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Why we should end the data economy

thereboot.com

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Re: Why we should end the data economy

#181

Post by neolog »

paxys wrote: post #151
infogulch wrote: post #65

Somehow organizations get an immense amount of value out of tracking everything you do, say, think, and buy; everywhere you go; and everyone you meet. Two questions: 1. Why should they profit off of my data without my consent? (Hint: they shouldn't.) 2. Why is it so hard for me to get value out of it? Shit, if it's gonna be collected, aggregated, and analyzed anyway, I should just do it my damn self and actually get…

1. They are getting your consent 2. They are giving you value (via free services)

What do you think consent means?

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#182

Post by yifanl »

briffle wrote: post #108
whatever1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting free searches, email, messaging, photo storage etc

I would pay a fee to some sites to keep using their service, without tracking/advertising. But they don't offer it as an option.

The fee you pay would almost certainly be less than the value they can extract from your metadata (especially since it can only grow more valuable as time passes)

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#183

Post by mym1990 »

Judgmentality wrote: post #64
bpodgursky wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Burn it all down" as a solution — inevitably applied to cultures, systems or industries viewed from the outside — is also a plague of laziness.

I've never heard "hey this isn't working, let's start over from scratch!" be called laziness before.

I'm also surprised you haven't heard of this before. Every New Year millions make resolutions that are not kept because 'it is easier to start from scratch' or a clean slate, but it is very difficult to actually follow through.

People who diet non stop because they might get to day 20 and it isn't working and the solution is to start over in a week or so.

It is much easier to make yourself think that behavior will change if only one got a clean start. But inevitably you find yourself at a similar point, and a similar result.

In order to start from scratch and make it effective, you should have a reason why things will be different in the future.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#184

Post by jayd16 »

airstrike wrote: post #177
donatj wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one sane would ever want all their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors I'd happily share basically all of that information with that specific group of people - except maybe my neighbor that keeps reporting me to the city, they don't need to know my life, but if in turn I could know who was googling city ordinances in the middle of the night it might make up for it. At worst I get a funny look for…

It appears you and I have very different relationships with work colleagues...

If you Facebook friend your work colleagues and introduce your wife then they already have easy access to what you like and who you're sleeping with, no?

Search history and medical info would be more concerning than that information, on average, I would guess.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#185

Post by Nicksil »

jtdev wrote: post #3
anm89 wrote: post #2

Explaining to people what they should do regarding matters that there are no ways to achieve the stated goals is the laziest, lowest value category of journalism. It's a plague.

Uhhh, you can stop using said services and software that abuse privacy, e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter, TicToc, etc.

But that doesn't stop their abuse.

Think about all the other websites out there using Google Analytics, FaceBook "Like" buttons, Twitter excerpts, etc.

You're ever getting away.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#186

Post by fuckyouriotshit »

Barraketh wrote: post #82
troutwine wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly, I'm kind of sick of how bad a rap advertising gets. Now sure, companies knowing a lot about your personal life is creepy on an intuitive level, but the fact of the matter is that cookie tracking data has NEVER been associated with any leak or data breach that resulted in personal harm. The thing people SHOULD be worried about is stuff like the Experian leak, where credit companies collect your non-anonymi…

The premise is slightly different. I'm mostly differentiating between cookie tracking and social networks (and some other large online platforms). The large online platforms don't need to track you - you give them your data willingly. Facebook knows a lot about you not because it's tracking you, but because you keep posting things to it. Cookie tracking is an alternative way to build up an effective advertising profi…

> The large online platforms don't need to track you - you give them your data willingly.

Most people don't know the extent to which companies track them across the internet and their devices. It really would be better described as "stalking" given that there is a clear intent by most online platforms to be as stealthy as possible when it comes to their data collection activities.

> Facebook knows a lot about you not because it's tracking you, but because you keep posting things to it.

That's not at all true. People who have explicitly chosen to _not_ have a Facebook account still have their data sucked into the maws of Facebook's data collection systems. [1]

> Cookie tracking is an alternative way to build up an effective advertising profile that is decentralized and anonymized

Cookies cannot possibly be used to build up any sort of decentralized "advertising profile" across the internet - either you allow third-party cookies for tracking and the advertisers become the centralized data collectors or you don't and the cookies don't really provide any information that a website couldn't already collect (and which, critically, wouldn't be useful to produce an advertising profile for anything other than a single website).

> [..] which I think has some value.

Value for whom? It seems that you're very interested in talking about the value of data for those who collect it and are completely disregarding the value or cost to the people who are being tracked.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5921092

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#188

Post by ClumsyPilot »

jtdev wrote: post #3
anm89 wrote: post #2

Explaining to people what they should do regarding matters that there are no ways to achieve the stated goals is the laziest, lowest value category of journalism. It's a plague.

Uhhh, you can stop using said services and software that abuse privacy, e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter, TicToc, etc.

Its heartbreaking that on HN, the one place that should be informed about this, you still see the ignorant commend "well you don't have to use facebook"

Even if you are homeless and living under a bridge, facebook will have photos of you, uploaded by others, they will know who you are and whwre you like will sell some data relating to you to someone

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#189

Post by prohobo »

This is a bit weird... The Reboot is sponsored by DFINITY, which is the company behind the Internet Computer and did a presentation at the World Economic Forum in 2020. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfTJEMj1GTw)

The WEF is 100% pro datamining the shit out of everyone, and AFAIK they only invite people who share their vision of the future. So, why is DFINITY making presentations for them while also sponsoring anti datamining journalism?

I'm not saying that "THIS IS WRONG!" I'm just confused as to what's going on here.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#190

Post by Jwarder »

cevered wrote: post #57

I highly suggest you guys checkout Decentr. They are building blockchain platform that allows individuals to have ownership over their personal data to exchange and leverage for economic benefits in a decentralized and secure way. I think it's false to say we can't collect data in a secure way therefore stop the data economy. We should be seeking to empower individuals with the ownership of their own data to create a…

How paranoid should I be of a browser plug-in that promises to track every interaction I make and provide that data for advertiser targeting?
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