Slashdot Mirror
Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Privacy
sulli writes "Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members? Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily deleted their accounts, the vast majority of users did nothing. (New York Times, blah blah) So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Yahoo!" Sigh.
Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members?
A few thousand pasty geeks are not "everyone".
Fortunately, I'm pretty content with the fact that most people gleefully piss away their privacy and personal information. Means those of us who take even the most rudimentary steps toward avoiding giving it up are better shielded by easy targets.
--saint
you have to give up private information to view a story on how people don't care about privacy.
"It's even worse if you're locked into a proprietary operating system." -http://www.wehavethewayout.com/scale.asp?rew=0
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Privacy is one of those things that geeks pay attention to because they're so acutely aware of how easy it is to lose it and how annoying the ramifications can be. The vast majority of people out there don't care about their privacy because:
a) They're mostly ignorant about what they're giving up, and
b) They're too busy trying to feed and house themselves given all the other shit they have to deal with.
Geeks, on the other hand, are intelligent and have enough free time to sit around and discuss about how they're getting royally fucked over...which, of course, they are. This is why it is our job to inform people whenever possible, and most importantly, supply the tools necessary to protect personal privacy (Ad-Aware, anyone?), and make those tools easy to use for the poor schmucks out there who don't have time to worry about it.
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It sounds like you're pissed because too many see the trade, realize it, recognize its effects, and just don't care.
My whole point is that people do care. However, it becomes a full-time job and requires the skills of a lawyer and a computer scientist to keep up with all the scum out there. Most people can't handle this. They do care, though -- they fume about all the spam, junk mail, and telemarketer phone calls they get.
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You're right, of course. This is exactly how the free market is supposed to work. And it may be the best general solution to this sort of problem. But it probably isn't ideal.
:-) )
It's one of the underlying assumptions of capitalism that we are all rational agents. In particular, we have the quality to make a rational decision about every system that we take part in, and more importantly every dollar that we spend.
I am human. I am not a rational agent. While some of my decisions are irrational, more often I don't even realize I'm making a decision. Because the world is not transparent (and it would be impossible to make it so) I can't make the rational decision to support the shoe company that creates the best working conditions, and the fast food company that has the most efficient packaging (through the entire process, mind you, not just what I get handed.), and the beef company that treats its animals best, or the government that has the least corruption.
Now, it's important to note that on any particular issue (environment, corruption, labour standards, animal treatment, etc.) you can probably do enough digging to make the decision. However, there is not (yet?) a system that "lubricates" the effective decision making capacity of the citizens of a capitalist democracy.
Thus, while this is indeed working exactly as it is "supposed" to, it is still not optimal.
(It's no wonder I have a hard time placing myself on a political spectrum. They're *both* wrong.
-Rob Ewaschuk
Like I said in my post - I did email a real person there. The thing that's wrong with it this:
Humans now have a dual existence: In meatspace and in cyberspace. I own my own meat - I can clothe it the way I want, I can move it around the way I want, and by damn, if I want it hid in a closet, that's where I'll put it. My cyberself should be just as much my property as my meatself: I am that data that yahoo was misusing, my meat is attached to it and I should be allowed full consensual control over both my meatself and my cyberself.
Nobody decided for, or gave me the chance to vote, over whether or not corporate bigmoney should be allowed to enslave my cyberself.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
They didn't opt-out. They didn't read the email Yahoo sent them (since they are usually not worth reading) And they are not conscious of why they are getting more and more junk mail and *very annoying unsolicited phone calls* during their family dinner. They think it's just a sign of the times, when in fact it's because Yahoo sold their phone number, mailing address and other personal information without their consent.
Even worse, the reason Yahoo has all this information like phone numbers and mailing addresses in the first place is because they require it when processing credit card transactions for Yahoo Wallet (ie. Yahoo is screwing over its own paying customers).
What Yahoo did is criminal. And if people understood that, there would be a class action suit, just like there were criminal procedings against DoubleClick and Alexis for similar violations of privacy. I'm all for free market, but what Yahoo did is fraudulent, and I have never heard of a free market that protects fraud.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
I've used Yahoo! since day one. I use a lot of their services now (mail, auctions, shopping, bill pay, weather, etc...) and find it to be convenient. I was angry when they pulled the old "presto-chango" routine by setting all my preferences back to "YES".
I went in and switched them all back to "NO" and then wrote a couple of angry messages to Yahoo! and bitched them out for messing with my account settings. I was annoyed with them for changing the settings. But, it wasn't enough to over-ride the convenience of the services that I had access to. In the end I decided not to cancel my account.
If you read the email that Yahoo! sent out they told people that they were doing it and they gave you 60 days to change your preferences. If you were too lazy to go in an change them -- then you get spammed. Of course, this being Slashdot, everyone went into *rant* mode. What Yahoo! did was bad. But, at least they told you they did it and then they gave you a chance to decide.
If only other companies would be so nice! I get barrels of spam all the time from people who "opted me in" but, forgot to tell me about it.
Anyhow -- that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
What are you talking about? Everyone i know -- even, say, my parents or non-techinal friends, complains about spam. I bet if i asked them to name one complaint about the Internet, it would be spam.
no one really does anything about it
What would you suggest they do? Should i tell my mom to use procmail? Should i tell her to try to opt out when spam offers the opportunity? (Hell no -- spammers use that to verify the address, which means you'll get a lot -more- spam)
No one does anything about it because they have no idea how. All they know is that they and their ten-year-old are inundated with ads for porn sites, and they can't make them stop.
You can be damn sure that they would notice if it was gone.
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