Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#341

Post by Anderkent » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

anonymouz wrote: post #158

Anderkent wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The users that can afford and would buy this service are exactly the ones that advertisers want to reach. If you stop showing them ads or only share data for people not willing to pay, the data becomes useless.

Tough luck. There is no fundamental right allowing tracking or advertising. There is a fundamental right to privacy.

Right, but what this means is a business often can't support itself via a mix of subscription and ads - if you offer both for the same content the value of your adds will likely crash, so it's mostly equivalent to just being subscription based

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#342

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

billysielu wrote: post #165

rightos wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that's incorrect at least today, it's possible to skip through the initial setup on a stock Android device without adding a Google account or accepting a ToS.

Good luck downloading apps though. I can't see how it's necessary for Google to track all your stuff, just to permit you to download an app.

You can use third party app repositories like the FOSS-only F-Droid, or even simply download apps directly from individual creators if they release the apk.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by jkaplowitz » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

whyagaindavid wrote: post #169

madez wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's a device that does not comply the regulation and must not be sold.

Terrible for the environment. Lets apply rules with common sense [1]. As much I am for privacy this kind of interpretation is very bad. 1. https://study.com/academy/answer/summarize-all-about-a-dog-b...

The device could still be software-updated then sold, or sold outside the EU. Nobody is saying that it must be landfilled.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by oldcynic » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #317

oldcynic wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: So Americans actually prefer the corporate Black Mirror-esque tracking and profiling that has become endemic and out of control over what I would consider a reasonable update to the old DPA? How is it overreach and how is it solved without regulation? Equally, how is there any going back from the corporate overreach without? Edit: typos.

You have deviated into the absolutist approach I mentioned before. You don't even have to do without regulation, just not more and larger. Among solutions there includes: education, enforcement of existing statutes, reduced scope legislation until enforcement catches up, promotion of alternative approaches, tacit support for technical defenses, etc, etc. There are so many more. Adopting this large sweeping legislatio…

GDPR really isn't that much more than the previous DPA which was in place 20 years without problem. Businesses and startups were still formed.

To stick to the general. Who pays for education and promotion of alternatives against industries spending billions? Either it's coming out of tax or a regulation is required to force educational messages and disclaimers. If neither it just seems a way to assert the status quo as any interested party or user rights group that does get a little visibility will be immediately advertised against by those with a financial interest but far deeper pockets.

Regulation might not be perfect, but seems to be the only viable way left to limit the problems that come with unrestricted commerce.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by em3rgent0rdr » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #153

dmortin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they say it's $20 a month? And it's just facebook. Google also asks for $20, Reddit too, etc. It won't be cheap.

I would actually pay a small amount to have a read-only account for facebook that doesn't track me at all. I don't want to post anything, but I would like to view stuff more easily on the platform. Especially since so many events are organized through fb.

Have you tried the mobile site with JavaScript disabled. Or have to tried Facebook command line where you can simply query for posts in the terminal?

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by kinsomo » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #333

kinsomo wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you get instead is untargeted ads, like ads for cars, potato chips, and shampoo, just like on TV. Personally I find those to be a lot more annoying. I'm genuinely curious: what's so much more annoying to you about un targeted ads? I've never found targeting to be effective at showing me ads that were genuinely better or less annoying. I feel more comfortable with un targeted ads, since I can be much more confi…

>I've never found targeting to be effective at showing me ads that were genuinely better or less annoying. I'm not the guy you're responding to, but I think the key difference is this statement. I had untargeted ads on for about a year and they were always irrelevant. Since returning to targeted ads, I now see things all the time that I'm at least mildly interested in (mostly startups and new services, and/or tools/s…

I consider most advertising-delivered information to be suspect. I find about things I'm interested in organically, through interest-based websites and the like.

