[HN Gopher] Okay, Google: To protect women, collect less data ab...
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Okay, Google: To protect women, collect less data about everyone
Author : johndfsgdgdfg
Score : 191 points
Date : 2022-07-17 10:45 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| quest88 wrote:
| What about ISPs? Other trackers? The problem is Government's
| abuse of power.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That would not be as click-able of an article.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I think as a red tape solution Google will just collect less data
| of abortion center etc. They will still suck data whereever they
| can.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| It's a bit bizarre that this is the route that folks are becoming
| aware that privacy has been decimated in the last decades. I'll
| take it I suppose. Yes, everyone deserves privacy until a lawful
| warrant has been issued. Not the current reality unfortunately.
| classified wrote:
| Asking Google to collect less data is like asking a hog to eat
| less. Not gonna happen.
| AinderS wrote:
| > Google provides useful products, and in exchange we might be
| targeted with annoying ads. Big whoop. Until now.
|
| Enter a cage willingly, with barely any complaint, for minor
| convenience, then cry when you're taken to the slaughterhouse.
| It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and
| apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make
| them react.
|
| And despite this, they remain willfully blind to other threats,
| that are smart enough to stay below the threshold:
| https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/censorship-by-algori...
|
| > Four ways to build civil rights into Google products
|
| A laughable chapter of the article, void of any actually
| effective suggestions, such as compelling Google properties to
| stop blocking the Tor network (duckduckgo and yandex allow Tor),
| or using free software that is actually under the user's control.
|
| The problem is that would give users actual power and autonomy.
| But what the authors _really_ want is for Google and other
| corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only
| enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. That 's why
| they want to build "civil rights" into products, and not "user
| freedom". That's why they get comments from an establishment
| Harvard professor, and not the FSF.
| btilly wrote:
| The fact that Google collects information that can be
| subpoenaed is NOT the top risk here. Not even close.
|
| It is the fact that if you search for anything abortion
| related, the top search results are dominated by fake abortion
| clinics. Who far outnumber real ones. A woman won't know that
| it is fake until after she has provided them with all of the
| information that she shouldn't have. And since they AREN'T
| licensed medical facilities, they have no requirement to keep
| her data private. For example in Texas they can immediately
| turn her information over to law enforcement to collect the
| reward for turning in someone who is trying to get an abortion.
|
| If Google can figure out which clinics are fake and get them
| off their site (including not letting them advertise), that
| would do a LOT to help.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| The craziest to me is that this is legal.
|
| From the EU perspective, the USA seems to be going into a
| madness spiral.
| titzer wrote:
| > For example in Texas they can immediately turn her
| information over to law enforcement to collect the reward for
| turning in someone who is trying to get an abortion.
|
| It is frankly insane to me that the ones claiming the highest
| moral ground created a vigilante system driven by ruining
| people's lives when they are at their most vulnerable.
| shapefrog wrote:
| Imagine for a second if you replaced "Texas" with "North
| Korea" what the very people who support this would say.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic
| and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to
| make them react.
|
| I took years before I realized Google was spying on me and
| following me around on different sites. I did get no warnings,
| until I realized what they were doing and visited sites that
| warned about it.
|
| It is just in the recent years "big tech" spying is a thing in
| the mainstream after like a decade of free reign. An ordinary
| person received warnings like 15 years after they made their
| Gmail or Facebook account.
| muzani wrote:
| It's more akin to pollution than slaughter. Most of the people
| selling their privacy are not significantly harmed by it. It's
| a group downstream that get it worst.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Enter a cage willingly, with barely any complaint, for minor
| convenience, then cry when you're taken to the slaughterhouse
|
| I don't think it's fair to characterise Gmail, Google Maps,
| YouTube and plenty other Google "products" (Pay, Music,
| Android, Android TV, Android Auto, Calendar, Podcasts, etc.) as
| "minor convenience". Some of them were literal game changers,
| and some still are (YouTube, Google Maps, even if they're
| finally starting to get decent competition).
|
| Similarly, characterising Google's knowledge about one's habits
| and interests for the purpose of serving ads (that are also, at
| least sometimes, more interesting for the user) as "entering a
| cage" is hyperbolic to say the least.
|
| Yes, having a corporation know you very well for monetisation
| is bad, but it's not a cage from which you're going to be
| slaughtered. And even today, many people would prefer, if they
| even have the choice, to have free access to Maps, Gmail,
| YouTube and all the rest instead of paying 5-20 $/EUR/PS
| each/month, or having to buy into Apple's expensive walled
| garden and its own massive issues and fleecing.
| AinderS wrote:
| > "entering a cage" is hyperbolic to say the least.
|
| Until you do something forbidden, such as get an abortion,
| and hyperbole becomes literal truth as you're sent to prison.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Has anyone in the world ever been sent to prison for
| getting an abortion based on Google location data? Or is
| this all still hypothetical? (Seriously curious)
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| > Similarly, characterising Google's knowledge about one's
| habits and interests for the purpose of serving ads (that are
| also, at least sometimes, more interesting for the user) as
| "entering a cage" is hyperbolic to say the least.
|
| If you don't think it's a cage, try saying no to the data
| collection of google and others.
|
| Where I live it cuts you off from most community events and
| organisations. It cuts you off from second hand markets. It
| cuts you off from many events. It is starting to cut you off
| from access to banking services (for now limiting features,
| but the stranglehold will get tighter once attestation hits
| PCs). And during covid it got you passed over on the vaccine
| waiting list without a google/apple only app and then forced
| you to choose between submitting to google and awkwardly
| standing out the front of any shop demanding they follow the
| law and let you sign in manually in order to buy anything
| while you get lumped in with anti-vaccers.
|
| It has already repeatedly been used to round up protestors
| and dragnet people for criminal investigations when they had
| nothing to do with it. Now abortion, and it wil, only get
| worse.
| thallamus wrote:
| We'd all be a hell of a lot better off if your camp didn't
| casually and routinely believe that failure to contact FSF or
| advocate for Tor is evidence of a conspiracy against computing.
| I swear free software people have a really great idea and
| philosophy and absolute garbage ideas of how to promote the
| idea and convince disagreeing viewpoints. We badly need to
| start coming around to the seemingly-crazy understanding that
| there's a _huge_ middle ground between where you are and would
| prefer us to be, and unfettered, apocalyptic corporate
| exploitation dooming us all. It's tiring to live this Sith
| existence that free software people push: "with us or
| conspiring against." And we all know it's RMS who sets that
| tone and has inspired all of you to religious battle. The
| problem is you're showing up to battle with civilians most of
| the time, including here, in this thread, right now.
|
| You mention nearby that you didn't mean for this post to come
| off as blaming the consumer. That's weird, because typically
| when I'm blaming someone for something, I use adjectives like
| "myopic", "apathetic", and "willful" to describe their behavior
| that I find disagreeable. Your entire post is blaming the very
| people you're trying to convince; when called on it, you
| quickly rush in with oh no, not blaming the consumer, and not
| even blaming Google (!?).
|
| > That's why they get comments from an establishment Harvard
| professor, and not the FSF.
|
| How do you think this conversation goes? Is it something like
| this?
|
| "The people are dangerously close to understanding true
| freedom. We cannot have that and we must convince them that
| Google policing is in their best interest. If we call FSF
| that's what they're going to tell us, so we absolutely can't do
| that. Let's call the safe option at Harvard."
|
| Because (former investigative journalist here) it isn't. The
| conversation you're annoyed about actually goes like this:
|
| "The last five hundred times we tried the FSF we got lectured
| about why our computing choices suck and we make bad decisions
| about using computers. Let's go to a person we've worked with
| before who is able to break this down in a way that I, and my
| readers, will understand. Bonus: I don't have to Google why
| forgetting 'GNU/' in the last article destroyed my comment
| section."
|
| It's so weird and depressing because everybody in free software
| is brilliant, for the most part, but just can't see how
| alienating and frustrating this kind of thing is for the
| majority of people who aren't them.
| leereeves wrote:
| While I agree with some of what you said about the free
| software community, I think you're ignoring GP's larger
| point, and somewhat derailing the conversation by focusing
| too much on one sentence of a long comment.
|
| Perhaps you could post a substantive rebuttal to the heart of
| GP's comment:
|
| > they remain willfully blind to other threats ...
|
| > The problem is that would give users actual power and
| autonomy. But what the authors really want is for Google and
| other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but
| only enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others.
|
| In other words, what about broader issues with censorship,
| surveillance, and corporate control of the Internet outside
| the context of abortion?
| thallamus wrote:
| I didn't rebut either of your quotes because they're both
| ascribing intent to the actions of others with very limited
| information. I'd be rebutting their interpretation of
| events, not the events (and I'd also be doing it with the
| same limited information).
|
| I also think the broader point is more important.
| leereeves wrote:
| Fair enough, those claims could use some evidence. The
| author of this article once wrote:
|
| > As more of the Internet permeated our lives, so has the
| expectation that tech companies share a responsibility
| for content that's akin to food companies' responsibility
| for public health.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/24/onli
| ne-...
|
| It seems fair to characterize that as believing that
| "Google and other corporations [should] keep acting as
| internet police".
