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Ban the sale of precise geolocation

lawfaremedia.org

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Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#71

Post by nickburns »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #69
nickburns wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and location is critical for myriad purposes. It's not though. Critical for myriad elective purposes? Sure.

Only if you consider the entire concept of logistics in civilization as "elective".

I don't follow what you mean by 'logistics in civilization' as that's pretty vague and amorphous.

Could you be more specific with maybe a single example of where my physical geographic location is electronically critical for a purpose that isn't elective/optional/avoidable?

(And I'm not just trying to be obtuse. I think you're touching on at least part of the 'heart' of both this conversation and that of digital ID verification.)

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#72

Post by kube-system »

ninalanyon wrote: post #65
Johnbot wrote: post #9

A lot of geolocation data on the market is anonymized, following medium-lived unique IDs that aren't able to be mapped to other identifiers. The problem with that is that if you have precise locations, or enough samples that you can apply statistics to find precise locations, in many cases you can de-anonymize the IDs. You can purchase address and resident listings from a number of different data vendors, and by chec…

In what sense can the latitude and longitude of my house be called anonymous data?

Ultimately, a map is anonymous data containing lat/lon of everyone's house

Alone, these points are not deanonymizing, it's when there's other data associated.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#73

Post by lifeisstillgood »

There needs to be a believeable legal framework behind this.

Imagine a option on your iPhone that says “Enable this to allow geo-location tracking for organisations registered under the NOADSJUSTPUBLICGOOD Act” - then any wifi endpoint could locate you as long based on signal strength etc and that data could only be made available to people registered under the act.

Would we see new understanding of how people move around in cities, would we see better traffic information, Inthink so - as long as people believe that there are real teeth to the laws and they enforced loudly and publically.

We should embrace the benefits of a society wide epidemiology experiment - the benefits for public health are incredible. (Add to that supply chain logistics on open ledgers and many of the new things that just were not possible before and the future of open transparent but well regulated democracies is bright.

Let me know if you spot one.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#74

Post by kube-system »

pocksuppet wrote: post #22
ryandrake wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such things as "clearly agreed to by all parties" when it comes to end users. Companies provide a one-sided, "take it or leave it" EULA, and if you don't agree to everything in it, you don't use the product. There is no meeting of the minds, there is no negotiation, and there is no actual agreement. It's a rule book dictated by one side.

Then it's not a valid contract and therefore does not absolve them of criminal liability for stalking you.

Contracts of adhesion can be valid contracts. The ability to negotiate or equal bargaining power is not a required element of a contract.

Furthermore, you cannot contract away criminal liability if any exists.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#75

Post by rolph »

microtonal wrote: post #51
vovanidze wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly. calling it 'anonymized' is pure security theater once you have enough data points to map out someones daily routine. waiting for legislation or eulas to fix this is a lost cause since adtech always finds a loophole. the fix has to be architectural. moving toward stateless proxies that strip device identifiers at the edge before they even hit upstream servers. if the payload never touches a persistent db ther…

To be honest, I feel like this is where iOS and Android are failing us. Why is every app allowed to embed a bunch of trackers? Only blocking cross-app tracking on user request as iOS does is not enough (and data of different apps/websites can be correlated externally).

im not sure about allowed. perhaps required may be closer.

why would someone include tech that makes people think twice about using the app, unless it is required if you want to "sell" in a particular venue.

if your developing geolocation based apps, location tracking is a core function.

a calender, absolutely does not require location tracking beyond what side of the prime meridian are you on.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#76

Post by rolph »

pwg wrote: post #39
ch4s3 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just bury literally anything in an EULA. There's a fair amount of case law establishing that EULAs clauses that are surprising or illegal aren't enforceable.

That fact does not change the point of the individual to which you replied. Regardless of whether the clauses in the EULA are 100% legal, some mixture or 100% illegal, the entire EULA is a "one sided rule-book dictated completely by one side". You, the person held to the EULA's rules, do not get to negotiate on the individual points. You simply have a "take it or go away" set of options.

when you already pay for the device and a contract, then surprise now that you have skin and flesh in the game, you HAVE TO agree to this EULA or your property is a brick and we keep your money.

that is defined as extortion, but labled as onboarding.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#77

Post by lukeschlather »

kube-system wrote: post #74
pocksuppet wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's not a valid contract and therefore does not absolve them of criminal liability for stalking you.

Contracts of adhesion can be valid contracts. The ability to negotiate or equal bargaining power is not a required element of a contract. Furthermore, you cannot contract away criminal liability if any exists.

Even attempting to use a contract of adhesion to justify selling GPS location data to a third party should be a criminal act.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#78

Post by kube-system »

lukeschlather wrote: post #77
kube-system wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contracts of adhesion can be valid contracts. The ability to negotiate or equal bargaining power is not a required element of a contract. Furthermore, you cannot contract away criminal liability if any exists.

Even attempting to use a contract of adhesion to justify selling GPS location data to a third party should be a criminal act.

Yes, the US is in desperate need of better privacy laws.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#79

Post by celeritascelery »

pocksuppet wrote: post #22
ryandrake wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such things as "clearly agreed to by all parties" when it comes to end users. Companies provide a one-sided, "take it or leave it" EULA, and if you don't agree to everything in it, you don't use the product. There is no meeting of the minds, there is no negotiation, and there is no actual agreement. It's a rule book dictated by one side.

Then it's not a valid contract and therefore does not absolve them of criminal liability for stalking you.

You click on “accept terms and conditions” which means you agree to the contact.

Re: Ban the sale of precise geolocation

#80

Post by lukeschlather »

pocksuppet wrote: post #27
ryandrake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "GDPR is complicated" meme has been circulating among software developers since probably before it was even written. It's so wild that HN dunks on it so much: Here we have a societal problem in computing we've been complaining about for decades, someone offers an incremental but imperfect regulation to start taking steps to correct it, and everyone hates it!

Same with the California age input box.

The problem with the age input box is that we don't have the GDPR. We're mandating that people give accurate age information to advertisers, and it's legal for advertisers to sell detailed dossiers on people including their age and target advertising using the age. This is why Meta wrote the age input box legislation, they want to make everyone legally required to provide Meta with their age.
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