In any case, except for a few specific circumstances, I've rigorously used ad-blocker so I haven't had to deal with any ads at all. The last ads that I have seen were on Facebook, but even it couldn't seem do a good job, even though it's purportedly the master of targeting

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by ryanwaggoner » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #296

mrep wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is naive at best. To me, it's like the EU is a spoiled child who wants everything for free without paying for it. Most of the web is payed for by targeted advertising and getting rid of that would make the web suck as their would be way less money to actually pay for content. Also, non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most.

> non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most. Ads on TV have been non-targeted since the TV was invented, TV stations have survived thus far and are doing a little better than online publishers. Note that we are talking of tracking individuals. You can still say a lot about the demographics of a TV show and thus do ads targeting based on the actual content being watched…

TV stations have survived thus far and are doing a little better than online publishers.

The number of TV stations has a hard limit, so that's why the average TV station makes more in ad revenue than the average online publisher. But the top online publishers (Google and Facebook) make much, much more in ad revenue than the top TV stations.

Perhaps we should just give out operating licenses to 1000 websites and force the rest to shut down :)

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by pqaewofjawe » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #303

adventured wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 4% of worldwide revenue aspect is almost exclusively pointed at the giant US tech companies. Europe has few meaningfully large tech companies, with large global sales, such that taxing worldwide revenue matters (this is why they didn't just make it an EU revenue tax). It's meant to try to plunder some of the global revenue that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are gener…

> Europe should learn to build better tech, and learn to pay their engineers what they're actually worth if they want to compete with the US that pays 3x or 5x more. I'm an European and I must say that's bullshit. Yes, you can earn 3x to 5x more in Silicon Valley. Property prices are crazy expensive however, many people don't afford to live near their office, with crazy commute times being common, the schools there a…

Keep in mind that in absolute terms, earning 5x more and 10x cost of living might be larger savings. It sounds like Romania is a nice place, so you could even save for 5 years and retire there.

That said, I dislike rewarding california a single cent of tax revenue for them to piss their LSD-addled urine into the wind, fuck SF go to austin TX (state income tax, easiest 10% raise of your life! pay is same as SF)

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by tomatotomato37 » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #122

kowdermeister wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and isn't given an option to decline consent to Googles ToS You can turn off the phone and sell it on Ebay

If you live in the USA. However, as an European you have more rights, and in the next years we will witness a lot of battles between EU users and American corporations desperately trying to maintain the old status quo.

I'm actually kinda curious what role the US government will end up playing in all of this

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

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Post by ryanwaggoner » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #303

adventured wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 4% of worldwide revenue aspect is almost exclusively pointed at the giant US tech companies. Europe has few meaningfully large tech companies, with large global sales, such that taxing worldwide revenue matters (this is why they didn't just make it an EU revenue tax). It's meant to try to plunder some of the global revenue that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are gener…

> Europe should learn to build better tech, and learn to pay their engineers what they're actually worth if they want to compete with the US that pays 3x or 5x more. I'm an European and I must say that's bullshit. Yes, you can earn 3x to 5x more in Silicon Valley. Property prices are crazy expensive however, many people don't afford to live near their office, with crazy commute times being common, the schools there a…

Most of this is pretty irrelevant to the comment you're replying to. The argument is that EU companies don't pay tech talent what they're worth. School shootings and bike lanes don't have anything to do with that.

And I'm completely sympathetic to the argument that you're making about compensation vs. cost-of-living, but I think you're mistaken. The cost of living isn't 10x that of Europe. Taking into account taxes and government benefits that we have to pay for ourselves, it's probably more like 50-100% more expensive to live in, say, the Bay Area or NYC vs. any major metro area in Europe other than Eastern Europe, which will catch up eventually. I could be wrong though! I live in NYC, in a very nice 2 bedroom apartment in a doorman building right next to a large park. My daughter attends an expensive private school. We have excellent healthcare, travel a LOT, eat out frequently, etc. Total basic budget (not including taxes, savings, or other splurges) is ~$10k - 12k / month. Is your budget for similar lifestyle around $1k / month?

In general, those of us in the US who are lucky enough to work in tech and live in HCOL areas and work for high salaries aren't irrational; the tradeoff is usually worth it, especially if you enjoy urban areas.