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| It could also mean that they share responsibility because
| of their lobbying efforts.
|
| Laws could have been enacted a long time ago and
| surveillance expectations could have remained strongly on
| individual privacy instead of fighting like:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49808208
|
| Or https://thehill.com/policy/technology/407528-fight-
| looms-ove...
| AinderS wrote:
| > Let's go to a person we've worked with before who is able
| to break this down in a way that I, and my readers, will
| understand.
|
| That will have an anemic opinion that is close to your own,
| and works for an institution that is as establishment as they
| come [1]. How can you "speak truth to power" when you get
| your commentary and opinions from one of the seats of that
| power?
|
| [1] _Eight of the nine members of the current [supreme] court
| went to law school at either Harvard or Yale._ -
| https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/supreme-court-
| cov...
| thallamus wrote:
| I'd love to respond substantively on this topic, but every
| followup I've written so far in this thread has been
| immediately flagged, so I'm not inclined to risk the time.
| (I'm sorry for that. That's not your fault.)
|
| I could fly off on a tangent about how that's a conspiracy
| to suppress my view, but I think it's more productive to
| look at that as a misunderstanding of the role of the
| "flag" button. Maybe that's my substantive response I'd
| leave you with: when presented with opportunity to presume
| the worst in people, find the middle if you can?
| fartcannon wrote:
| You kind of have a baby/bathwater situation, eh? You'd throw
| the baby out just because the bathwater has a lot of
| evangelists you personally find unpleasant to communicate
| with. Doesn't seem to matter that they're fighting for _your
| rights_ just that you don't like them. I guess your post
| directly leads to OP's post in that sense, because my first
| thought after reading yours was, "you reap what you sow"
| which is more or less what OP wrote. So maybe we'd be a hell
| of a lot better off without your attitude?
| [deleted]
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| What OP is saying is that the brilliant people churning
| ideas and insights within FSF, are terrible at advocating
| for it.
|
| I agree.
|
| As an example: FSF points about free (as in liberty)
| hardware was years ahead of its time; yet it wasn't taken
| very seriously until MS push for UEFI.
|
| The work of getting the message out on the important points
| is better left to others.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Yes, thank you for elaborating, but I did understand
| their point. The issue is that OP hasn't thought far
| enough ahead (or doesn't care) and as a result, as GP and
| myself have now said, a situation where you reap what you
| sow occurs.
|
| Let me elaborate now: The people who are willing to get
| the message out about FSF ideals are currently the people
| who are doing it. So unless OP or yourself can provide
| the means to do that better than what is being done now,
| what you get is what there is right now. So then, if at
| that point, you hear about a good idea (like what the FSF
| fights for) but turn away from it (throwing out the baby)
| because you don't like the source of that idea, then, as
| was already said, you reap what you sow.
| thallamus2 wrote:
| Except they aren't doing it. What we have to show for
| decades of FSF activism is enough of a rejection of GPL
| that other licenses filled the gap, and that gap
| basically created cloud computing by letting the very
| companies RMS detests offshore their engineering to the
| detesters without any risk. So in one interpretation, the
| ideal software model but maybe not the ideal license
| envisioned by FSF is a major component of the
| transfer/takeback of computing as a concept from
| individual to corporation (and then bigger corporation)
| and the creation of pan-surveillance culture. Which is
| incredibly ironic given the ideals of the FLOSS
| community. _That's_ what we're reaping, in my estimation.
|
| Vexing yourself with the legal provenance of the BIOS in
| your laptop ignores all that, and this state of computing
| been slowly growing in that technofetish blind spot for
| about thirty years. And now the community with said,
| massive blind spot is saying "see what you reaped by not
| listening to us?" Come on. We did. It's a safe bet I've
| been thinking about this longer than you've been in the
| job market, and I'm not saying that to tout my
| experience, but it's equally frustrating to level some
| criticism at the FLOSS world and get accused of
| shortsighted/myopia/blah blah which was _exactly_ my bone
| to pick with OP. That's the only argument path. FLOSS is
| perfect, and if you disagree, you just don't see it.
| That's not a society. That's a belief.
|
| I'm not saying that's the fairest take. (Please give me a
| better one that isn't "people just don't listen," and I
| may be convinced.) Maybe if everything Posix were GPL we
| wouldn't be offshoring our computing responsibilities to
| companies who built platforms with these tools, I don't
| know. This has been the background noise of my entire
| adult life, though, and yeah, I've had enough reaping of
| the current state of affairs.
|
| I assure you wholeheartedly that I care. I just disagree
| with you. Stop confusing the two.
| fartcannon wrote:
| They ARE doing it, you just don't think it's effective.
| If you can do better, do it! If you can't, or don't want
| to, well, ... we reap what we sow. There's no reason to
| throw the baby out with the bathwater.
| [deleted]
| zmgsabst wrote:
| My experience is that journalists do the first using the
| vocabulary of the second:
|
| They phrase objections to viewpoints and ideas that are
| forbidden in the language of decorum, so they can claim to be
| upholding propriety and good society rather than censorship.
|
| That attitude (and your post) are why trust in media has
| collapsed -- you're no longer doing the hard work of bringing
| us the fire of truth, you're just having a pleasant chat with
| your friends.
| [deleted]
| goodpoint wrote:
| > It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic
| and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to
| make them react.
|
| This is what governments and NGOs are for.
|
| Individual initiative is not enough to address systemic issues
| like pollution, or food/car/airline/workplace safety for
| example. You can't just blame the average person for not
| running their own mailserver, growing their on food etc.
|
| Surveillance capitalism is now a political problem like
| monopolies/oligopolies creating pollution and so on
| AinderS wrote:
| > Individual initiative is not enough to address systemic
| issues
|
| I couldn't agree more. But before we can have the software
| equivalent of a food safety agency, people have to stop
| shrugging off food poisoning with "they probably deserved
| it".
| andrepd wrote:
| > It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic
| and apathetic
|
| 99% of people I interact with have absolutely NO idea of the
| ramifications of the apps and services they use. Their
| understanding of technology ends at "click app icon and
| scroll". I think that (probably because you're in tech) you
| seriously overestimate the degree to which the vast majority of
| people can be said to have given " _informed consent_ ".
|
| Hell, even among my friends with PhDs and whatnot a majority
| does not understand.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic
| and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to
| make them react.
|
| The problem is, the very same data that anti-abortion
| fundamentalists or the police in the pointless "war on drugs"
| use against the population are what makes many services
| _possible_ or _usable_ in the first place.
|
| A real-time traffic map only works with a large number of
| devices transmitting location and movement data that are then
| evaluated to detect a traffic jam. An app to help fertility or
| contraception only works with people entering very detailed
| data about their periods. Cell phones only work by having the
| phone register at each cell during roaming around.
|
| Boycotting Google or deleting your period app is a stopgap
| solution - the real fix is we all need to get the right to
| privacy enshrined in our Constitutions, Basic Laws (the German
| equivalent) and international treaties, in a way that matches
| the reality that our phones and computers are _direct
| extensions of our minds_. We don 't allow police to use brain
| reading (=polygraphs) as evidence in court, so tell me, why the
| fuck should we allow police to use digital representations of
| our brains?
|
| Oh, and we all have to literally fight for the separation of
| church and state that basically all Western nations have in
| their constitutions to be actual reality. Fuck churches, fuck
| religion - the immense amount of influence both have on
| politics is completely unhealthy.
| ekianjo wrote:
| [deleted]
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Everyone should be free to believe in whatever the fuck
| they want.
|
| All I want is churches or any other form of religion
| completely banned from political consideration.
| trelane wrote:
| > Everyone should be free to believe in whatever the fuck
| they want
|
| > All I want is churches or any other form of religion
| completely banned from political consideration.
|
| That's rather an astounding amount of irony right there.
| candiodari wrote:
| But as this current crisis clearly shows, the problem is not
| privacy invasion by FANGs. The problem is _government_
| privacy invasion, everywhere. And there, sorry to say, Google
| is not the problem. Perhaps some changes to their policies is
| warranted, but a total turnaround? Why?
