebook want a federal privacy law, as long as it doesn’t disrupt their data collection and advertising empires, critics say.

Impossible. That sentence literally contradicts itself. The real question is why we allow companies to be non profit, yet be shills for the like of Google and Facebook while pretending they are doing a public service. A company cannot be fully focused on privacy and take money from Google, fb, etc. Even Mozilla can't fully pull that off although they come pretty close.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#104

Post by Lendal »

FillardMillmore wrote: post #2

This article accentuates the need to always look for the source of the funding when it comes to non-profits, think tanks, and "public interest" groups. Unfortunately, the goals of these groups are not always as transparent as their names would have you believe.

Even if they performed as advertised, it's not the only problem from this pattern. The bigger issue is how in our society giving away money somehow magically washes away all the harm done.

Here's the pattern: "First, do some harm. Reap gains from it. Then atone, and reap power from the atonement."

Anand Giridharadas has this all down. Best book you can read right now if you're interested in this topic.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#105

Post by brtt »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58
cj wrote: post #8

This quote from the article highlights the problem at hand: > Organizations like the Center for Democracy and Technology, which received at least $960,000 from [Google and Facebook] in 2018, are often quoted in the media as unbiased third parties and influence how policy is developed in Washington as such, despite receiving the tech company funding. > The group supports allowing tech giants to sell user data to third…

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't align with facts. Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. The biggest companies who actually do that are the ISPs, but that doesn't really fit the same narrative, and I doubt they donate a lot to privacy groups. The reason a lot of privacy groups don't try to restrict selling user data is a comb…

Ehhh, the 'collect it to use internally' is a bit inaccurate. While not literally saying 'here buyer is user data that we are offering to sell you' Facebook, Google, and every other platform do sell user-derived data to advertisers in the form of native audiences or other targeting products. 'Oh you want to to serve ads to individuals that shop at Uniqlo? Here's a list of profiles to target that have checked into a Uniqlo three times in the past 6 weeks'. 'New-Parents? here are inds that have dwelled on babies-r-us (I have no idea if they still exist) or clicked to learn more about a stroller ad that was served in their Instagram feed'.

It's not 'here's all the activity data about Anthony Mouse', and user data is collected internally, but it is also baked into targeting products that they sell to brands and agencies.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#106

Post by tick_tock_tick »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #83
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't align with facts. Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. The biggest companies who actually do that are the ISPs, but that doesn't really fit the same narrative, and I doubt they donate a lot to privacy groups. The reason a lot of privacy groups don't try to restrict selling user data is a comb…

>Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. Why do so many people think that these companies sell your data?

The news straight up tells them they do and never corrects itself.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#107

Post by sounds »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #76
Someone1234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that most of that profit comes from third parties who they're effectively selling data access to (e.g. ads where the profit is from Google's ability to know which ads to put in front of which users, effectively selling that user's privacy for profit). Pointing out th…

I don't agree that just because 3rd parties are where google profits, means that they are buying the data. If I ran a newsletter, "selling data" would be me giving a 3rd party my mailing list. Profiting from the data would be me "selling eyeballs" from my list. That is effectively what Google and Facebook do. They are in the eyeball selling industry, not email selling.

No, a newspaper doesn't sell eyeballs.

They create a medium the advertisers want to advertise into.

They "own the eyeballs," as it were. They create the newspaper that people read.

Google does not own the eyeballs, they are an aggregator but they loudly point out that users could switch. Let's acknowledge that users are not likely to switch away from Google websites, Android, etc. but it's as if Google snatched the newspaper and stuck advertising stickers all over it just before you read it in the morning.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#108

Post by rixed »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #83
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't align with facts. Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. The biggest companies who actually do that are the ISPs, but that doesn't really fit the same narrative, and I doubt they donate a lot to privacy groups. The reason a lot of privacy groups don't try to restrict selling user data is a comb…

>Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. Why do so many people think that these companies sell your data?

Because that's what their competitors in the ad market, namely the press, want them to believe.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#109

Post by sounds »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85
Someone1234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that most of that profit comes from third parties who they're effectively selling data access to (e.g. ads where the profit is from Google's ability to know which ads to put in front of which users, effectively selling that user's privacy for profit). Pointing out th…

> So the facts are wrong because rather than selling the data directly they only exploit it themselves for profit? That only holds while ignoring the fact that most of that profit comes from third parties who they're effectively selling data access to (e.g. ads where the profit is from Google's ability to know which ads to put in front of which users, effectively selling that user's privacy for profit). When the argu…

> When the argument is that the privacy groups have a perverse interest in opposing a specific rule because of donations from tech companies, it seems pretty relevant that the tech companies already aren't actually violating that rule.

You conveniently left out one of the two companies, and I wonder why you omitted that Facebook has actually been convicted of violating the rule.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/12/05/facebook-emai...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/mark-zuckerberg-le...

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/faceb...

(There are more sources.)

> But that isn't what they're talking about. They're talking about laws against selling user data, which the ISPs are doing (so there is a strong lobby against passing a law to prohibit it), but the tech companies generally aren't.

Yes, Facebook totally got caught selling user data.

> To prohibit what the tech companies are doing you would basically need a law against collecting user data, or something much more invasive and specific about what it could be used for than "don't sell it", and that's a whole different debate. Because then you run into problems like entrenching the incumbents by creating a complex regulatory environment that only huge tech companies can navigate. Which is why opponents try to tar them with "selling user data" instead, which is a lot easier to define and be opposed to, even though they aren't actually doing that.

Such as... GDPR?

> Political realities exist even when they're complicated and inconvenient. Mocking them doesn't make them go away.

Totally agree.

> The term originally dates from a time when "interviews" were a thing that happened after you actually agreed to be interviewed. Now the debate happens live on the internet and trolls get to ask their loaded questions in front of the public with the implication that you're guilty if you don't respond.

What's your source?

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#110

Post by brtt »

shadowgovt wrote: post #87
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. Why do so many people think that these companies sell your data?

Because people are profoundly bad at understanding how modern online advertising works and the companies profiting from it have done a notably bad job of consumer education. The most common behavior people observe that makes them think companies are selling their data is when they visit some site P that sells widget p and then on completely unrelated site Q they start seeing ads for p. The obvious conclusion to draw…

Just bc data doesn't leave the platform doesn't mean they are not selling products with it baked in. Maybe it's semantics, but if you buy an audience to target based on data that FB is capturing, you are buying user data.
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