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Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

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Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#51

Post by dhimes »

pyre wrote: post #35
toby wrote: post #28

I'm genuinely curious -- I've never been particularly concerned about privacy on the internet, and it seems like the author's main concern is better ad targeting (which I see as beneficial, although I may be in a minority). What are some other dangerous scenarios that people can imagine?

In order to create this 'targeted advertising,' they create huge databases of information on people. People called this creepy when the FBI was doing it, but it's ok when a private corporation does it? It's not like the FBI/CIA/MI6/etc doesn't just send a request to the company and get your data anyways... So I'm not really seeing the difference between any company having access to this information and the government…

To your point is the Beverly Dennis v. Metromail case. A company had a bad idea for outsourcing some of the tasks they performed with the data they had.

It's covered here http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ftc-info_mktpl.htm (buried deep in the page)

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#52

Post by buster »

sliverstorm wrote: post #44
pyre wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/29/030223 I had a leg up b/c I remembered that my source was slashdot. The important part: a major piece of evidence used against Lyons in his arrest was the record of his supermarket purchases that he made with his Safeway Club Card. Police investigators had discovered that his Club Card was used to buy fire starters of the same type used in the arson attempt. For Lyons,…

> the police were willing to use purchasing habits/items as circumstantial evidence to go after the wrong person. Hopefully it is not a great leap in logic to see that the justice system was what went wrong, not the club card thing.

The problem is that you assume your thoughts on justice worldwide.

China may have a totally different understanding on what is allowed and what not. The whole privacy data thing doesn't worry me very much in my country. But it's scary when i think of other countries.

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#53

Post by joubert »

eirene wrote: post #21

Like most monocultures operating on 20th century logic, FB will fail. I'm not saying they won't make a ton of money in the process (ala MS) but in the end, the system will innovate around and past them (as it is already doing). The 21st century is all about UX, i.e. power to the people. Entities who do not recognize this will not thrive in the long-term.

Sounds interesting. Care to expand?

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#54

Post by mattwdelong »

I think if Facebook seriously wants to gain trust, they must offer the ability to curate your personal data. Not just FUTURE data -- All of your data. Of course, they would be giving up some serious leverage that they have right now in taking control of the internet.

I have been seriously questioning my presence on Facebook for some time now, the only thing holding me back is that a large portion of my distant friends and relatives are on Facebook, and they use it as a primary method of contact. I was an early adopter of Facebook, the amount of data they have on me over the years -- especially during my stupid years at University, scares me. When will this be used against me? Furthermore, HOW it can be used against me scares me most.

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#57

Post by listic »

wwortiz wrote: post #26
listic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tools" -> "Start Private Browsing" in Firefox

control-shift-P works as well (probably command on a mac but I don't have one) But really chromium/chrome has the best implementation as it creates a new window and doesn't destroy your session.

In Firefox, the session isn't destroyed, instead it is saved until you choose "Tools" -> "Stop Private Browsing". But, the chromium implementation might be more convenient.

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#58

Post by sliverstorm »

dhimes wrote: post #50
sliverstorm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why people are so worried about grocery store discount cards. Ok, so they know my address. That's alright by me; my address exists so everyone can know it. So they know my name correlates to my address; that's alright too, they can find this info in public records. The only possibly sketchy thing is they can correlate my food purchases to me and my address. However, this doesn't bother me per…

I have a recollection of hearing about a "breakthrough" in the health insurance world when some company figured out that there was a substantial correlation between grocery items purchased and health issues. I'm very weak on the details (I think the context of my learning about this was a presentation of a "brilliant executive" who will now share blah blah blah-- oh, by the way, she figured out how to do this for ins…

Frankly I don't blame insurance companies for looking at as much info about you as they can. The only way they can improve business is by more accurately predicting incidents, which is done by examining more metrics and making better models.

Nobody has a problem with this when it comes to auto insurance; you have a lot of tickets, you get high rates. You have too many tickets, they won't insure you. Why is it so different to give higher rates or refuse coverage to someone who treats their body like crap, when their body is what's being insured?

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#59

Post by pyre »

buster wrote: post #52
sliverstorm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the police were willing to use purchasing habits/items as circumstantial evidence to go after the wrong person. Hopefully it is not a great leap in logic to see that the justice system was what went wrong, not the club card thing.

The problem is that you assume your thoughts on justice worldwide. China may have a totally different understanding on what is allowed and what not. The whole privacy data thing doesn't worry me very much in my country. But it's scary when i think of other countries.

The best way to put it is that large quantities of data by themselves are not evil and can do no harm. It's how people use them that matters. Once these large data stores are created it is impossible to anticipate all of the bad ways that people will use the data. It's disingenuous to claim that just because the data has never been used in a certain way that it never will be used in that way in the future.

It's the same as claiming that your privacy is safe because the company has a 'privacy policy' in place. In reality, the privacy policy say that it can change at any time and that the company has no legal obligation to notify you of these changes. These policies may change due to a change in direction at the company, or because the company is losing money and decides to sell that information to the highest bidder to stay afloat... Maybe the company is even swallowed by a larger company that then revokes all of the old privacy policies...

Re: Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

#60

Post by dhimes »

sliverstorm wrote: post #58
dhimes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a recollection of hearing about a "breakthrough" in the health insurance world when some company figured out that there was a substantial correlation between grocery items purchased and health issues. I'm very weak on the details (I think the context of my learning about this was a presentation of a "brilliant executive" who will now share blah blah blah-- oh, by the way, she figured out how to do this for ins…

Frankly I don't blame insurance companies for looking at as much info about you as they can. The only way they can improve business is by more accurately predicting incidents, which is done by examining more metrics and making better models. Nobody has a problem with this when it comes to auto insurance; you have a lot of tickets, you get high rates. You have too many tickets, they won't insure you. Why is it so diff…

Sorry I'm so late in replying to your comment. The issue here is how the insurance companies obtain that information. I think the analogy would be if auto insurance companies determined their rates using data from your cell phone provider as to how fast and where you drive. And, especially, if they were to do so without your knowledge.
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