Earlier quoted context omitted.
If what you're describing is free consent, then what does non-free consent look like?
The current solution at facebook: You will be tracked.
That's not non-free consent, that's not consent at all.
EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
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Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
Night mode (blue light filter) is naitvely supported/builtin Dark theme HDR support Auto HDR for many older games Native system wide support for surround sound in headphones with hrtf Win+Shift+S screenshot tool It took a long time to get here, but the settings app is now better than the old Control Panel imo If you're a gamer then HDR/surround/raytracing can potentially be huge upgrades if your hardware supports it.
>Dark theme Windows has had themes/color schemes since 3.0 - yes the early 90s Ray tracing has nothing to do with Windows, either
If I can't use the Hotdog Stand theme, something has gone wrong (which it has).
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#423Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data. Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking. It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., go…
How would you stop it?
If I wanted to, right now, I could build a deep profile for every single user of HN, simply by downloading the public pages, and cross-referencing comments, upvoted/favorited stories, etc with usernames. I could then create a weighted index that tells me how likely a user is to be a libertarian, gay, wealthy, etc. Then I could e-mail those users and offer to sell them privacy-focused freedom-loving lgbtq+ products.
I can pretty much do whatever I want with this database, partly because you don't even know I have it, but also because it's all public information you've posted to the web voluntarily. Maybe the ToS will say I can't, but they have to catch me/stop me. I could just hire some Russians to do it for me and collect the data later.
I'm not saying this should be allowed, but it's probably going to be impossible to stop, and the implications (esp. for political concerns) are enough of a motivator that just making it illegal probably won't end the practice. We have to consider alternatives so that we aren't stuck in some information arms race that makes the problem worse.
For example, we could say that private data should remain private, and public should remain public. Data which everyone has a reasonable expectation to be private - like the private photos you upload to Google Drive - should never become public, and thus should never be aggregated into some product (trained for an AI, etc), used to sell you something, etc. But data which does have a reasonable expectation to become public - like comments on a public forum, likes on public posts on Facebook - should remain public, and thus be used the way any other public thing can be. We already have legal limitations on uses of some public things, but we can expand that if need be.
Then we can legally define what constitutes private and public, and construct tech so that it's very clear to people what's public and what's private, and then they can decide what they will post where, or what sites they will/won't use in what ways, etc. It's already clear what's private and public out in the real world. We just need to make that same distinction clearer for other cases, like when and how companies collect data and what they can use it for. It's going to require case-by-case analysis, but we can totally get there without having to ban everything or allow everything.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#424Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data. Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking. It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., go…
"non-consensual tracking"
Pretty sure it is written in the ToS. Maybe don't agree with that legal agreement and continue to sign up for the service in the first place?
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone that refuses to use Linked In or Facebook it is wild to me that someone would not only use them, but willingly link a dating app to them. It makes me wonder how many more things I'll never get to participate in because I've deleted/avoid social media.
You and I, and probably a few others here on HN, are slowly being sifted into a parallel "unsocial" world, I fear. It's genuinely disgusting to see the kind of personal data we're expected to pass out by the truckload for every little digital trinket and feature, let alone entire facets of society such as dating apps.
I'm in the same boat. My internet excludes a bunch of ASs used by surveillance shops.
This is what we're asking for. I am refusing to divulge information about me I don't want to share. Other people are building whatever on top of that data. I can hardly complain about lack of inclusion when I am the one refusing to feed their robots.
If you want people at Cheers to know your name, you... have to tell them your name. I'm fine being anonymous. It sounds like maybe you're more conflicted.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
The telemetry, ads and forced online accounts are the only major changes since Windows 7 that I can think of. What useful features has Microsoft added since then to make you consider it at its peak currently? I haven't been using it as heavily and I'm genuinely interested if there's something great I've missed.
Night mode (blue light filter) is naitvely supported/builtin Dark theme HDR support Auto HDR for many older games Native system wide support for surround sound in headphones with hrtf Win+Shift+S screenshot tool It took a long time to get here, but the settings app is now better than the old Control Panel imo If you're a gamer then HDR/surround/raytracing can potentially be huge upgrades if your hardware supports it.
Windows 7 was released over a decade ago and the OS brings in revenue on the order of 10s of billions annually.
Night mode, dark theme, and a decent UI are things shoestring Linux distros can pull off.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#427I know in HN there is a big "personalized advertising" is bad sentiment, but I don't get what the problem is. I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. It is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads. So on one side, people w…
> I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. That's all fine and dandy, I think. The problem starts to become a bit bigger when suddenly everyone in your household starts to see "chlamydia medication" ads everywhere they go online based o…
Great so regulate personalization around certain types of products like medication and medical treatment. I don't understand how this scenario explains why we should throw out this whole category of business.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#428While I could care less about Meta and Alphabet, I find it difficult not to basically see this as a form of economic warfare between the United States and the EU. The latter simply being jealous of the former's technological superiority, both economically and technically.
How is it warfare?
I just see it as a rule to follow....hardly international "shots fired", like US/ China trade bollocks [etc].
I'd ask that you remember: the rest of the world isn't quite on the side of the advertiser, and nor should the relationship be abusive and one-sided.
What technical superiority? And, for what it is, i bet it's for sale.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#429Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger a…
Gimme a break. For starters the EU is not a "government". Digital state surveillance can only be practiced as a "national competency". More importantly though, the real underlying enemy here has always been citizen apathy, ignorance and distraction about digital privacy (and more general about individual agency in the digital era). Unfortunately in modern times active citizenship has degenerated into polarization and…
> public transport
Which public transport company has denied entry to someone?
> medical care, financial system (banking and insurance)
You mean the government instituted monopoly?
> salaried employment
This is patently false. No private corporation can deny you employment, outside of their own company.(at the very least, not without government enforcement)
Governments deny you salaried employment on a daily basis.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think in the context of privacy "personalised" always means "personalised by using information the publisher shouldn't have". Facebook has my age and home town, knows what many of my interests are via groups I'm in. I don't think it's wrong to say I have given them that information voluntarily and so long as they keep it on their servers only, I'm ok with them showing me a mountainbike ad because I'm a 40yo male wh…
>That's the kind of thing I don't think I should even be allowed to consent to Why not?
Because I think it's a net negative for society.