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FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

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Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#291

Post by idle_zealot »

positus wrote: post #146
aftbit wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is it everywhere I go management is always doing shady stuff. Well here's a cynical take on this - management is playing the business game at a higher level than you. "Shady stuff" is the natural outcome of profit motivation. Our society is fundamentally corrupt. It is designed to use the power of coercive force to protect the rights and possessions of the rich against the threat of violence by the poor. The onl…

The problem isn't society or profit motivation. It's people. Humanity itself is corrupt. There aren't "good people" and "bad people". There's only "bad people." We're all bad people, just some of us are more comfortable with our corruption being visible to others to a higher degree.

What is this even supposed to mean? Profit motivation is a concept invented by humans for humans to apply. If it leads to unexpected or undesirable outcomes then it's a bad idea. A system that requires all participants be paragons of some definition of virtue to produce good results is fundamentally unsuited for human beings.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#293

Post by pwillia7 »

disambiguation wrote: post #229

Ever stop and think it's funny that Meta, Google, etc. are worth billions because they figured out how to legally fill a database with information about you? In any other time in history some might call it spying, but well they figured out how to do it legally, and it's worth billions. Meanwhile from a technical standpoint, remotely logging your data is a trivial thing, with consent of course. It's like, we made this…

Wait --- the emperor isn't wearing any clothes?!?!?

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#294

Post by pwillia7 »

justapassenger wrote: post #258
gopkarthik wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Mid-sized/smaller players are the places which have very poor data & security practices. Especially when they require PII as part of their operations. Meta, Google are much better stewards of their users data. One misconception I see is claiming these companies sell user data. I'd instead say that they sell user attention.

They don’t sell user data for a very simple reason - it’s a crappy business, as you can charge much much more with to recurring sales for heavily obfuscated access to the data than just one off selling of said data. When you think about it - initiatives are kind of aligned with user privacy (kind of, as there’s much more to the story than this simplistic point of view)

The data was always a commodity to produce other goods (ads)

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#295

Post by timeon »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #161
davisr wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen no evidence of this Over 99% of Americans point a camera at themselves while they take a shit.

And I'd bet over 99% of those people have never once considered that said camera could even be capable of saving any data without them operating it.

When I explain to anyone about privacy and some service/products answer usually is 'yeah but it is more convenient so...'

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#297

Post by timeon »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #113
jlarocco wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users. Even right here on HN, where most people understand the issue, you'll see conversations and arguments in favor of letting companies vacuum up as much data and user info as they want (without consent or opt-in), while also saying it should be illegal for the government to collect the same data without a warrant. In practice, the corporations and government have foun…

There isn’t a single intellectually honest harm associated with the majority of app telemetry and for almost all ad data collection. Like go ahead and name one. Once you say some vague demographic and bodily autonomy stuff: you know, if you’re going to invoke “voters,” I’ve got bad news for you. Some kinds of hate are popular. So you can’t pick and choose what popular stuff is good or what popular stuff is bad. It ha…

Are you in ad telemetry industry?

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#298

Post by walrushunter »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #122
doctorpangloss wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn’t a single intellectually honest harm associated with the majority of app telemetry and for almost all ad data collection. Like go ahead and name one. Once you say some vague demographic and bodily autonomy stuff: you know, if you’re going to invoke “voters,” I’ve got bad news for you. Some kinds of hate are popular. So you can’t pick and choose what popular stuff is good or what popular stuff is bad. It ha…

The intelligence agencies literally use ad data to do "targeted killing" what are you even talking about? Ex-NSA Chief: 'We Kill People Based on Metadata'...

So terrorists? You're concerned data logging may harm terrorists?

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#299

Post by walrushunter »

DaleNeumann wrote: post #133

"According to one estimate, some Teens may see as many as 1,260 ads per day.200 Children and Teens may be lured through these ads into making purchases or handing over personal information and other data via dark patterns" There is a long trail of blood behind google and facebook, amazon... Etc...

Blood??? Some kid spending their allowance on a shitty phone game does not make them bleed.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#300

Post by inquirerGeneral »

pwillia7 wrote: post #287
bilekas wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, what's missing from that set of recommendations is some method to increase the liability of companies who mishandle user data. As nice as this is on paper, it will never happen, lobbyist exists. Not to be tinfoil hat but why would any lawmaker slap the hand that feeds them. Until there is an independent governing body which is permitted to regulate over the tech industry as a whole it wont happen. Consider t…

Through civil disobedience is the only way stuff like this happens in America. You're right about the incentives to those in power, but how do you think we got emancipation2, women's suffrage, organized labor rights, prohibition and the end to prohibition?

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