|
| Hospitals and doctor's effectively report on women's periods,
| contraceptives and pregnancies when women visit. This is not
| optional, this is important for correct diagnosis and care
| for women, as well as for emergency care for women when
| necessary (many drugs and life-saving treatments, including
| emergency ones, MUST NOT be used during pregnancies, not
| because religion, but because they would harm the baby, or
| mother, or both). And unlike Google searches, Facebook chats
| or Amazon orders, medical provided information about periods
| has actually been used to convict women getting abortions.
|
| Something similar goes for social workers providing women
| with feminine hygiene products.
|
| The first thing we need is for police to stay away from
| medical records, and to go back to outlawing doctors, and any
| medical and social services (esp. mental care of any kind)
| giving any information to the police.
|
| But that would this information is inaccessible to law
| enforcement and the next time some teenager disappears for a
| week we'd need to show backbone ... The next divorce
| proceedings we need to show backbone, and WHATEVER mental
| health history any of the partners have needs to stay out of
| it. We need to make police, justice, some medical procedures
| and social work harder, and accept the costs that _will_ come
| with that.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > But as this current crisis clearly shows, the problem is
| not privacy invasion by FANGs. The problem is government
| privacy invasion, everywhere. And there, sorry to say,
| Google is not the problem.
|
| I literally said that boycotting Google and period apps is
| a stopgap solution and the real fix is to get rights to
| privacy enshrined in constitutions?
| briHass wrote:
| Just to note that separating medical records from
| government's prying eyes would also include (lack of)
| vaccination status and would neuter most 'red flag' laws
| that restrict gun access based on mental health.
| tristor wrote:
| Sounds like a positive outcome.
|
| Vaccination status is something between the patient and
| the doctor, the police have no need for that information.
|
| Red flag laws are both blatantly unconstitutional and
| have been wildly misused in their short time in
| existence, the only people I see defending them are
| mostly those who see it as an inch towards a complete
| personal gun ownership ban, which is what they really
| want.
|
| Doctor/Patient confidentiality used to be sacrosanct, and
| it is no longer, and realistically I know many people who
| refuse help because of this. The Defund the Police folks
| are right, America needs more social workers, not more
| police powers.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Red flag laws are both blatantly unconstitutional and
| have been wildly misused in their short time in
| existence, the only people I see defending them are
| mostly those who see it as an inch towards a complete
| personal gun ownership ban, which is what they really
| want.
|
| The US has a problem with gun violence that puts all
| other civilized nations to shame, and it is per 100k
| second in the world when it comes to firearm suicide [1].
| The problem is, getting _any_ sort of federal gun control
| that actually reduces the amount of gun violence passed
| in Congress is impossible. Even right after _yet another_
| completely preventable massacre - firearm death is the
| _most common_ source of child deaths [2].
|
| So, yes, states need to be able to institute limitations
| on gun use, and "red flag" laws that use either known
| records of mental health issues or (domestic) violence
| citations are a reasonable compromise between privacy and
| _the right of children to go to school without getting
| shot dead_.
|
| [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/gun-death...
|
| [2] https://time.com/6170864/cause-of-death-children-
| guns/
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Gun violence in the US is insane, and of course you could
| not have gun violence without guns. Yet other places, of
| comparable economic status (Switzerland, Austria,...)
| also have high gun ownership, without having the insane
| rate of gun violence. So there must be more to the
| insanity than just 'guns'.
| tristor wrote:
| So, to clarify, you are confirming that you are against
| personal firearms ownership and also support red flag
| laws as a compromise/inch towards a ban.
|
| I don't understand why you're replying like we are going
| to engage in a debate here.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > Google is not the problem. Perhaps some changes to their
| policies is warranted, but a total turnaround? Why?
|
| But it is the problem. Google legally collects the data,
| but that means the information is only one law away from
| becoming accessible and directly used against individuals.
|
| There are many checks in place--practical, legal, and
| cultural--to keep law enforcement from collecting such
| data.
|
| FAANG's surveillance tech has created a backdoor to
| circumvent all but the legal checks.
|
| That's an awful place to be in, especially in the world of
| parallel construction.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > But what the authors really want is for Google and other
| corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only
| enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others.
|
| This brings to mind a useful test: Consider a hypothetical, in
| which instead of a majority-Republican-appointed Supreme Court
| allowing states to ban abortions, a majority-Democrat-appointed
| Supreme Court allowed states to ban guns. If you'd want Google
| to continue collecting data on people visiting gun stores and
| machine shops in that case, then don't pretend privacy is why
| you want them to stop doing the same thing in this case.
| titzer wrote:
| This sounds a little like the incremental addiction to fossil
| fuels the world has developed. It's "the market" and "blame
| consumers" when we know damn well that consumers don't choose
| fuel sources and consumers didn't grease the palms of
| legislators and regulators for more than a century.
| grog454 wrote:
| > we know damn well that consumers don't choose fuel sources
|
| That's not entirely true. Where I live people have a choice
| of energy provider which includes much more costly "100%
| renewable" options. Guess how popular that choice is.
| titzer wrote:
| > people have a choice of energy provider
|
| I don't know where you live, so it's impossible to say what
| you actually mean. But if you are referring to the choices
| for electric power, these are almost certainly new
| developments that have been _forced_ by legislation
| mandating giving consumers a choice, which is only a small
| walkback of the past century of promotion and even
| subsidizing energy producers that use fossil fuels. Energy
| production is a deeply non-free market. Even in recent
| times with the rise of solar, it 's often the case where
| it's illegal (or sometimes merely inconvenient or
| uneconomical) to sell power back to the grid.
| eropple wrote:
| You don't say where you live, but in the United States, in
| addition to 'titzer correctly says, these "100% renewable"
| providers that are piggybacking on the established
| providers' grids are mostly a flavor of adjustable-rate
| scam.
| AinderS wrote:
| You make a good point. I can see how my post could be
| interpreted as blaming regular consumers for the mess we're
| in. And while consumer apathy and ignorance disgust me, you
| are correct, journalists and media that are supposed to be
| guiding us should shoulder the majority of the blame.
|
| I would blame Google, but that's like blaming the fox for
| killing the hens, instead of whoever left a hole in the hen
| house.
|
| Edit: See my other comment
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126390) about this
| analogy "excusing" Google/the fox.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Journalism bears some responsibility (insofar as it's
| become addicted to cheap social media traffic and digital
| ad revenue), but I think the context doesn't justify
| disproportionate blame.
|
| In particular: social media companies understood, very
| early on, that they could use their position to squeeze
| traditional media by cutting into its advertising. It was a
| classic industrial takeover, _including_ the incumbent's
| mockery of the newcomer until it was too late.
|
| They probably deserve some blame for not seeing how the
| wind was blowing, and reacting accordingly. But I would
| place more blame on digital ad markets and all of the
| perverse incentives associated with them, all of which
| originate somewhere in the grimy junction between VCs and
| traditional advertising.
| morelisp wrote:
| In your analogy, whatever happens to the lazy farmhand, the
| fox also still gets shot.
| mewse wrote:
| But the journalists too are just following the incentives
| that are provided to them. Don't they deserve some of that
| "but that's like blaming the fox for killing the hens,
| instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house" blanket
| pardon you're handing out, here?
| AinderS wrote:
| > blanket pardon
|
| Oh that wasn't a pardon. Maybe the fox analogy was poorly
| chosen, since foxes are cute and have their place in the
| ecosystem. I should have said Google is like cancer, and
| media are the negligent doctor that takes too long to
| send you to therapy.
| tremon wrote:
| _instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house_
|
| The entire world is full of holes, and always has been. We
| shouldn't be lauding the foxes that use every hole they
| find. Unethical activities should be called out, not
| downplayed and dismissed.
| titzer wrote:
| I wouldn't be so quick to paint the big ad networks as
| natural phenomenon like foxes, that just need to eat.
|
| After all, foxes don't need to eat 23% more hens year after
| year for decades. Their stomachs are only so big.
|
| It's partly the atmosphere of hyper-growth--"growthism" it
| is sometimes called--that has given rise to this situation.
| And it is partly because big tech has been gaslighting us
| about how all this tracking and ad personalization is good
| for consumers--which it isn't. It benefits advertisers and
| ad networks, not consumers.
| ISL wrote:
| If you have enough chickens, the number of foxes, too,
| can grow exponentially with time.
| titzer wrote:
| I am getting confused in this whole analogy, TBH, but if
| chickens were clicks or ad impressions, it seems like
| foxes have developed an appetite for pigeons, larks,
| hawks, eagles, rabbits, squirrels, shrews, groundhogs,
| muskrats, cats, small dogs, mice, rats, and other foxes.
