Sorry, but Google is probably the biggest threat to our privacy.
Totally agree, but it looks like HN's Google Brigade doesn't!
It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
31–40 of 105 posts
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#32It's often claimed that politics in the US is run by / dominated by corporations. I find the contradiction in that claim at times like this to be especially dramatic. The biggest corporations in America - Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc - are actively being harmed by the US Government. US telecoms are having the doors shut to business in Europe and Asia, because of this stuff. Countless billions in pr…
Poor corporations.. Maybe we should start non-profit to help them survive. You know, each us could donate few bucks to keep these poor corporations afloat. After all what can they do with a few tens of billions in cash?
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#33Problem is quite a few european countries right now don't trust american companies anymore so they are working on their own mail service, cloud, network and hardware components, ... (you know if american companies agreed with american government to spy on us they kinda deserve a nice f k off). So who is damaged by this european behaviour? American companies. And now Google is suddenly concerned about our privacy. Mid…
Middelvinger. But seriously, got some more info on these European services? I don't watch these matters very closely lately, would be interested in looking into it.
There's the EU-funded FI-WARE cloud platform. Completely free to use for European start-ups and comes with 80 million euros in EU grants for start-ups using it. http://www.fi-ware.org/
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#34In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens:
cough European countries have a history of doing just that. Hence why they don't tend to do it anymore.
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#35Why just EU? The EU delegates can pressure US to cover anyone under the act not just EU residents. If US bends to EU's demands about privacy but doesn't treat rest of the world similarly then it says something about US.
EU "delegates" don't have what it takes to pressure the US on anything. It's usually the other way around. EU regularly bends to US demands, not vice-versa. E.g. providing the NSA with personal data for all airline passengers flying in or out of Europe...
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#36In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Slightly offtopic, but since you seem to take a small offense, or at least, use it as fuel for your argument....
Alien is simply a historical term. It is derived from the latin term alienus which means something that belongs to another. So an alien to a country represented someone who belonged to another country. There is nothing rude or egregious about that label....
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#37In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: cough European countries have a history of doing just that. Hence why they don't tend to do it anymore.
So the same as the U.S., then?
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#38I find the situation where we grant rights to our citizens without granting them to foreigners (particularly citizens of our close allies, but also foreigners in general) bizarre and backwards. While I'm sure that there are some rights that cannot be extended to non-citizens, it seems that the default should be to treat all people independently of their country of origin unless there are strong arguments why we canno…
We've gone from the assertion that absolute rights are inherent in human nature and inalienable, to the post-modern world where nations supposedly grant "rights" to the populace -- and subject them to massive surveillance.
The two visions are incompatible. If you believe rights are granted by government, then you don't believe in the universality of individual rights -- which take precedence over governments and nation-states.
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't agree more. The concept of trusting what is essentially an Ad company with a penchant for spending it's profits on projects to convince the tech community it's "cool" on anything privacy related is either the greatest practical joke of the 21st century or the reason we can't have nice things.
Why in the world would Google disclose information about you to its customers when it can probably make more money by being squarely in the middle? >> Hello, do you need to find someone who might be interested in buying Toyota cars? What's the message that you'd want plastered all over the Internet for this guy? OK, just sign this check and it will be done.
At what point did I say Google was disclosing information about me?
Every software product Google puts in the market, from web search to Gmail to Google Apps to Chrome to Android - they are all about collecting personal information, building a huge bank of data about individuals.
I don't care if they never intend to disclose that information to someone else. I care that they are actively engaged in collecting the information in the first place.
Further more - online advertising can work just fine without collecting such ridiculous amounts of information about people. Let me give you an example.
A Toyota dealer (or the marketing department of Toyota itself) buys ads from a search engine.. let's call it.. Hoogle.
I decide i want to buy a new car, so I go to my favourite search engine... Hoogle... and I search for "new cars in ".
Somehow, through the magic of common sense, an ad, placed by Toyota, a CAR company, registers as being related to a search for "new CARS". They show me the ad.
Oh and look. They didn't need to circumvent browser security policies around how cookies are handled, they didn't need to scan all my email, they didn't need to track the SSID of my local Wifi network...
Re: It’s time to extend the US Privacy Act to EU citizens
#40In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Slightly offtopic, but since you seem to take a small offense, or at least, use it as fuel for your argument.... Alien is simply a historical term. It is derived from the latin term alienus which means something that belongs to another. So an alien to a country represented someone who belonged to another country. There is nothing rude or egregious about that label....
As a former "alien" myself, I was never offended by this. It's a technical term.