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Why we should end the data economy

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Re: Why we should end the data economy

#241

Post by dragonwriter »

marcosdumay wrote: post #171
asiachick wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. If you ask me "who lives next door" I'll tell you "Oh, the Smith's live next door, John, Jane, Jill, and Jacob. John's a blacksmith, Jane makes the best apple pie, Jill is studying to be a doctor and Jacob just turned 14" I doubt the forefathers would have thought there needed to be a law against me passing on info.

The US Constitution is around a century too old to care about lists of people, but I think even they would react badly to some powerful organization going around classifying everybody by some random feature.

> The US Constitution is around a century too old to care about lists of people, but I think even they would react badly to some powerful organization going around classifying everybody by some random feature.

Probably not, since it created a new powerful orgabization (the federal government) and mandated it to go around classifying everybody by a particular set of feature (whether they were a “free person”, an “indian not taxed”, or an “other person”.)

Given that when the framers were scared of a powerful organization doing something, their first concern tended to be about government doing it, and their response tended to be to prohibit at least the federal government from doing it, I think the fact that they mandated the federal government to do it indicates that it was neither something they feared nor something they failed to fear out of lack of consideration.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#242

Post by xmprt »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #208
Pet_Ant wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've got legal and lethal authority to do far worse than a weird look. Society scares me more. The government has the authority, but society has the power and the inclination to weaponise it. The government would never bother reacting to anything that RMS said but people did.

You realize the government is made of people, right?

Not really. The government is more of a system that's run by people. The government doesn't change much even if all the people running it change.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#243

Post by saddlerustle »

belter wrote: post #228
saddlerustle wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.

I have a bridge to sell you. "Gmail messages 'read by human third parties'" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44699263 "One company told the Wall Street Journal that the practice was "common" and a "dirty secret". ...Google indicated that the practice was not against its policies."

That article is just describing gmail APIs, which requires explicit user consent via oauth to enable. This is no more shocking than gmail supporting IMAP.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#244

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tomjen3 wrote: post #179
SonicScrub wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes they do work. That's why it's a billion dollar industry. It allows industries to micro-target specific ads for communities and speak to them directly. It gives you more ability to expand your brand to new customers, not less, as it allows to you to specifically target niche groups who previously had no interest in you. It's important to get a sense of the extreme level of refinement that firms have access to…

The last point is wrong: once I have purchased the dishwasher i care _less_ about a dishwasher at any previous point, because I am not most likely to have a functional dishwasher and even if yours is better I am not going to buy one more. If marketers would only get this they would make so much more money, and I would get better ads for more relevant products. Instead I get ads that target me because I am in AGE_RANG…

>once I have purchased the dishwasher i care _less_ about a dishwasher [than] at any previous point //

Ever recommended something to a friend/relative, or bought a second one of something that works/fits/performs well? Or even ever thought you should. I've definitely bought a pair of trainers (sneakers) and then thought, oh I should have bought another pair. If the shop had sent me an email, "get a second pair postage free" a few weeks later then they'd probably have made a sale.

I know people who have second homes definitely would re-buy white-goods, for example.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#245

Post by fuckyouriotshit »

lukifer wrote: post #225
ianai wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the civil war, you can’t sign ownership of yourself over to another. The ownership of data that intensive seems the same thing.

This is a fundamental, and perhaps insoluble, problem with the moral principle of liberty and self-ownership: to what extent should you be permitted to voluntarily limit, surrender, or exchange that ownership? One can certainly make a case that even limited-scope non-compete clauses in employment contracts are an affront to human dignity; on the other extreme, there are those who would claim that freedom necessarily…

> Where do we draw the line?

I can't claim to have a complete answer to that question, but it seems that every time that the line is drawn too far towards the direction of slavery (i.e. away from individual liberty) there is a substantial power-imbalance.

That seems to suggest that any situation where there is a large power (information, monetary, etc.) asymmetry between two parties will lead to one side being heavily disadvantaged, almost certainly due to the intentional structure of that arrangement.

If true, that would suggest that any circumstance where there could be a large power imbalance between parties must be carefully moderated and that limiting "individual freedom" by not allowing people to sign away their rights in a way that mostly benefits someone else could be a reasonable way of approaching this problem.

Hopefully that made sense!

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#246

Post by saddlerustle »

decasteve wrote: post #236
saddlerustle wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.

Akamai and Microsoft. When your Apple device communicates with "Apple", many/most of those IP addresses are owned by Akamai. Even when you search DuckDuckGo, both the search results (Bing) and web servers that serve the content are owned by Microsoft (Azure).

That covers one or two of the list I suppose, but is there any reason to believe Akamai is lying to its customers and harvesting their users' data? I can't think of any incentive for them to do that, it would be brazen fraud for an insignificant revenue source.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#247

Post by ben509 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #179
SonicScrub wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes they do work. That's why it's a billion dollar industry. It allows industries to micro-target specific ads for communities and speak to them directly. It gives you more ability to expand your brand to new customers, not less, as it allows to you to specifically target niche groups who previously had no interest in you. It's important to get a sense of the extreme level of refinement that firms have access to…

The last point is wrong: once I have purchased the dishwasher i care _less_ about a dishwasher at any previous point, because I am not most likely to have a functional dishwasher and even if yours is better I am not going to buy one more. If marketers would only get this they would make so much more money, and I would get better ads for more relevant products. Instead I get ads that target me because I am in AGE_RANG…

> because I am ... most likely to have a functional dishwasher and even if yours is better I am not going to buy one more.

Break the population into groups:

1. Have a working dishwasher / don't need one

2. Old dishwasher is failing, looking for a new one

3. Just bought a new dishwasher, it works great

4. Just bought a new dishwasher, going to return it

I suspect group 4 is who they're targeting.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#248

Post by bluGill »

xibalba wrote: post #173
cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

Not all of it is data you can access as the public. However as the author of a program with access to internet and location you can easily upload where the phone is at all times and thus figure out when two are near each other. (this is why newer phones OSes let users choose if the program can access these things all the time or only when active)

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#249

Post by saddlerustle »

zikduruqe wrote: post #233
saddlerustle wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.

You cellular company has first party signal data, that even the big tech companies don't have.

All the internet access examples on that list would use encrypted connections, so a cellular company wouldn't be privy. Cellular companies do have course location data, but to be pedantic that doesn't really apply to any of OP's list.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#250

Post by saddlerustle »

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #219
saddlerustle wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.

Dating sites would have that kind of data and have been breached in the past (Ashley Madison was one high profile instance, as I recall).

I don't recall the Ashley Madison leak having anything remotely similar to the data on OP's list.
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