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Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

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Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#51

Post by malnourish »

mtgx wrote: post #34
malnourish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the data is truly anonymized (and that's a big if), would you still have an issue? Could you share which government is doing this? It is very troubling. Edit: thank you all for good responses, I wasn't aware of the risks of de-anonymization but I will do more research into this.

"Anonymized data" can always be deanonymized. There have been plenty of studies about this. It also reminds me of a recent post-Cambridge Analytica story about FB trying to get patient records, for which they said they "wouldn't get the names of the patients". Okay, but the only reason Facebook would even get that data is to match it with its users' real names through some of their algorithmic reverse engineering of…

Thank you for the response, I will do my own research into the deanonymization of data, but please share a source or two if you have them at hand.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#52

Post by malnourish »

raxxorrax wrote: post #48
malnourish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the data is truly anonymized (and that's a big if), would you still have an issue? Could you share which government is doing this? It is very troubling. Edit: thank you all for good responses, I wasn't aware of the risks of de-anonymization but I will do more research into this.

I wrote that they sell it, which is wrong. They want to give it away for free. I don't know what is worse at this point. Patients don't have any possibility to protest. It is in Germany and the law isn't active yet, but will be very soon. They basically create a central organization to collect data from all insurers. They receive info and are allowed to spread it to third parties in anonymized form. > If the data is…

Thank you for the response.

Now that you bring it up, I can see how one could identify a person based on that data. We're able to identify users based on things like browser extensions; I see how the concepts map.

The only reason I have to favor this sort of data sharing is that I have a (perhaps naive) hope that it would aid diagnoses and treatment.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#53

Post by RealStickman »

raxxorrax wrote: post #48
malnourish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the data is truly anonymized (and that's a big if), would you still have an issue? Could you share which government is doing this? It is very troubling. Edit: thank you all for good responses, I wasn't aware of the risks of de-anonymization but I will do more research into this.

I wrote that they sell it, which is wrong. They want to give it away for free. I don't know what is worse at this point. Patients don't have any possibility to protest. It is in Germany and the law isn't active yet, but will be very soon. They basically create a central organization to collect data from all insurers. They receive info and are allowed to spread it to third parties in anonymized form. > If the data is…

Would it be possible to prevent this by using laws set by GDPR? Or at least cause such a great hassle for them to stop it?

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#54

Post by gnode »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #35
buboard wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, people are removed from civil society today (as they are removed from society in general), which leaves a lot of space for various snake oil salesmen selling them "safety" and "truth". We know well that these things can't be bought but earned.

You’re talking about the “libs” who “destroy lives” such that people with important “truth” are never heard from again, right? Is that what you’re alluding to?

I think buboard was referring to how the most prominent voices heard in political discourse today are not humans speaking for themselves, but corporate entities; lobbyists (correct me if my interpretation is wrong).

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#56

Post by netcan »

malnourish wrote: post #46
netcan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the "it can't be reliably anoned" answer, there are other issues. One key one imo is simply ownership. Why do they get to sell it, regardless of who they are. I find the "terms of service" argument to be disingenuous. I really think we need to completely change the way we do IP, and "data" has effectively become a new type of IP. The default should be open/public domain, at lwats for anonyzable data. There ar…

Excellent question. In my mind I had been thinking that it could be analogous to census data. That doesn't answer the why though, or how it would bring commensurate benefits to civilians.

>> in much the same way it benefits us now, just more.

Tesla's data enables better driving software. Medical data lost motives medical tech, etc. If more people had access to it, the technology would improve more.

The conventional argument for patents, is/was (1) to encourage/reward innovation and (2) avoid secrecy. Imo, #2 failed, for the most part.

On innovation/etc... Ultimately data needs volume to be useful for ml applications. Opening all the datasets would also combine them, and improve their usefulness.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#58

Post by AnthonyMouse »

cj wrote: post #8

This quote from the article highlights the problem at hand: > Organizations like the Center for Democracy and Technology, which received at least $960,000 from [Google and Facebook] in 2018, are often quoted in the media as unbiased third parties and influence how policy is developed in Washington as such, despite receiving the tech company funding. > The group supports allowing tech giants to sell user data to third…

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't align with facts.

Google and most of the other major tech companies don't actually sell user data. They collect it to use internally. The biggest companies who actually do that are the ISPs, but that doesn't really fit the same narrative, and I doubt they donate a lot to privacy groups.

The reason a lot of privacy groups don't try to restrict selling user data is a combination of a potentially legitimate first amendment problem with restricting it and a finite amount of political capital. Sometimes political capital has to be spent making sure that e.g. the FBI director doesn't push through a law against strong encryption. Sometimes it's better to have a bill that improves privacy a little and actually passes than a bill that improves privacy a lot but never makes it into law, or start with one that isn't as easy for Comcast to have struck down by the courts and in so doing create a problematic legal precedent.

Meanwhile you ask why Google and Facebook donate to privacy groups, but their goals are actually aligned on a lot of things, like promoting the use of HTTPS over HTTP and opposition to draconian copyright laws.

This is gotcha journalism, and it's problematic because what are you proposing as a solution? That privacy groups stop accepting money from tech companies? What that would do is cause them to have less money for privacy advocacy. Ask yourself who benefits from that.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#59

Post by gnode »

turc1656 wrote: post #9

Glad I actually read the actual article. I saw the headline and thought to myself "hmmm, that's weird. I thought they wanted to basically destroy privacy, why would they be donating to things that try to preserve it?" Now it makes perfect sense.

Google et al often stand to benefit from privacy regulations (e.g. GDPR), because they can bear the cost of compliance, while smaller competitors copying their business model can't. Increased costs in return for a stronger monopoly.

It seems that's partly the case here: they want more legislation, but also want to make sure it won't hurt them.

Re: Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Privacy Debate

#60

Post by dandelo1953 »

malnourish wrote: post #27
raxxorrax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are quite effective. My government believes selling customer data is the road to riches. They plan to sell even patient data from mandatory governmental health services. Complete lunatics in my opinion.

If the data is truly anonymized (and that's a big if), would you still have an issue? Could you share which government is doing this? It is very troubling. Edit: thank you all for good responses, I wasn't aware of the risks of de-anonymization but I will do more research into this.

Data that needs to be shared should be signed by sender at every port of exit and by receiver at every port of entry. All significant transformations should also be signed in a manner that allows one to follow data to it's real world source.

If applying complete attribution to our data was the norm, for at least some markets places, entities empowered by our data would be much less likely to just "share" it willy nilly.

Dark markets will always exist, but I think attribution of data would incentives certain corporations (health, banking, etc) to act in their users better interests, at least compared to what we have now.

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