Comment by jmward01
4 days ago
Given the actual informed and uncoerced choice, people say no to this kind of collection and especially its sale or use for any purpose other than the explicit service they thought they were allowing it for (navigation, setting the time, etc etc). This is true for basically all information collected. I'm glad to see there is some minor protection language being included but it needs to have real teeth and get to the point. If you collect data from me under false pretenses or using coercive methods (you can't use the thing you just paid a lot of money for if you say no) you will not only be fined but criminally prosecuted.
Completely agreed. Even for people who are like "I have nothing to hide", the only people who think this way are simply unaware of just how much harm can come to them without the protection of privacy (and laws that ensure this)... or they just have no self-preservation instinct, I guess?
So, aside from nothing to hide domestic/family violence and stalking, the fact that they can and will build an inference about you to attempt to influence your choices is fundamentally menacing to every person.
Corporate stalking has become so normalised (and provides so many livings) that we are through the other side.
Half a millennium ago they tried to control us by restricting our access to information to control what we think, now they bombard us with it to control what we think.
> or they just have no self-preservation instinct
I actually feel this way very often when talking to some younger people online. I wonder if they really competely lack this skill, or their desire for upvotes online leads to them expressing compassionate, but stupid and dangerous, conclusions.
They didn’t grow up before all this was completely normal. And before we throw too many stones at them, we should all maybe consider how many of us in this thread contribute to the “attention economy” in one form or another, most of which drives everyone into the corral to have their data collected.
It’s easy to point fingers at young people and treat them as ignorant/not caring about what matters, but they were born into and grew up in the world we built and continue to build.
The "I have nothing to hide people" are the reason our privacy rights have eroded.
If I was rich, wouldn't I just pay the fines though? I hear about megacops fined billions of dollars every year for doing this shit they don't give a fuck
Edit: Okay my brain processed the information now, criminal prosecution sounds like slightly more deterrence. (Nobody would do an illegal thing, after all ;)
Criminal prosecution isn't even an issue because it does not extend to the executives. PG&E somehow keeps paying fines to resolve murder charges.
https://liberationnews.org/pges-rap-sheet-the-criminal-histo...
Hence, the alleged action of Luigi Mangione.
If the law of the government doesn't catch up, eventually the law of the jungle will. But maybe not in their lifetimes.
As President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."
2 replies →
What's the limit of coercion?
Can someone provide a product that loudly says "we will sell your geolocation data" on checkout?
Is it coercion if you simply want the product?
Yes. Paying the money the data is worth isn’t coercive, linking some other transaction to selling your location data is.
This includes having a discount larger than what your location data is worth. IE: I’ll sell you this car for 50k, o you want it without location tracking that will be 150k.
I think the practice of tying the use of one product to coerce the loss of rights of your private data has some comparables (noted below).
The law seems to recognize that companies coercing someone to give up money using tie-ins may be illegal but is not yet recognizing data as a monetary equivalent. Because it’s not money it’s not regulated.
Isn’t it time that our data be treated as the exchange of value that it is? And the coercion should be something we are protected against?
1. abuse of monopoly power in tie-in sales.
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
2. Freebie marketing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor-and-blades_model
3. RESPA
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/real-estate-settlement-...
If thats the standard, then I suggest people find a less polarizing word with a clearer definition.
Putting the semantics aside, Who decides what it is worth and to whom?
Why wouldn't a company sell a car without geodata for what it is worth? Maybe it is worth 150k to them because that is what some people will pay the maximum return price point for that package?
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GDPR does a great job defining this iirc?
gating the product on unrelated data access is coercive