| They seem to have a bottomless pit for a stomach and are
| telling us that it's always been that case that foxes
| were the dominant life form and that we should be
| grateful for the services they are providing.
| afavour wrote:
| > It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic
|
| Which warnings? I ask the question earnestly. As a developer
| with a clear sense of how the internet is structured, what
| browsers are and are not capable of doing etc I know the
| warnings myself. But for the population at large? I'm not sure
| I've ever seen anything that's explained the consequences of
| pervasive advertising infrastructure to non tech inclined
| folks, much less something placed somewhere that people will
| actually see it.
|
| Until recently people simply were not aware that personally
| identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent
| that you'd be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or
| that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be
| later bought on a free market and tied to personal
| identification.
|
| This is a failure of regulation, education and a media beholden
| to tech giants. I think we in the tech industry have some
| reflection to do as well. We understand the implications better
| than most yet many of us dutifully completed our work tickets
| to add tracking pixels to every page of the company site. We
| can't do that then turn around and say "what, you mean you
| didn't know that a Facebook Like button tracks every web page
| you look at even if you don't click on it?!" and expect to be
| taken seriously.
|
| Placing the blame at the feet of individuals that aren't
| equipped to understand is a mistake, IMO.
| tomp wrote:
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I spent 20 years talking to friends and familly around me,
| and they don't care. They won't even try Firefox if they are
| used to chrome. Not even that small effort.
|
| We had the US mass spying revealed in the press, with the
| PRISM program exposed. The public mostly carried on as usual.
|
| Snowden got persecuted, giving the issue a lot of publicity.
| He wrote a very good book explaning why surveillance is
| dangerous. Again, most people didn't flinch.
|
| A lot of people on HN reported trying to talk to people and
| get blank stares. "I have nothing to hide". "I don't care if
| people are collecting my data".
|
| This is not just a failure in regulation: people don't give
| priority to problem that are not a pain right now. It's too
| abstract. Not to mention they have other problems that are a
| pain right now, and are armed with limited time, resources
| and knowledge.
|
| Same problem with climate change. Their life is fine now.
| They can't care about the impact of their consumption in x
| year when they have to think about a loan, their health, the
| kids getting in trouble at school, their boss being pushy
| lately and the lattest form they have to fill.
|
| There is also the cost of trying to avoid tracking product at
| the individual level.
|
| I won't use Apple since it's locked down. So I use android.
| But I can't sign in into a google account or it will track
| everything. So I can't use the app store and many app won't
| work.
|
| I can't use the best app provider like gmap and waze, have to
| sandbox youtube which mean it's mostly suggesting terrible
| content as it assumes I'm the average human.
|
| I have a collections of extensions on web browser and several
| Firefox containers to isolate everything. Something I spent a
| lot of time to learn, master and configure.
|
| I use Linux because Windows is tracking you, and MacOS is a
| golden cage. So I can't buy the best laptop CPU out there,
| which is the M2, and have terrible battery life.
|
| My friends harassed me to have a FB account. Then an insta
| account. Then a whatsapp account. So I have to accept to miss
| out on things, and their nagging about it for every
| communication.
|
| Now I am willing to accept all that because I think there are
| things more important in life than being part of a group chat
| or having the latest trendy thing.
|
| But it's a hard sell for a many, espacially since, once
| again, "their life is fine right now".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| You really can't force people to want something they don't
| want.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| I recently watched the 1998 Will Smith movie "Enemy of the
| State" (lawyer targeted by the NSA finds himself entangled in
| a terrifying web of surveillance). The point of the movie was
| clearly to emphasize the importance of privacy and the
| dangers of mass data collection and surveillance.
|
| What is most wild about the movie is that much of the tech
| (and government policies) seemed a bit far-fetched
| (Hollywood-style exaggeration) for 1998. However, now, after
| 20+ years of the Patriot Act and the advancement of global
| connectivity (read smartphones) it actually came across as
| pretty tame and unsurprising. The ramifications of society's
| decent down the rabbit hole have been clear for awhile to
| anyone willing to pay attention...
| iso1631 wrote:
| In Enemy of the state they could hide from the every
| present satelites by
|
| 1) Not looking up or going in side
|
| 2) Throwing away any phones you have
|
| Good luck with that. You might not even have a phone, that
| person taking a photo you just walked past does, and the
| facial recognition works just fine. Even if they don't know
| your name, they can track you. It was sort-of covered in
| the film - the CCTV in the garage etc, it's just far less
| manpower intensive now
| Jerrrry wrote:
| >Until recently people simply were not aware that personally
| identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent
| that you'd be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic.
| Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that
| can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal
| identification.
|
| They were aware. It just wasn't until these moments that it
| affected them personally, and they started to care.
| shapefrog wrote:
| >Until recently people simply were not aware that
| personally identifiable location data was gathered on them
| to the extent that you'd be able to detect a visit to an
| abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending
| data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and
| tied to personal identification.
|
| "People" were utterly certain that their phones and
| computers were listening to every conversation they had,
| then big tech was advertising the products that they
| thought about back at them.
|
| But the location tracking software they have enabled to
| find their phone/keys/bag/friend couldnt possibly be used
| to see where their phone/keys/bag/friend is ...
| Shared404 wrote:
| For those thinking "no way..." - I have known people who
| believed this exact thing.
|
| Also, I've known people who won't get a drivers license
| because "the government wants your face", but spend all
| their time on Facebook.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I cannot express how unsurprised I am at this - it's
| simply too stereotypically American. Americans, as a
| general rule, seem to distrust their government - instead
| placing their trust in large corporations. This is true
| from an individual level, all the way up to societal -
| though I'll admit it becomes more hit-or-miss the closer
| we get to the individual level.
|
| This is borne out in everything from private prisons, to
| the medical industry, to ID cards, to your acquaintances
| that trust Facebook more than their elected officials.
| Kye wrote:
| This all comes from somewhere. It's not like we woke up
| one day and decided to distrust government. The entire
| movement to infiltrate government and make it ineffective
| so people will support dismantling and privatizing it is
| just the tip of the iceberg. Culture doesn't exist in a
| vacuum. _You_ can trust your government--your post makes
| it sound like you 're not in the US; if you are, you need
| to pay more attention--because it's not fully captured by
| private interests that make it work against the public.
| kornhole wrote:
| This can be called manufactured ignorance. Those who have
| been informed sometimes practice willful ignorance. I have
| also come to accept that perhaps a majority of people want to
| be watched and controlled just as they want to be ruled by
| powerful people. It is hard for some of us who are not that
| way to understand and accept.
| jasd wrote:
| > Until recently people simply were not aware that personally
| identifiable location data was gathered on
|
| Is this right? For a long time now, every time I visit a
| restaurant I get a notification from Google suggesting that I
| should write a review. That should be sufficient to raise the
| alarm bells for even non-tech folks no?
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Purchasing and search history suggest that you had a pregnancy
| magically disappear in a red state? Buy a book that is critical
| of Islam in a Middle Eastern country? Search for the long term
| health risks of giving minors hormone therapy in Canada?
| Congratulations, the ad services have now flagged you for
| possible wrong think / criminal investigation. Hope not having
| to print out Map Quest directions was worth it.
| [deleted]
| mancerayder wrote:
| > The problem is that would give users actual power and
| autonomy. But what the authors really want is for Google and
| other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only
| enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. That's why
| they want to build "civil rights" into products, and not "user
| freedom". That's why they get comments from an establishment
| Harvard professor, and not the FSF.
|
| There's a strong authoritarian zeitgeist built into the
| identity politics proposals of papers like the WP. It's been
| like this for years - stories about "hate online" and "what are
| corporations going to do about it." Proposals around racial
| justice always end up with laws to compel something from
| someone.
|
| The goals might be benign, but they should follow principles
| that we've already agreed by consensus as a society / culture
| rather than via compulsion and radical 'rethinks'.
|
| The obsession of the last few years with regulating
| 'misinformation' and 'hate' online should be a big red flag
| here.
| olalonde wrote:
| It seems more reasonable solutions already exist, like not
| logging in to Google when doing searches you want to keep
| anonymous. Google probably still logs stuff (IP, user agent, and
| search term) but it gives you plausible deniability and you have
| the option of using a public WiFi or VPN if you don't want your
| IP address logged. Or more simply, just use DuckDuckGo instead.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| How is that "more reasonable" ?
