[HN Gopher] Fingerprinting: Critics say Google rules put profits...
___________________________________________________________________
Fingerprinting: Critics say Google rules put profits over privacy
Author : latexr
Score : 47 points
Date : 2025-02-16 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| zb3 wrote:
| Public companies have to put profit first. We need to solve this
| with regulations, we can't count on their goodwill.
| segfaultex wrote:
| Shareholder primacy is legally dubious at best.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Long-term profitability can be a goal, too. A lot of short-
| term profit behaviors can hurt long-term profits.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| Does being publicly traded imply a company shouldn't have a
| moral code to stand by?
|
| Is it because the dumb ruling that companies are supposed to
| have the single goal of making money? Even if at the expense of
| cautiously ignoring or disregarding the law where it
| essentially acts as a fee?
| verisimi wrote:
| > Does being publicly traded imply a company shouldn't have a
| moral code to stand by?
|
| Yes. The appearance of a moral code is all that is necessary.
|
| And btw, companies cannot be moral, any more than any other
| object (chair, house) can be. People however, can be moral.
|
| Also, people at Google decided to drop their previous "don't
| be evil" motto, so perhaps that tells you something.
| darkwater wrote:
| > companies cannot be moral
|
| I don't buy this. Companies _are made_ of people. The ones
| that set the direction can be more or less detached from
| the outcomes of those decisions, but are people
| nonetheless. Shareholders? People as well.
| yapyap wrote:
| > Does being publicly traded imply a company shouldn't have a
| moral code to stand by
|
| Shouldn't? no
|
| won't? yes
| hello_moto wrote:
| Regulation is a taboo word under the current administration.
|
| JD Vance has criticized EU during AI summit. Criticized to the
| point of threatening not to share "Americans" AI bandwagon to
| EU.
| cgcrob wrote:
| He's forgotten the EU has ASML clearly.
| chrisjj wrote:
| No. ASML is on the list after Greenland and Gaza.
| tadfisher wrote:
| He and his ilk forget all too quickly why we have regulations
| in the first place. People wanted them, because they were
| tired of polluted waterways, bank runs wiping away their life
| savings, and dangerous poisons being sold as medicine. Now
| that a functioning democracy has voted for privacy
| protections, it's a pretty "mask-off" moment that these
| regulations are the ones he rails against.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Companies don't have to put profit first. But profit in a for
| profit is important.
| scq wrote:
| This is a common myth, but is false. Direct quote from the
| Supreme Court:
|
| > "Modern corporate law does not require for-profit
| corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything
| else, and many do not."
|
| More information:
| https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's not a myth. The person you are replying to did not say
| that corporate law requires companies to prioritize profit.
|
| Coroporations need to prioritize profit because that's what
| they're for. Whenever it looks like a company is not
| prioritizing profit, what you're seeing is the employees and
| owners of a corporation using it as a tool to express their
| personalities and preferences. This is usually not good, it
| is corruption. There's no reason to think that the
| personalities and preferences of arbitrary employees and
| owners are good, or that they would tend to do good things.
|
| The idea that companies have moralities, and that besides
| bringing in profit they also have some hazy duty to do things
| that I agree with personally is the myth. It's self-
| regulation propaganda. It's better to just have rules that
| keep companies from doing the things that we don't want them
| to do, instead of hoping that they will suddenly realize that
| money doesn't buy love, and that the only important things in
| life are health and family. That's not what they're for.
| That's what you're for. They're not real people.
| touki_ wrote:
| Interesting opinion, but slightly besides the point made
| here. Nobody here said it was "legally had to", did they?
| sega_sai wrote:
| I don't think the supreme court opinion matters in my
| opinion. I think it is the question of incentives. We should
| not be surprised if companies optimize for profits,
| especially if they are owned by shareholders who mainly care
| about profits. Because of that it is unreasonable (in my
| opinion) to rely on goodwill. We should instead ensure the
| regulations are such that unacceptable behaviour is not
| allowed.
| fumar wrote:
| This is not a user first approach. Ad tech heavily relies on IP
| address for fingerprinting. Chrome will eventually implement IP
| Protection for incognito users. I believe Chrome originally
| planned to roll out IP protection for all users.
| https://github.com/GoogleChrome/ip-protection?tab=readme-ov-...
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| How does IP address fingerprinting work in IP v6? I am not an
| expert but as I understand there are just too many addresses to
| establish patterns.
| soygem wrote:
| More news at 11
| chrisjj wrote:
| Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43067021
|
| Why did HN Submit not notice, I wonder.
| brikym wrote:
| Company puts profits over...
|
| I'm shocked.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-02-16 23:00 UTC)