To me discussions about privacy often seem like bullshit. Here is a comment I wrote yesterday about a former AdWords employee as privacy violation apologist:
Hypocritically people bitch about intrusive data collection from governments and yet simultaneously give away the same data, and encourage others to do the same, and more to private companies knowing that data will be weaponized against them. As such it’s almost impossible to take any opinion promoting commercial violations of privacy seriously.
People don't have a choice about giving information to governments. There's a fourth amendment for a reason so I'm obviously anti dragnet. Private parties though may opt into providing anything legal to other private parties at their sole discretion and that's the nature of things. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans are making market choices that many of us would consider "not privacy respecting", that does not make these interactions "public" de facto.
I don't have a Google account. I don't have a Facebook account. I don't take commercial genealogy tests, I'm not an Amazon Prime member. I would prefer to not have the government use the ubiquity of this kinds of behavior as a lever to usurp more information.
I agree that people that bitch about corporate overreach should just not interact with bad actors instead of bitching to the government to somehow safeguard themselves from contracts they sign. At this point, it's not even an information asymmetry situation. Lots of people know Facebook and Google are untrustworthy stewards of this kind of information, but to them the ends justify the means... and that's their market decision I guess.
I'm not saying I avoid the bot net completely -- no one does and it's only getting harder to do so. This is a result of people I know installing LinkedIn on their phones with my number in their contacts. It's still a consumer-first problem and awareness is lacking. Every dollar, click and eyeball you give to some product is one you're divesting from another and we should consider our market engagements endorsements of corporate behavior because that's what they are.
How much awareness will get people to reconsider though? People are paying out of pocket to install microphones in their own homes and cameras on their front doors. Even if dumb TVs were on offer for 2X the price, statistically no one would buy them. Privacy is only a concern if it's novel and studies show generations born into surveillance are numb to it. I feel like people need to be more aware AND more discerning in their consumption; awareness alone isn't enough. We should discriminate with our wallet more on these issues today while we still have some alternatives available.
If there were proper protections in place to protect privacy it doesn’t matter whether the violator is a government or commercial enterprise. Secondly, the courts have repeated ruled that the fourth amendment has nothing to do with privacy.
> If there were proper protections in place to protect privacy it doesn’t matter whether the violator is a government or commercial enterprise.
Legislative privacy protections make it impossible for you to sign certain things away contractually and/or make it impossible for someone else to ask you to do so contractually. The right to sell certain data to certain people at certain times, even if you have consent from the user, for example, can render a contract void. Of course legally limiting the things you can agree to in this way would limit the effect of these contracts. Don't sign shitty contracts though and you can get all of this today.
The government isn't bound by optional contracts though and as long as congress grants the government jurisdiction over everything not constitutionally interpreted to be covered by the fourth, government snooping is completely legal.
I agree with you. Congress should limit the government's data mining jurisdiction, but it seems hellbent on doing the opposite with things like PATRIOT, PRISM and wiretapping legislation. I think users should also stop being flagrant idiots with their data if they supposedly care about it so much. Users can effect change in the market by deciding not to do business with bad business practices. Meta says it's going to mix WhatsApp data with Facebook data and people boycotted, Meta backtracked (for awhile)... more of that, we can do both.
> Secondly, the courts have repeated ruled that the fourth amendment has nothing to do with privacy.
Privacy from whom? The fourth sets a bar for "unreasonable" searches of an individual by requiring a warrant for public access to "persons, houses, papers, and effects". The government can still ask you for information without a warrant and definitely will ask Google for information about you, which does not itself need to demand a warrant on your behalf. As stated above, everything that isn't explicitly enumerated as protected is fair game as well.
The constitution curtails the relationship between the government and the governed. The fourth says nothing about privacy from other private entities, corporate or otherwise.
This is only viable when viewed as an economic game. As soon as a real war breaks out or national security is threatened, privacy invasions from foreign powers and literally anyone not whitelisted, will be ended quickly and be treated as acts of war.
Assuming all private companies are bent is pointless. People should be allowed the choice to keep their data private and give it whomever they please. This is a 'free market' after all.
That’s an empty argument. People don’t have a choice on what third parties share and disclose. People don’t have a choice on things like HIPAA and banking regulations and they shouldn’t because those regulations protect people but don’t regulate people.
Choice doesn't mean controlling the other guy. At some point in the chain trust appears and canaries can be used to see if it has been violated, if you really care that much.
Some people have a non-commercial precommitment to privacy and finding the companies that honor it and relate to it is the choice we want.
If you want to force the discussion about privacy into regulation and non-market forces, then okay? Why would people legally and politically consent to a fully transparent world? The regulation will only end up going one way in the end and for all the split hairs along the way, it won't be in favour of ending privacy...
Companies don't kill me. It's the government I'm worried about, and the governments of the world have literally no intentions on respecting your privacy.
Hypocritically people bitch about intrusive data collection from governments and yet simultaneously give away the same data, and encourage others to do the same, and more to private companies knowing that data will be weaponized against them. As such it’s almost impossible to take any opinion promoting commercial violations of privacy seriously.