| olalonde wrote:
| Saving the search history by default is probably a better UX
| for most users. You get autocompletion, it helps Google
| deliver better results, helps show more relevant
| advertisements, etc. Defaults are usually chosen to satisfy
| the most common use case. The use case described in the
| article (hiding searches from law enforcement) is relatively
| rare and shouldn't serve as the basis for a default, in my
| opinion. For users who value their privacy more, there are
| alternatives like DuckDuckGo.
| marssaxman wrote:
| What would be unreasonable about it?
|
| This is a genuine question. I never did log into google for
| any searches, and I switched to DuckDuckGo some years ago
| with no fuss. It seems to me like a practical thing anyone
| might do if they don't want Google to track them.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| America is becoming more like China lol.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post unsubstantive or flamebait comments. We've
| had to ask you this before.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| harry8 wrote:
| How well do you think that's going to go if you are charged
| with murder? It doesn't matter a damn what /you/ (or me, or
| anyone) think about the ethics of the situation. Plausible
| deniability is going to be a very weak crutch to be relying on
| when charged with something with an equivalent consequences to
| a charge murder. Defence of google policy on that basis is
| really a non-starter, imho. I imagine google won't actually do
| that themselves they'll just remain silent with PR drafted
| press releases talking about just how important something or
| other is to them with the usual total lack of substance.
|
| Are google's socially progressive positions purely marketing
| and they'll drop and and all of them like a hot brick if it
| might cost them some money or market share? Are we the baddies?
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| > Are we the baddies?
|
| Always have been.
| olalonde wrote:
| I don't organize my life around the unlikely event that I
| might one day be falsely accused of murder. I don't estimate
| that it is worth the cost and I suspect most people share
| that view, as evidenced by Google's massive user base. I
| understand that some people do and I respect their decision.
|
| > Plausible deniability is going to be a very weak crutch to
| be relying on when charged with something with an equivalent
| consequences to a charge murder
|
| I wasn't aware that abortion was prosecuted so harshly. If
| that's the case, then you should indeed not rely on plausible
| deniability and instead, use Tor and/or DuckDuckGo.
|
| I am still defending Google's policy though. Google shouldn't
| cater to a minority of users (e.g. users that plan to commit
| murder-level crimes) to the detriment of the majority.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > I don't organize my life around the unlikely event that I
| might one day be falsely accused of murder.
|
| Do you routinely provide or receive a procedure that's
| considered by fundamentalist Christian politicians to be
| tantamount to murdering infants? If so, you should probably
| consider the possibility that one of those politicians will
| come for you and claim you've committed murder. They have
| the power to do so, and now the law is finally on their
| side. It's no longer an unlikely prospect.
| olalonde wrote:
| Do you mean that anyone who had an abortion while it was
| legal could now be prosecuted for "murder"? That seems
| insane.
| ModernMech wrote:
| No, what I'm saying is that it's easy to pretend this
| isn't a problem that affects you if you aren't regularly
| engaging in the kind of routine activity that is now
| being labeled "murder". What was routine lifesaving
| medical care for you yesterday is now being described by
| political religious fanatics as infanticide. This was
| background noise in the past because their point of view
| was not supported by the law. Now it is and I fully
| expect them to use their newfound power to oppress women
| seeking lifesaving medical care.
|
| Maybe you think that is insane, but a lot of people
| thought a 10 year old living in a state that would force
| her to give birth was so insane it must be fake news. Or
| that it's insane a doctor would be investigated for
| helping a 10 year old receive lifesaving medical care she
| required. But here we are. Your threat assessment is
| outmoded by recent events.
|
| I can think of no group more dangerous than religious
| fanatics bent on protecting "innocents" in the name of
| God.
| golemiprague wrote:
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Although technically an idiot who carried his phone with him and
| took almost no forensic precautions the police officer Wayne
| Couzens who murdered Sarah Everard probably had various levels of
| access to digital privilege that allowed him to plan the
| abduction and killing.
|
| At least that's the discussion my class brought up recently when
| we were talking about LOVEINT and stalking by people who operate
| CCTV cameras and so on.
|
| Why do we persist with this incredibly naive assumption that
| behind digital power are actors who deserve an assumption of
| benevolence first, and the odd rogues are just bad-eggs?
|
| When it comes to this abortion issue, Google are in a privileged
| position of power and should be handled accordingly.
|
| Surely, if we think "zero trust" is a fit way to conduct cyber-
| security, it also applies to civic security? Shouldn't anyone who
| handles public data be positively vetted to within an inch of
| their sanity and themselves be placed within panopticon of
| radical transparency?
|
| Protecting any vulnerable group, including women, from digital
| harms requires a change of mind-set, a new kind of digital
| literacy.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The murders that justified the universal collection and
| permanent storage and indexing of the DNA of anyone arrested or
| suspected of a crime were committed by a cop who was never
| forced to give up his DNA, and who was discovered through the
| search of DNA collected by a private company that uses it to
| sell novelty racial classifications.
|
| In the future, the cops could bust an "illicit" gay club, and
| sample the place for DNA to find likely homosexuals to round
| up. They wouldn't need any better data than they currently
| have.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo
|
| The Killer Inside Us: Law, Ethics, and the Forensic Use of
| Family Genetics
|
| https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1136717
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Never knew "night stalker" was a cop. That second Joseph
| Zabel article also looks interesting, cheers.
| random_upvoter wrote:
| Either you agree with Google collecting data in a way that
| facilitates enforcing the law, or you don't. You can't be picky
| about Google facilitating the laws that you happen to like or
| not.
| lakomen wrote:
| I don't understand how "the leader of all progressive countries"
| could fall back into the dark ages by taking away rights that
| make sense. A country where consuming cannabis is not outlawed
| but abortion is. What is wrong and how can that country be put
| back on track?
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| The US has never been progressive. Chattel slavery was active
| until the 40s. Child marriage occurs frequently. Thousands of
| children of asylum seekers and immigrants have been separated
| from their parents and 'lost'. Politicians may only be
| christian, or in a very small minority muslim.
|
| There are small progressive pockets, but that is all.
| titzer wrote:
| End minority rule. Abolish the Senate and the Electoral
| College.
| flenserboy wrote:
| Why do you think mob rule is better?
| MereInterest wrote:
| Abolishing minority rule does not mean establishing mob
| rule. It means re-establishing equal representation.
| dexterdog wrote:
| More equal, maybe. Equal, certainly not. The power will
| just shift from the land-controlling rich to the city-
| controlling rich.
| MereInterest wrote:
| That would still be an improvement, as it would require
| getting the approval of the majority of voters, rather
| than a majority of land.
| bequanna wrote:
| The US government didn't end up formed this way on
| accident. It is to avoid a "winner takes all" situation
| where 51% of the country dictates all laws, policy to the
| other 49%.
| MereInterest wrote:
| My understanding is that it was largely as a way to
| appease slave states and provide reassurance that there
| wouldn't be abolition at the federal level, not to
| provide an idealized balance between states.
|
| And even if it were for that purpose, having a "winner
| takes all" that requires 51% to achieve would still be
| better than the current system, which still allows for a
| winner-takes-all state but with much less than 51%.
| Checks and balances were designed under the assumption
| that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches
| would be balanced by a constant struggle against each
| other. They didn't account for political parties, which
| can result in multiple branches of government being
| controlled by an overarching party, effectively negating
| those balances.
| tunap wrote:
| Tell that to Reddit. SMH
| MereInterest wrote:
| And end gerrymandering at the state level. Picking Michigan
| as I'm familiar with it, there's a ridiculous bias in the
| state legislature toward Republicans. Comparing the 2006 and
| 2010 state senate races is probably the best comparison. In
| 2006, the popular vote was 55% R and 45% D, with the reverse
| in 2010. In 2006, a 10% lead toward Republicans gave
| Republicans a 26 to 12 majority in the state senate. In 2010,
| a 10% lead toward Democrats gave Republicans a 21 to 17
| majority in the state senate. These maps were found by a
| federal court to be illegally gerrymandered in 2019, but
| unfortunately, was overruled following similar cases at the
| Supreme Court[2][3] that year.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Michigan_Senate_election
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Michigan_Senate_election
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benisek_v._Lamone
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rucho_v._Common_Cause
| bequanna wrote:
| "Abolish the senate"
|
| "Abolish the Supreme Court"
|
| ...when my party isn't in control of it.
| titzer wrote:
| _sigh_. The Supreme Court was never intended to be as
| polarized and partisan as it is today. The framer 's
| thinking on lifetime judicial appointments was that it
| would give them independence from politics, never needing
| to be concerned about elections.
