Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data • Hacker News Board

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#21

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

The value of data declines over time, often rapidly. Think about what a business would pay for current user data, data one year old, data five years old, etc.; who buys five year old data? I suppose it depends on the application. Imagine how your life changes over time, an accumulation of small and large changes. Data on your health, finances, social network, interests, politics, activities, etc. was different 1 year ago, 5 years ago, etc.

The question seems like a justification for what many want to do, which is just close their eyes to the problems and not put the energy into resisting the tide toward compliance and giving power to government/corporations; it's easier, right now, to give up, and despair and powerlessness are normalized - instead of quitting being at least a bit shameful, it's cynically embraced, flauted as rebellious.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#22

Post by freebuju » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #21

The value of data declines over time, often rapidly. Think about what a business would pay for current user data, data one year old, data five years old, etc.; who buys five year old data? I suppose it depends on the application. Imagine how your life changes over time, an accumulation of small and large changes. Data on your health, finances, social network, interests, politics, activities, etc. was different 1 year…

You are just wrong. Some of your data such as health data stays constant throughout your life. Especially for guys living with chronic conditions. Your key identifiers stay the same too. E.g your phone number etc. These are then used to re-establish your advertising identity. This theory that old data declines in value couldn't be more wrong given that the "old" data is never deleted. Just waiting to find its original purpose.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#23

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #13

judge2020 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this to matter there will have to be a turning point event that causes masses of people to re-think their privacy. The NSA reveal didn’t do much because nobody was financially or socially affected; maybe if the dataset itself was leaked and anyone could search it, we’d see real repercussions and changes made to stop any sort of surveillance (think the Congresspeople being personally affected by the data leak), bu…

I think most people are busy just trying to make ends meet. I have a family member who said, "Obama fixed the NSA thing." I also read where the Patriot Act expires, so they aren't doing it anymore.

>I think most people are busy just trying to make ends meet.

This, or are plugged in too tightly into the various digital dopamine dispensers to care about the flip sides.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#24

Post by thenerdhead » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

I don't think everyone changes as fast as the data can get stale. Humans are both creatures of habit and agents of change. For the former, this data is still relevant and ads can do their jobs. For the latter, the data is stale and ads do not convert. Age may be a huge factor here.

I do believe in data privacy. Mostly from the lens of not living in a future world where data removes an individual's critical thinking ability and engagement of new experiences. This is already pretty true in corporate america & reliance on technology like map apps instead of getting lost like the article mentions.

For ads, I think we have to accept the reality of the world such as Jerry Mander did in 1978:

“If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.” - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#25

Post by shadowgovt » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

wintermutestwin wrote: post #17

shadowgovt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you handing that data out for free by using their servers? Seems like you aren't happy with the price they charge for access.

I believe that is a disingenuous argument: 1. The monopolistic position of many of these service providers drastically limits the ability to choose alternatives and creates social and economic hardships for those who would avoid the use of these services altogether. For example, my ISP lobbied my government to allow them to steal my data. I have exactly one choice of ISP. 2. When we look back on the colonizers handin…

Competition is always one click way on the internet. The "monopolistic" practices would not be sufficient if people actually cared enough to stand up an alternative that respected your privacy.

The market does not care enough about its own privacy to justify those alternatives. DDG has been available for years... It's doing fine, and it's a great alternative to Google, but it's not doing the gangbusters that one would expect if people weren't mostly satisfied with the privacy trade off.

And personally, I think it's extremely elitist for us to assume that we can better evaluate the privacy / service trade-off than most users can. Comparing the average user to a native being taken advantage of by European colonials is a view terribly dismissive of people's self-determination.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#26

Post by ccooffee » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #20

spansoa wrote: post #18

I used to have a large online presence pre-Snowden leaks and was signed up to hundreds of services, some even in my legal name. Gradually I attempted to 'go dark' and delete all those accounts, which was tedious, but worth it. There's two extremes to being online: you can wear your heart on your shirt sleeve and post under your legal name, and share details about your private life, or you can be a ghost and leave no…

I think there's an accessible middle ground for most people. My first suggestion would be to get every account in a password manager like 1Password. In addition to the obvious security benefits, this creates a record of where all your accounts are. For the average person it'll take time for them to remember everything (and they'll realize ones they forgot) - having a place for it all to get documented is the first st…

DeleteMe's privacy policy and terms of service (both at https://joindeleteme.com/legal/ ) don't seem very reasonable for a company that claims to be in the service of privacy. The website asks for all sorts of personal information at signup and stores it all for use later, with no real promises that they won't do something malicious. (Although the privacy policy currently says they won't sell your data right back to Google, they also retain the right to change the policy at any time for any reason...)

