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Silicon Valley Firms Want To Nix Calif. Internet Privacy Bill
An anonymous reader writes "Silicon Valley tech firms, banks and other powerful industries are mounting a quiet but forceful campaign to kill an Internet privacy bill that would give California consumers the right to know how their personal information is being used. A recent letter signed by 15 companies and trade groups — including TechAmerica, which represents Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other technology companies — demanded that the measure's author, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, drop her bill. They complain it would open up businesses to an avalanche of requests from individuals as well as costly lawsuits."
"it would open up businesses to an avalanche of requests from individuals as well as costly lawsuits."
Good!
'It will lead to costly lawsuits' is not an argument. On the contrary - this is an argument to put the law in place.
What's news for some is old-hat for others.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
.
It is as if the companies are saying, "we stole all this data from our customers, and it would be too expensive to allow them to have it back."
In other news, the great and good of the world are demanding continued immunity from a hithertoo largely alien phenomenon referred to as 'consequences', widely believed to be some sort of communicable disease popular among people who don't matter. Important People warn of vaguely defined, but catastrophic, outcomes should these 'consequences' be allowed to spread from the squalid and undeserving sectors where they currently breed and into high value portions of society.
why shouldn't customers have this right? Shouldn't all this be mentioned in the T&Cs anyway?
"We reserve the right to use your information however we want. Press Agree to acknowledge you accept this and to start using our wonderful service".
It sickens me to see all of these business people who somehow feel entitled to abuse the information of people to their advantage and have no sense of guilt or remorse over it. They get people to sign papers that include open-ended words like "...with our associates" without ever stipulating who those associates were, are or will be.
I always say "no" to those words when I see them because I see them for what it is -- a huge open door for them to insert changes of ALL sorts. Meanwhile, your end of whatever agreement says you have no right to change or do anything and if you have a dispute, you are to give up your right to trial or to sue much of the time.
And now, when people want to know what's what, and what they are doing behind the scenes, we get what? If business is doing something which violates the trust of their customers, why doesn't a customer have a right to know?! How else can a customer know when it's time to take their business elsewhere? These entitled business people want to maintain their rights to screw people over.
" avalanche of requests from individuals as well as costly lawsuits"
Well, whether it would be an avalanche or not, would remain to be seen. However, no company should've gotten that broad freedom of data use as they had in the first place, so however late it is, the proper thing to do is to allow individuals to see how companies handle their data and what they do with it.
Regarding lawsuits, them being "afraid" of lawsuits means that they already think there would be reason for lawsuits, which in turn gives a lot of reasons to even more demand for proper data privacy laws. User data handling should be controlled in a way that people wouldn't have reason to sue. Yes, dream on.
Anyway, whatever privacy laws would be better than the current state of do-whatever-you-want and change your terms of service by the weather approach most companies follow.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Well, avalanche of requests from individuals and costly lawsuits is exactly what we need. Why would the coprorations be complaining about a privacy bill? It's not like they're hiding something.
You almost have to admire the sociopathic chutzpah that it must take for AIG to comment, much less demand to get their way, on just about anything ever again ever...
As a former employee of a business that tracks a huge amount of personal information, I can tell you that most of these companies are already required to keep these records because of EU privacy records. Our databases were literally divided domestic and foreign for this reason.
So while it would take some effort in moving data and changing internal procedures, the bulk of the work is already done for most of these companies.
Can anyone name one good thing to come out of the valley in the last 10 years? all I see is privacy invasion and vapid bullshit with no business model...
I am dead serious, please name one positive innovation to arise from the valley/Bay area tech sector since 2003.
People don't want to pay for Google, Facebook, etc. Therefore, they use advertising to make a profit. What the privacy advocates don't want to admit here is that anyone using a free, ad-supported service has no moral right to not have their use evaluated for better advertising. This is true even on sites that use AdSense and such as their primary way of delivering content. If you are getting spied on at the WSJ's paid for site, you have a right to shout about that from the roof tops and bay for blood. If you do it on Google News, you're kidding yourself.
We do need more commerce. A lot more of it and a lot less advertising in our business models.
> A recent letter signed by 15 companies and trade groups — including TechAmerica, which represents Google,
LOL. Google with the same Eric Schmidt who wants Drones banned because he's worried about the invasion of privacy when they fly over your mansion estate?
""You're having a dispute with your neighbour," he hypothesised. "How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?"
Gee I don't know Eric. About the same way I feel when you run your fingers through my hair. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/21/drones-google-eric-schmidt
What the privacy advocates don't want to admit here is that anyone using a free, ad-supported service has no moral right to not have their use evaluated for better advertising.
Is that meant to be sarcasm or satire?
"Better" advertising?
This is about collecting data - and selling it.
This is about creating profiles of people to not only sell crap - and it's all crap when it comes down to it - but it's a proxy for government's to collect information on people.
You know, just by using a scary letter and sending it to: Google, Medical Information Bureau, Credit Bureaus, credit card companies, ISPs, Cell phone providers, I CAN create a dossier that would make an East German Stazi agent of old jump for joy?!
So much information is collected on us that it creates this lop-sided power over us - the consumer.
Because shit like this HAS happened!.
And it's just the beginning.
Businesses use it for predatory lending, charging us more just because their algorithms say so, and considering the data available, I can easily discriminate against people that I'm prejudiced against. Illegal? Who gives a shit! Prove it!
