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Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

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Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#121

Post by rs23296008n1 »

Misdicorl wrote: post #109
mannykannot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your question intended to establish or imply that there is an error of fact in my previous post? It is not clear to me that there is any necessary relationship between the two.

The question is why the ISPs can't claim the same protections as The New York Times in selling this data. IOTW: is this a 'you know it when you see it' type of situation like pornography, or is there a real differentiator?

Privacy is a good one. I'd be fascinated to see how ISPs assert that publishing a news article is the same as selling/publishing all your search history or all your DNS history. And if it is your records why is it most peoples reaction is horror instead of happiness? Its because privacy has value. Which is why ISPs want to sell it.

Privacy isn't dead its just being sold as a commodity now. Without realistic permission and protection.

I'd go even further: the ISPs only have this data as a result of business dealing and such data is not expected to be shared. Sharing of my history is not necessary for providing me with internet. You want to allow accounting firms to share your financial records as well?

They are only doing it because there's profit. Not because its a necessary aspect for providing internet access. Sharing your accounting data is similar. Another example: what if you go for counselling with psychologist etc? Is that protected?

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#122

Post by Misdicorl »

rs23296008n1 wrote: post #118
Misdicorl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle the us government censoring newspapers, Wikipedia, etcetc if this is your demand?

I'm feeling verbose today. So. Demand is far too overstating it. And I'm not proposing or demanding it become law. There's a bunch of side-effects we might not like. But let's go with it anyway: Freedom of speech is different from freedom of the press. But both are linked because the amendment was written to allow for people to record their grievances to government via a free press. This is why free press was linked…

I'm ignoring the legalese to make a distinction between a human and non-human person.

Corporations were granted free speech in a couple famous supreme court cases (NYT v. Sullivan, NYT vs. U.S.) and is not tied to the more recent non-human 'person' law.

The relevant question in my mind is how to protect Wikipedia and the New York Times and The Red Cross and ... from censorship by the government. There are very many organizations which speak in ways that the government would prefer they wouldn't- not all of them are traditional press, but many are.

Your proposal would allow the government to censor them all as they no longer have that protected right.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#123

Post by mannykannot »

Misdicorl wrote: post #111
mannykannot wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a reasonable question in its own right, but it is not clear to me how the answer to the question would differ if the freedom of the press were based on the principle of corporations having (some of) the rights of individuals, rather than it being expressly, if vaguely, stated in the 1st. amendment. Ultimately, I think you will find that a great deal of law (and, much more broadly, ethics) comes down to 'I kno…

The original question is if you curtail the ISPs rights here, under what legal framework are you not curtailing the rights of NYT/Wikipedia/etc. Pornography in law is famous because it is one of the few 'I know it when I see it' situations. While certainly the law lacks the rigor we enjoy in technical fields, it is a rare circumstance where that is the legal basis of an opinion.

The original question is not intended to be considered as a rigorous argument, as its author made clear. My point of entry was to introduce a fact that answered your specific question, and as far as I can tell, it stands as such.

While the law, for obvious reasons, rarely uses 'I know it when I see it' justifications, I suspect that that is what most ethical principles ultimately depend on, and to the extent that the law tries to be ethical, the same goes for it.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#124

Post by Ajedi32 »

jessaustin wrote: post #78
strictnein wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire financial system would disappear.

Wouldn't most of that be handled by corporations making agreements among themselves? I don't think "the entire financial system" is really based on hooking individual people on unsustainable credit.

So if I want to buy a house, but don't have enough to cover 100% of the cost in a single down payment I'm just SOL?

I guess I could rent instead, except that would require a contract as well. I get the impression you haven't really thought this through.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#125

Post by Misdicorl »

rs23296008n1 wrote: post #121
Misdicorl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why the ISPs can't claim the same protections as The New York Times in selling this data. IOTW: is this a 'you know it when you see it' type of situation like pornography, or is there a real differentiator?

Privacy is a good one. I'd be fascinated to see how ISPs assert that publishing a news article is the same as selling/publishing all your search history or all your DNS history . And if it is your records why is it most peoples reaction is horror instead of happiness? Its because privacy has value. Which is why ISPs want to sell it. Privacy isn't dead its just being sold as a commodity now. Without realistic permissi…

Yes, HIPAA is a good analogue to compare against here. The Maine law is the inverse of HIPAA- it applies to ISPs (hospitals) rather than the data (medical records).

Of course, Maine does not have the power to institute HIPAA like regulations for internet data and so do this instead. Nonetheless, I think the telecoms broadly have a point here.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#126

Post by Ajedi32 »

jessaustin wrote: post #114
Ajedi32 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As would employment. (I can't be employed by a company if I can't sign a contract with it.)

This isn't so. Most employment is at-will. This works fine, because lots of laws govern what employers may do to employees, and anyway slavery is illegal so any employee may leave at any time. 95% of any employment contract is various attempts to get around those legal protections for the employee. This is an especially pernicious case of the normal Stockholm Syndrome we see whenever the special status of corporation…

The law only protects you from actual crimes. There are hundreds of other small provisions which have to be negotiated as part of a contract to be enforceable from a legal perspective.

This is especially true for freelancers, who don't have a single employer and are instead usually paid for deliverables as specified in a contract. Being able to quit anytime doesn't help if you've already spent weeks or months working on a project and never get paid because the company decides on a whim that they don't need your deliverable anymore.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#127

Post by ceejayoz »

criddell wrote: post #116
ceejayoz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. I can still sue someone who never speaks.

If they didn't say anything, on what grounds would you sue?

The corporate entity can't speak, but it can defame.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#128

Post by mannykannot »

Misdicorl wrote: post #125
rs23296008n1 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy is a good one. I'd be fascinated to see how ISPs assert that publishing a news article is the same as selling/publishing all your search history or all your DNS history . And if it is your records why is it most peoples reaction is horror instead of happiness? Its because privacy has value. Which is why ISPs want to sell it. Privacy isn't dead its just being sold as a commodity now. Without realistic permissi…

Yes, HIPAA is a good analogue to compare against here. The Maine law is the inverse of HIPAA- it applies to ISPs (hospitals) rather than the data (medical records). Of course, Maine does not have the power to institute HIPAA like regulations for internet data and so do this instead. Nonetheless, I think the telecoms broadly have a point here.

While the Maine law applies to ISPs, there can be little doubt that the underlying issue is the data.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#129

Post by kube-system »

jessaustin wrote: post #79
kube-system wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, an absolute ton of things would disappear if we essentially made every company a sole proprietorship.

That's another option, but it's not what I was talking about. If corporations exist, then sure we can let them create contracts among themselves.

Most corporations would have a very difficult (i.e. impossible) time tracking down all of their owners for a signature on those contracts.

That's why we allow them to be a legal person. So Comcast can sign a contract to purchase a new toner cartridge, rather than requiring a signature from each owner of each of their 4.5 billion shares outstanding.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#130

Post by kube-system »

jessaustin wrote: post #78
strictnein wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire financial system would disappear.

Wouldn't most of that be handled by corporations making agreements among themselves? I don't think "the entire financial system" is really based on hooking individual people on unsustainable credit.

No, the entire financial system is based on companies being able to enter into contracts directly, rather than requiring each of their owners to be individually involved in every transaction.
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