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#27

Post by antiframe » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

freebuju wrote: post #22

wolverine876 wrote: post #21

The value of data declines over time, often rapidly. Think about what a business would pay for current user data, data one year old, data five years old, etc.; who buys five year old data? I suppose it depends on the application. Imagine how your life changes over time, an accumulation of small and large changes. Data on your health, finances, social network, interests, politics, activities, etc. was different 1 year…

You are just wrong. Some of your data such as health data stays constant throughout your life. Especially for guys living with chronic conditions. Your key identifiers stay the same too. E.g your phone number etc. These are then used to re-establish your advertising identity. This theory that old data declines in value couldn't be more wrong given that the "old" data is never deleted. Just waiting to find its origina…

Yes, but the value of the data has declined. If I am a business I would not pay the same amount or more for five-year-old data. Some portion of that dataset will be bad data. Some of the subjects will have had died, for example.

Decline does not mean zero, but the point is older data is less valuable. So, making your data leaking footprint smaller today will still provide you value (not infinite value though) as time goes on.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#28

Post by gonehome » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

ccooffee wrote: post #26

gonehome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an accessible middle ground for most people. My first suggestion would be to get every account in a password manager like 1Password. In addition to the obvious security benefits, this creates a record of where all your accounts are. For the average person it'll take time for them to remember everything (and they'll realize ones they forgot) - having a place for it all to get documented is the first st…

DeleteMe's privacy policy and terms of service (both at https://joindeleteme.com/legal/ ) don't seem very reasonable for a company that claims to be in the service of privacy. The website asks for all sorts of personal information at signup and stores it all for use later, with no real promises that they won't do something malicious. (Although the privacy policy currently says they won't sell your data right back to…

Yeah - it's a tradeoff.

They need that information to actually carry out the service you're requesting of them (namely going around to all these shitty data brokers and going through their intentionally arduous processes to request removal).

In order to do that they need to know the info to query against and remove.

I can understand why someone wouldn't want to do that, but of the available options for this kind of thing I thought it was the best one.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#29

Post by Forgeties79 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

ls65536 wrote: post #9

narush wrote: post #7

This is a cool article. I like the narrative of "Change to a life where you are in control of your direction." I am probably the most privacy conscious person of my friends (not that I do a particularly good job of it), so I spent lots of time thinking about how to communicate about privacy in a way that is effective. [We're all mid-twenties, for context.] The main issue, I find, is that people just mostly don't care…

> Ignoring our own privacy, shouldn't we protect those people who the government/institutions/etc already squash down? And this should resonate even among the individualistic and self-interested who might believe they're unaffected, as those who aren't "squashed down" right now would be wise to not get caught in the thinking that the set of people affected today by certain state, corporate and institutional actions i…

It resonates with that crowd to a point. They don’t like it when it functions to protect people they don’t consider part of their tribe. Basically, it only resonates if it protects them, and they’re happy to sacrifice that if it means “the other guy” didn’t get anything. It’s hard to discuss mutual benefit with a group that believes everything is zero-sum.

Re: Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

#30

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

freebuju wrote: post #22

wolverine876 wrote: post #21

The value of data declines over time, often rapidly. Think about what a business would pay for current user data, data one year old, data five years old, etc.; who buys five year old data? I suppose it depends on the application. Imagine how your life changes over time, an accumulation of small and large changes. Data on your health, finances, social network, interests, politics, activities, etc. was different 1 year…

You are just wrong. Some of your data such as health data stays constant throughout your life. Especially for guys living with chronic conditions. Your key identifiers stay the same too. E.g your phone number etc. These are then used to re-establish your advertising identity. This theory that old data declines in value couldn't be more wrong given that the "old" data is never deleted. Just waiting to find its origina…

That cherry-picks examples, phone numbers and chronic conditions. We can think of plenty more that change. (Even phone numbers change sometimes.)