Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why we should end the data economy

thereboot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 390 posts

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#301

Post by TchoBeer »

tomc1985 wrote: post #43
pascalxus wrote: post #33

The article implies a lot of risk for having so much personal data circulating around without our control. but the article, and many others like it fail to show how all that risk can adversely affect us. I mean, so what if my neighbor gets a different ad than I did? maybe he's into red shirts and I like blue shirts. so what if he got a cheaper plane ticket advertisement? I'm not going to buy a ticket unless it's chea…

The article itself explains this: Privacy is important because it protects you from the influence of others. The more companies know about you, the more power they have over you. If they know you are desperate for money, they will take advantage of your situation and show you ads for abusive payday loans. If they know your race, they may not show you ads for certain exclusive places or services, and you would never k…

I wonder how true that story is

https://www.kdnuggets.com/2014/05/target-predict-teen-pregna...

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#302

Post by RGamma »

TchoBeer wrote: post #298
dgb23 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about data-driven AI systems that generate art, photography and the like. One thing about these systems is that they are always learning from past works. They don't create in the same chaotic - as you say - way as we do. Recognizing the limitation of these systems is key to be able to use them well and when not to use them.

Human art is also based off of past works. Moreover, AI art tends to be more, not less, chaotic than human art.

Past works are one component. Major happenings, fantasy, wishes, emotions, etc play a bigger role overall (historically).

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#303

Post by decasteve »

saddlerustle wrote: post #246
decasteve wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wasn't trying to make a point other than sharing examples of companies, like Akamai, that store a lot of personal data on behalf of others. Storing data with Apple is storing it with Akamai, and all of the other third parties involved--where "third parties" becomes a blanket term in privacy policies and not an exhaustive list. The "chain of trust" in this regard has some missing links.

So far as their businesses are concerned, the data is safeguarded and I would never expect it to be sold--not by the top of the data food chain in any case.

But there's the issue of data being stored with US companies requiring being subject to US laws, such as the USA PATRIOT Act.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#304

Post by creato »

judge2020 wrote: post #282
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a decade ago. Now using Google is an exercise of filtering out Amazon affiliate blogspam clogging the first several pages of results. “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers” -Larry and Sergey in 1998

This has been fulfilled in full with YouTube and how creators fear demonetization.

I don't think that's the same thing. If you are a youtube creator and you want your videos to be monetized, you need advertisers to want to advertise on your content. As amply demonstrated by many youtube creators, you are free to go out and land your own sponsorship deals, and then you don't need to worry about demonetization.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#305

Post by nostrademons »

fuckyouriotshit wrote: post #81
nostrademons wrote: post #29

People should own the data about them, and should be free to rent or trade usage of it to companies in exchange for money or services. Actual ownership should continue to rest with the person, however, who can revoke access the same way that a landlord can evict tenants or a worker can quit. The biggest barrier to this has been that lots of valuable data (eg. Facebook's social graph, Android contact data) is data abo…

Simply assigning a price to an activity doesn't solve the ethical and moral issues that can arise from that activity. Having a price for something doesn't exactly help victims of human trafficking (whether the illegal organ trade, prostitution or anything else). What can help those victims is regulation and aggressive criminal prosecution of anyone who seeks to gain from the suffering of others. Unless people actuall…

The difference that ownership would give is consent. Western liberal democracies are based on the idea that you can do what you want as long as all parties agree to it.

I willingly give my personal information over to a variety of firms knowing what they do with it, because I value the services I receive more. It's not your place to say whether that's okay or not, because it doesn't affect you.

Human trafficking + consent = immigration. Organ trade + consent = organ donation. Prostitution between consenting adults arguably should be legal anyway, and already is in many places in Europe.

And yes, there should be a practical way to revoke access to data. There are ways to accomplish this technologically (eg. capability-based security keeps the data within your possession and you export the particular query that an outside firm would use; federated learning lets them train machine-learning models on the data without the data ever leaving your possession). We just don't use them yet, for the most part.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#306

Post by treis »

ramphastidae wrote: post #275
treis wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): The things you mentioned are kind of how it was before the advent modern civilization. Before Facebook tracking it was old biddy tracking. Through gossip everyone knew pretty much everyone's business. That said, there's not an immediately obvious connection between surveillance and our neigh…

I downvoted this because I can’t read this as anything but a disingenuous comparison. Surely you can understand the difference in scale and motive behind village gossip and global surveillance by profit-seeking corporations.

The point is that everyone knowing everyone's business is the "natural" state of human society. For most of human history all my neighbors would know who I'm banging. It doesn't take some sort of insanity to live like that.

And you've only addressed half my argument. I don't know who my neighbor is banging because of cell phone tracking. You don't know who your neighbor is banging. Nobody in this thread knows who their neighbor is banging. It's an entirely theoretical danger that has not yet come to pass.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#307

Post by zarify »

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…

There have been a number of instances here in .au where centralised location/health/etc data has been misused (stalking, checking out potential dates, domestic abuse or aiding domestic abusers) through inappropriate access. I doubt we're unique.

I'd argue that it doesn't need to be "Joe Q. Public", because companies are made up of Joe Q. Publics.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#308

Post by tangjurine »

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #91
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…

I don't think so. It is not the data itself that has value. It is a game of information asymmetry and that corporations can make you desire things you wouldn't desire without that interaction. They then convert a fraction of that desire into money flowing from you to them that you otherwise would have kept. Maybe I am old school or too naive, but I don't see how I would make a personal margin with my own data.

Let's say on average you need to see one hundred ads before you see something you want to buy. Now if you had personalized ads, maybe on average you need to see ten ads before you want to buy something.

If you are already looking through a bunch of ads for the sole purpose of trying to buy something, then your personal data is valuable to you because it saves you time. But that's definitely not the situation with most big tech products.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#309

Post by dnumjar »

momirlan wrote: post #299
slg wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these concerns still need to be translated into real world repercussions before the average person is convinced. Right now it is certainly creepy, but does it really have a negative impact on my life for a company to know these things?

I remember an interview with Edward Snowden where it was shown how little people cared about privacy. The interviewer then translated the concern into "the gov can see your dick pics". That was a no-no for most people

It was John Oliver, great episode by the way. https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=1382

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#310

Post by polynomial »

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…

This naturally invites the question, what percentage of the general populace is in fact sane? (sincerely curious to know what number hn readers would assign to that.)
Post reply on HN