|
| If you look at the history of votes on Supreme Court
| nominees, the hyper-partisan divide, splitting along party
| lines, is an anomaly. We're in a new era. The last 4
| nominees[1] just barely squeaked by, while historically,
| nominees usually got 60, 70, even 80+ votes in the Senate.
| What we are seeing now is very, very different. It used to
| actually be based on qualifications, and now it's 100%
| ideological and politics.
|
| A party "controlling" the Supreme court. What a crappy
| reality we are in now.
|
| edit: [1] I should say _5_ nominees, because Garland didn
| 't even get a _vote_ for _an entire year_ because the
| Senate majority quashed it in order for the next President
| to nominate someone else. Blatant theft of a
| constitutionally-enumerated power allotted to the
| President, if you ask me.
| bequanna wrote:
| > A party "controlling" the Supreme court. What a crappy
| reality we are in now.
|
| Absolutely. But the problem of partisan courts is endemic
| in the US Judicial system. Encountering Far-left or right
| judges at all levels is fairly common.
|
| It doesn't matter which side started packing the courts
| because now it is a race to see who can do it the
| fastest. By luck, planning or whatever the conservatives
| did it at the highest level. The liberals really
| shouldn't say anything because they are also doing the
| same thing at every level.
|
| In general, we need to get away from Courts, especially
| at the Federal level, writing laws. In fact, anyone who
| is not elected (including the bloated, highly partisan
| admin fed/state agencies) should not be writing law.
| trelane wrote:
| Changing the EC would require a national constitutional
| amendment.
|
| If you're looking to make the presidential results look more
| like the national vote, there is an easier step that only
| requires changing your state.
|
| End winner-takes-all EC allocation in your state, and
| allocate proportionally. This would give red and blue
| minorities in a state a say (and even third parties!) and
| reduce the impact of a handful of votes in "swing states".
| MereInterest wrote:
| The problem with allocating the state's electoral college
| votes proportionally is that there's no advantage in doing
| so on a state-by-state level. For each individual state,
| the result is having a much smaller influence on the
| election overall. There's a first-mover problem, where it
| would result in a better end state, but any state that
| makes this allocation is shooting themselves in the foot.
|
| Instead, there's a better solution in the National Popular
| Vote Interstate Compact[0]. All states in the compact give
| the entirety of their votes to the candidate who wins the
| popular vote on the national level, but only once the NPVIC
| has sufficient electoral votes to be the deciding factor.
| This way, the electoral college still exists, doesn't
| require a constitutional amendment to change, but
| effectively becomes a rubber stamp. Because it only takes
| effect once the NPVIC controls the majority of electoral
| college votes, it avoids the first-mover effect.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Int
| ersta...
| trelane wrote:
| > For each individual state, the result is having a much
| smaller influence on the election overall
|
| So do it in small groups. You just have to convince a
| comparable set of red and blue states, and it'll be
| easier to convince them that you'll both win some and
| lose some than to convince the red states to make
| themselves irrelevant. Such is the nature of compromise--
| find common ground, both sides win and lose a little.
|
| Of course, if you solely care about the fact some votes
| count less than others--which was the underlying argument
| against the EC--then just having your state allocate
| proportionally improves the lives of your fellow citizens
| now, and it's for the greater good.
|
| > Instead, there's a better solution in the National
| Popular Vote Interstate Compact[0]
|
| This is just a constitutional amendment with less steps
| and slightly lower threshold.
|
| It's not coincidence that blue states are in it and not
| red. The red states will not sign on to this because it
| would make them irrelevant. A blue state would not
| allocate their EC votes proportional to their state
| results because it would reduce the blue party's
| influence, even though it would be fairer to their
| citizens.
| [deleted]
| pennaMan wrote:
| Consuming cannabis IS outlawed. What are you talking about?
| olalonde wrote:
| You got it reversed. AFAIK, there are no federal laws
| prohibiting abortion but there are federal laws prohibiting the
| use and sale of cannabis. Some states chose to criminalize
| abortion, but not all do. And many states chose to basically
| ignore the federal laws on cannabis (I'm not sure exactly how
| that one works, to be honest).
| yetanother4968 wrote:
| States aren't required to enforce federal law, and the
| federal government can't force states to help enforce federal
| law, as it's unconstitutional.[1] If the feds want to enforce
| the marijuana ban and the state doesn't volunteer to help,
| the feds would have to use e.g. the FBI or DEA to enforce the
| law. The feds don't have the capacity to do that nationally,
| though, so it mostly goes unenforced, except maybe for large
| busts where it's worth it for the feds to put the effort in.
|
| [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commandeering#In_the_United_
| Sta...
| tunap wrote:
| >States aren't required to enforce federal law
|
| But Federal funds can, and are, withheld if the States
| don't enforce Federal Laws. EG: Universal 55 MPH speed
| limits & 21 yo drinking age come to mind.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| mikl wrote:
| Asking Google to collect less data is like asking a tick not to
| bite you. Sure, you can ask, but that won't change the nature of
| the beast.
| havblue wrote:
| I don't entirely follow the logic of this article: abortion is
| illegal in some states and Google knows your search and location
| history. So it seems like it's saying police will scour account
| data to target women with the intention of getting an abortion.
| How?
|
| We know that at the federal level the government can dig into our
| Google profile data or that a police officer might ask you to
| hand over your phone. Short of a court order I don't see how our
| data is compromised like this article implies.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| My (someone uncharitable) interpretation of the article is:
|
| - People who thing big corps and the government are their
| friend are not worried about data privacy. - The government
| suddenly made a change that made a lot of people realize that
| is is not necessarily their friend (aka they are no longer
| comfortable with the government have access to there entire
| life's worth of data). - Now we have to end surveillance
| capitalism because it is dangerous...
|
| I agree with the conclusion, but it is depressing that it has
| taking this long for people to reach it.
| mjburgess wrote:
| States can pass laws requiring, eg., google to provide location
| data relevant to _the crime_ (in that state) of abortion.
|
| It's also pretty trivial to "suspect" someone of a crime for
| "being in some area" and then get a warrent for the data.
|
| Abortion being illegal in some states seems like it might be a
| shock to the privacy system that's needed. If US states are
| clearly abusing their citizens en-mass in a way most people
| disagree with, corporate american enabling this will not be
| seen positively.
| mwt wrote:
| > ... corporate american enabling this will not be seen
| positively.
|
| I don't think this is true in red states or for the minority
| views that determine what is and is not illegal in this
| country, or at least it won't play out like you wish.
| Certainly I don't see this playing out along this optimistic
| path. Politicians in Texas and Mississippi will frame it as
| companies helping dutiful law enforcement investigate evil
| crimes and ergo it's fine that Google was tracking everybody
| all along. Single-issue voters would be happy to see abortion
| providers or seekers behind bars and couldn't care less if
| the fourth amendment was violated along the way.
|
| Just look at how conservatives (ok, well, a good chunk of all
| mainstream politicians) and voters viewed the FBI vs. Apple
| conflict from a few years ago - it was "we have to make sure
| the cops can get the bad guys so of course the cops should
| have access to whatever information they need" not "I have a
| right to privacy - time to stop using these services until
| they respect it"
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think the implication is that local police _would_ seek court
| orders for this kind of data. That's not a particularly
| difficult step for them, and Google is unlikely to resist a
| lawful court order. Hence the need to make those lawful orders
| as fruitless as possible.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's unfortunately kind of a backwards solution. Any
| convenience or technology can be exploited by an unjust
| government. Saying the solution for cruel abortion law is to
| stop carrying user data is like saying the solution for
| overarmed police is to stop manufacturing bullets, or saying
| that the solution for unfettered wiretapping is to tear up
| the telephone system.
|
| A society is not going to backstop the lack of a virtuous
| government by regressing its technological resources. The
| right solution is to insist on a virtuous government and
| wield all power necessary to cause that to exist.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| No. What we're saying is that if you build a gigantic
| surveillance and propaganda machine it will be used by the
| powerful to hurt the powerless.
|
| The solution is not to build the giant surveillance and
| propaganda machine just because you perceive it is merely
| helping the powerful at some particular moment in time.
|
| Your telephone example is also dead wrong. The solution is
| to use an e2ee voice communication platform in addition to
| reigning in the rampant abuse by cops and domestic spying.
| Or in a counterfactual alternate past hefore that was
| possible, it would be to break up the large telephone
| providers that anything like a clipper chip or bulk
| wiretapping at the exchange without a warrant is impossible
| to coordinate and keep secret.
|
| Similarly the overarmed police would be far less of a
| problem if there wasn't a massive corporate arms industry.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| An e2ee solution is no good if the government is unjust,
| they just declare end-to-end encryption illegal and start
| arresting people the moment the signal hits the wire.
| Similarly, one can't expect an unjust government to reign
| in wire tapping, nor can one expect an unjust government
| to break up a telephone monopoly to enforce
| decentralization of potential surveillance threats.
|
| And that's the problem with trying to solve an unjust
| government in this way. For any technological
| countermeasure, you can just imagine that the government
| is sufficiently unjust to render that countermeasure's
| use itself a threat to the user.
|
| People, not technology, reign in governments.
| superb-owl wrote:
| There's an interesting contradiction at the heart of US law
| regarding free speech. Does the first amendment give you the
| right to merely voice your opinions, or does it give you the
| right to amplify those opinions via mass media?
|
| Citizens United pretty thoroughly says it's the latter. But calls
| to reign in Fake News and to force tech companies to censor their
| users contradict this.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| Good example of how surveillance capitalism is a cancer in
| society that no one is safe from. I am really tired of people
| telling me that they have nothing to hide! The historical record
| if full of examples of folks who had "nothing to hide", but
| suddenly became the target of oppression or exploitation.
|
| Privacy needs to be everyone's concern because by the time you
| realize you have things you need to keep private, it will be too
| late!
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Is there an emergency plan for when a country turns into Gilead?
| How many of us are daily incriminating ourselves on social media?
| eftychis wrote:
| My take: Ok so for the "crimes" that we do not currently like
| Google should not log to protect us. That is naive.
|
| The article is naive. Now when a class of people is affected they
| realize the issue with Google collecting data or providing
| location history information (incorrect or not) to the
| authorities.
|
| Google has a history of actively i) resetting opt out settings,
| ii) making location tracking de facto mandatory on android, iii)
| pushing for AMP (which pushes their ampanalytics), etc.
|
| Time to actually push for privacy.
|
| How about: "Hey Google, to protect people, stop tracking
| anything." (Which for Google would imply to stop existing per
| se.)
| mrweasel wrote:
| It's naive, very naive. It's also required.
|
| Google, like other industries, where build on the ideas that
| what they did was more or less harmless. As we learn more about
| what massive data collection entails, we also have to
| reconsider the laws surrounding it.
|
| Google will never stop on their own, as you say that would mean
| that they'd stop existing. It's the same with oil or tobacco
| companies, and few would cry foul if Philip Morris would be
| forced to shutdown.
|
| I no longer believe that tracking and data collection can be
| done safely and it's time to dismantle those business that rely
| on it. Give Google, and others, five to ten years to close down
| their data collection business and after that they can stop
| existing if they can't cope.
| mulligan wrote:
| so just to rephrase: "google should stop collecting data
| because it might be compelled by law to provide it to the
| government. the government should compel google to stop
| collecting that data"
| eftychis wrote:
| More like Google _will_ be /is compelled 100% by any random
| state court or not-a-court-but-cops-directly-because-we-
| decided-warrants-are-for-suckers to provide data (you don't
| need a warrant for "give me who you think was there"
| queries -- that is a different wtf). So Federal lawmakers
| should make it clear that Google (and any Google) should
| not be doing any of this.
|
| Might as well use the whole branching of the government and
| make use of the checks and balances for mankind's good and
| welfare.
|
| And if one needs more convincing I would point them to look
| at the whole 19th and 20th century history.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What power can we imagine will cause them to stop existing?
| What power can we imagine will compel them to stop collecting
| data?
|
| It certainly won't be the law. The entire situation we're in
| right now is considering how data collection by Google
| assists the United States government in enforcing the law.
| The master's tools will not be used to tear down the master's
| house.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| Comparing google to big tobacco is very flawed. Big tobacco
| has essentially one product, and that product is always
| harmful.
|
| Google on the other hand has a variety of products. Even when
| it comes to their biggest product i.e. ads, they'd still make
| a shitton of money without tracking and storing everything in
| perpetuity. Would they make less? Very likely.
|
| But they will not "stop existing", even if they were forced
| to stop all tracking tomorrow. They can still sell ads not
| based on the users tracking history, but based on other
| context that doesn't require a huge data store, but ephemeral
| information at most (e.g. "user is searching for term x RIGHT
| NOW, and has a German IP RIGHT NOW"). And of course they can
| still make money from the "play store tax", money from users
| of their APIs, cloud and services.
|
| If we actually prohibited tracking now, far beyond what even
| the GDPR does, advertisers would still spend money, like they
| did in the print and television days as well. And google
| controlling a large part of the market already with an iron
| grip (search, youtube, android) would still come out ahead of
| the competition.
| mrweasel wrote:
| > Comparing google to big tobacco is very flawed
|
| That actually a completely fair observation, this should
| only be targeted at the part of their business that does
| data collection. Google could do very well without their
| large scale tracking.
|
| Tracking and data collection must bring in a significant
| amount though. It's a rather large liability and attack
| vector for lawmakers and critics. If it was just a few
| percent of overall profit, it would sense to just dump that
| business unit.
|
| Generally the whole targeted ad business is a little weird.
| If it works so well as we led to believe, then way aren't
| there fewer ads. It seems reasonable to assume that a
| highly targeted ad would be more successful, but also more
| expensive to buy. You'd need few of them of reach your
| target customers and I as a consumer should see fewer ads.
| That's a little besides the point though.
| game-of-throws wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ifcuh
| ksherlock wrote:
| Buried in complaint 3, "Make Chrome's 'Incognito mode' actually
| incognito"
|
| "One example: Just this week, my colleague Tatum Hunter reported
| that Google (as well as Facebook and TikTok) was sent personal
| information when patients use the Planned Parenthood website
| scheduling pages. The problem was marketing embedded in the code
| of the page -- and Chrome does little to stop that kind of
| tracking."
|
| You scheduled an abortion. Planned Parenthood's website could
| tell Facebook (June 29)
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/29/planned...
|
| https://archive.ph/3HHtt
|
| That's on Planned Parenthood.
| js2 wrote:
| > That's on Planned Parenthood.
|
| Only in part. Ultimately it's the browser that's sharing the
| data from PP to FB. It's not like PP is making a direct
| connection from their backend to FB's backend. It's Chrome
| that's connecting to FB.
|
| Apple has demonstrated with Safari that browsers can fight this
| tracking if they want to. Google has no interest in doing so
| because their browser doesn't work for the user. It works for
| the likes of Google, FB, and yes, PP.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > It's not like PP is making a direct connection from their
| backend to FB's backend.
|
| But it's possible from the backend:
| https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/app-
| event...
| js2 wrote:
| Yes, but unlikely what's happening here. I assume
| incompetence not malice on PP's part. That doesn't excuse
| this privacy leak. My point is that this isn't all on PP. I
| consider Google and FB malicious in sharing data in their
| zeal for dollars. I consider PP incompetent in protecting
| privacy in its marketing efforts, which yes, also needs
| dollars, but it's a non-profit and really not in its
| interests to share this information.
| indymike wrote:
| > That's on Planned Parenthood.
|
| This is really an important point. The owner of a website or
| app has to comply with regulations, and HIPAA should apply to
| people seeking medical care, especially those seeking care that
| is politically or otherwise sensitive. This is literally what
| HIPAA was trying to prevent: disclosure of medical info to
| third parties without direct consent of the patient. A click
| should not be enough to consent.
|
| Third party tags have no place in the DOM on these sites.
| zagrebian wrote:
| This is exactly what the Google Container add-on for Firefox
| protects against. It stops Google from tracking you across the
| web because your Google login does not exist when you visit
| other websites. It only exists within the container.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
|
| Unfortunately, it does not have Mozilla's "Recommended" seal of
| approval. I assume Mozilla cannot do this because Firefox
| development is funded by Google, so Mozilla has to tolerate
| Google's tracking to some degree.
|
| I'm still using this add-on because I cannot imagine my web
| browsing life without it.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Chrome's Incognito mode is doing its job here, by making sure
| that the user is logged out of her Facebook account during that
| browsing session. What the tracking code does is a different
| matter altogether, and even Facebook has tried and failed to
| stop it from sending all sorts of sensitive data, including
| stuff that might well fall under HIPAA.
| WebbWeaver wrote:
| Yeah and your ISP is going to follow that
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "That's on Planned Parenthood."
|
| Fair enough, but Google and other "tech" companies are
| incessantly marketing themselves to the public as the means by
| which the public can stay "safe" from the purported "threats"
| that come with using the internet.
|
| These paternalistic "tech" companies are against the very idea
| of the public protecting themselves without "help" from "tech"
| companies. They will attack anyone who suggests they can stay
| "safe" without help from "tech" companies.
|
| Yet, these "tech" companies are wholly dependent on complex
| "web browsers" and the advertisers that also rely on them.
| Those programs enable harvesting personal information. It is
| now Google's "business" to collect personal information. And,
| go figure, now the "tech" companies, e.g., Google, are the ones
| providing the browsers.
|
| There is nothing that requires anyone to use a scheduling page.
| There are other ways to make appointments without using a web
| browser.
|
| To submit this comment I am using a browser that does not allow
| for the same level of personal data collection as a so-called
| "modern" browser. There is no auto-loading of resources nor any
| running of CSS or Javascript. I am never going to use this
| program for anything important conducted via the www. I
| generally cannot use it to "sign up", schedule appointments,
| make payments, etc. That is a feature not a bug. I cannot use
| this program to do "everything". It does only a few things
| well. Limits can sometimes be advantageous.
|
| "Tech" company workers will attack anyone who dares to point
| out that not using a "modern" browser for _everything_ can
| actually be safer than using one. Why use a web browser for
| seemingly everything. For convenience. Perhaps. But the more
| compelling reason is that it allows data collection and
| manipulation of those using it in ways that enrich "tech"
| company intermediaries. This may have advantages for some, and
| disadvantages for others. The disadvantages are downplayed by
| the intermediaries. Go figure.
|
| Neither the internet alone, nor the www alone, enable such a
| potentially harmful advertising-driven "ecosystem" that
| encourages its participants to engorge themselves with as much
| data about people as they can possibly collect. For this to
| work, the large, complex browser running third party code, a
| program now squarely controlled by the "tech" company
| intermediary, is required.
|
| "Tech" companies do not "protect" people. They encourage people
| to engage in risky, convenient behaviour and then exploit them
| by recording their activity. No one at any "tech" company ever
| directs www users to choose any browser they want. They want
| people to use very specific programs, that they themselves
| control, in order to access what is supposed to be an
| _information space_^1 built on open protocols and standards.
| They want people to share their entire lives over this
| "information space" where they are an intermediary that can
| observe all use of it.
|
| 1. https://www.w3c.org/TR/webarch/
| civilrightsftw wrote:
| What if, just what if, everyone in Texas and other backward
| places starts ddos-ing government by searching for and visiting
| abortion clinics? Houston, Dallas, Austin n San Antonio have a
| population of ~6M. Even if 1% of them do a search and visits once
| per week, that is 60k cases to investigate. Per week.
| majkinetor wrote:
| This is easilly fixable - have an browser extension or OS service
| that randomly does things on the internet.
|
| If you dont want to delete my data let my data be garbage.
| onion2k wrote:
| Removing noise from data is a large, and very well researched,
| field of data science. Unless it was done incredibly well it
| probably wouldnt work.
| majkinetor wrote:
| I very much doubt that it cant be done right. I am not
| talking about "sleep 5; search random"
| mellosouls wrote:
| The article appears to be saying that there is something
| fundamentally new happening because Google/Big Tech are now
| potentially able to facilitate the implementation of law _the
| writer disagrees with_.
|
| It's obviously a useful example of the potential for where (say)
| privacy rights may be superceded by other (eg legal)
| considerations but framing it as a clear and new moral wrong in
| the context of a massively contested ethical argument over
| abortion is simplistic.
| woodruffw wrote:
| What's the point of this comment? It's an opinion piece, so we
| _know_ it reflects the author's opinions.
|
| You don't have to agree with them on abortion, or even privacy.
| But backbiting on privacy _solely_ because it appears in the
| context of an abortion argument is bizarre.
| leereeves wrote:
| The article gives the impression that privacy doesn't matter
| otherwise.
|
| In the author's words, Google's behavior "has suddenly become
| dangerous", suggesting privacy didn't matter before and would
| stop mattering again if not for abortions.
|
| That's an attitude worth debunking.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The charitable reading is that the author sees a _direct_
| link between a lack of privacy here and imprisonment and
| forced birth for women. That's a material sense in which
| Google "has suddenly become dangerous" for the target
| audience of the Washington Post.
|
| It's manifest to every reader of _this_ site that adtech
| has always been dangerous. But it should also be manifest
| that we're not the sole audience.
| leereeves wrote:
| It's also perfectly fair to criticize the author for
| ignoring the dangers that only affected other people
| until now.
|
| Framing the issue solely in the context of abortion
| suggests Google's response should be to stop tracking a
| few health and pregnancy related data points and
| otherwise carry on business as usual.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I could be misunderstanding what you mean, but do we
| actually have evidence that the author has ignored the
| dangers of adtech until now? All we have is this one
| _topical_ opinion piece; we don't know either the
| contents of their mind or their opinion piece history
| (unless you bothered to look it up; I didn't.)
|
| I read this opinion piece as: "here is a topical example
| of the danger of surveillance capitalism." The language
| if imminent danger reflects both the topic and the
| intended audience, not the more oblique and unlikely
| claim that privacy violation is okay _so long as_ it
| doesn't trample on this one specific issue.
| Closi wrote:
| > What's the point of this comment? It's an opinion piece, so
| we know it reflects the author's opinions.
|
| Well yeah, it's an opinion piece so OP is going to criticise
| their opinions and how they are framed.
|
| Take the following:
|
| > "This is a moment I've long worried would arrive. The way
| tens of millions of Americans use everyday Google products
| has suddenly become dangerous. Following the Supreme Court
| decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling,
| anything Google knows about you could be acquired by police
| in states where abortion is now illegal [...] There is
| something Google could do about this: Stop collecting -- and
| start deleting -- data that could be used to prosecute
| abortions."
|
| Now what he is effectively saying is - Google should destroy
| evidence of a particular crime (a crime I suspect most of us
| believe shouldn't be a crime, but is now a crime nontheless).
|
| He isn't arguing Google should delete evidence of all crimes
| - just this _specific_ crime.
|
| So presumably we are arguing that Google should be able to
| decide which crimes are 'good' and 'bad' and then destroy
| evidence of things that _it thinks_ shouldn 't be crimes?
|
| Once more - I personally agree with the author on abortion
| and don't think abortion should be illegal - but it's a
| really weird twist to ask Google to effectively intentionally
| and automatically detect when someone might be breaking a
| specific law, and then specifically delete just the data that
| they think could be evidence of law-breaking so that law
| enforcement can't get the evidence. I can't imagine this
| passing the sniff-test with prosecutors in terms of
| tampering/destroying evidence.
|
| I mean if we are arguing for a blanket ban on law enforcement
| having data from Google then that is fine and a viewpoint I
| can understand - but only arguing for limitations in the
| context of abortion is the thing that seems strange.
|
| Should they delete evidence if you crash your car so the
| police can't see if you have been using your phone when
| driving? Should they delete the evidence of who was at the
| congress riots? Should they let investigators trace if a
| suspect was at a particular location during a murder trial?
| It becomes a bit of a slippery slope trying to work out where
| the line is.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > it's a really weird twist to ask Google to effectively
| intentionally and automatically detect when someone might
| be breaking a specific law, and then specifically delete
| just the data that they think could be evidence of law-
| breaking so that law enforcement can't get the evidence.
|
| To leave with only this interpretation of the article
| involves ignoring both the headline and the four
| suggestions that it argues for, which don't concentrate on
| abortion, but clearly call for rules that would protect
| women who have abortions to also be applied generally, to
| 1) all searches and history (possibly qualified with
| "health-related" exclusions by default in the spirit of
| HIPAA), 2) all location data, 3) 'incognito mode' in
| general, and 4) all chat and private messaging.
|
| Abortion is what motivates him (or at least what he decided
| to hang the article from), but that's clearly one of the
| few issues that motivates wealthy elites because it has the
| potential to affect them or someone they love. Any truthful
| angle that gets anybody riled up against ubiquitous
| surveillance is good.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's a valid debate. Most people in developed countries would
| clearly disagree with an argument that privacy is beneficial
| merely inasmuch as it might protect those who e.g. seek
| abortions late in the 2nd trimester-- which used to be
| considered part of a pregnant woman's "right to privacy"
| under _Roe_ (though a lot less clearly so after _Planned
| Parenthood v. Casey_ which introduced a revised standard) but
| _is_ very much banned in much of the Western world! The
| ethical concerns over abortion are extremely real, far more
| than those involving privacy in a more everyday sense.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > The article appears to be saying that there is something
| fundamentally new happening because Google/Big Tech are now
| potentially able to facilitate the implementation of law the
| writer disagrees with.
|
| Wrong. People have been warning for 2 decades that corporate
| surveillance can enable "turn-key" dictatorship.
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