So, take your advertising, crap that being sold, and shove it.
I will NOT miss ANY site that has to charge for their content - because it's not worth paying for anyway.
There are no exceptions.
They complain it would open up businesses to an avalanche of requests from individuals
How hard would it be to set up a website where, on submitting details only you (should) know, you get back on email with the details of who has what information on you, and how it is being used. Would take someone like Google about a day and peanuts for a budget? Since these guys have already banded together to form 'TechAmerica', I'm sure this excellent umbrella organisation would be just the place to host the service :)
as well as costly lawsuits
Why? Because they are doing something illegal with our data?
Sleazy lawyers are to the world of civil law what cops are to the world of criminal law.
They work hard for their bad reputations, and they don't tend to result in much money returning to the actual injured parties; but in a well-functioning society, they exist to deter people even worse than they are...
Would this encourage these big companies to move out of California if this bill passes? Are they using that as leverage? Probably so. Probably very effective. Probably so effective...
Unless the legislators are total morons who know nothing about history, the law will be written to target people who do business in California, or do business with Californians, rather than businesses in California.
Jurisidiction-shopping is trival(which is why small British protectorates with sunny climates and...sparse... tax codes tend to have some extremely profitable PO boxes that somehow end up booking all the revenues that are definitely not generated by actual operations elsewhere); but that doesn't change the fact that you have to go where the customers are.
For the most part, all the multinationals have already jurisdiction-shopped everything that they can(just as Washington about how Microsoft mysteriously makes all its money in Nevada, despite having almost nobody there...); but they tend to do little more than bluster against laws of the form 'if you do business here, here's how you'll have to play'; because you have to do business where the customers are(and because the laws, no matter how apocalyptic the bluster, tend to be pretty toothless). California, in particular, is Not Exactly Small as a market, and has pretty good luck getting its way.
why shouldn't customers have this right? Shouldn't all this be mentioned in the T&Cs anyway?
"We reserve the right to use your information however we want. Press Agree to acknowledge you accept this and to start using our wonderful service".
It is not reasonable to expect the average Google user to understand what even that admittedly plain statement actually means, mostly because depth and breadth of what constitutes "...your information..." is far from plain, if not deliberately hidden.
There is a coming backlash to the ubiquitous collection of personal data. There has to be. The sharing of information for monetization purposes is alarming. Some of this data is harmless, some of it would ruin lives. What with technology leaps quietly occurring in the background, it is simply a matter of time before websites are able to track you from your desktop to your mobile, even if you are not logged into any services. There is going to be a big breach of data. It has to happen because companies are careless with data. The want the money associated with your data, but not the security processes that naturally have to protect it.
It's 2013. I don't have a Facebook account, a Google account, a LinkedIn account. I think companies that track and score people based on their supposed "clout" are stupid, polarizing, and serve to create a digital apartheid. Personal data should be personal. Cookie and other data should be first party only. If a company needs metrics, let them do it for themselves. If they cannot, they have a bad business model.
Point: personal data should be expensive for the companies to have. Breaches should cost millions and should be a federal offense, especially if SSNs are involved. There should be no appeals. You lose data, have a breach, you bought the farm.
(Just to clarify the above, and perhaps to explain why I've always found the 'right wing' and 'libertarian' hatred of tort lawyers so curious, aside from the ones who are trivially shills for corporations and people who simply wish to be tortious with impunity, whose motives are at least transparent).
With criminal law, and the criminal justice system, the idea that some sort of restitution is the objective, or the notion that money made by functionaries is being gouged right out of the mouths of victims, doesn't really enter the picture: Cops, DAs, Prosecutors, prisons, etc. are all cost centers, your tax dollars at work, that exist to (in various combinations, depending on who you ask) visit retribution on malefactors, prevent malefactors from future criminal activity, or to deter others from taking up crime. There are some, more or less ad-hoc, victim-assistance programs; but the idea that "the criminal justice system is such a scam! they tried the guy and the victim's family got like $3 worth of weregild after they'd finished paying the cops, lawyers, and jury! WTF?" simply never enters the picture.
In civil law, civil actions between (rough) equals can actually involve establishment of damages to Party A and extraction of compensation from Party B. However, in more asymmetric cases, 'civil' law really resembles nothing so much as a privatized version of criminal law, essentially a flavor of bounty hunting. Instead of having an actually-remotely-adequate regulatory apparatus(because the idea of our doing that is...unrealistic...), we leave the field open: See somebody do something tortious to a person or persons who can't fight back on their own behalf? Prove it in court and get your cut of the damages! This arrangement isn't much better than criminal proceedings at getting restitution routed to the actual injured parties; but it creates an incentive for independent private actors to hunt down and punish malefactors, analogous to the one you would see if the criminal justice system were built on bounties rather than a class of civil servants who get a salary for the purpose.
While I'd obviously prefer to see more damages make it to the damaged(and the Principle-Agent problem inherent in having a lawyer representing your interests, or worse the diffuse interests of hundreds or thousands of people is an obvious one to keep watch on), I'm always a bit surprised by, not to say a trifle suspicious of the motives of, people who seem more offended by the idea that somebody else got paid for working on the case than they are by the fact that the case had to come to court in the first place. In criminal contexts, we might disagree over exactly what a cop or DA's salary should be; but it is downright uncontroversial that such people get paid to discourage malefactors. In order to handle crime, we allocate some amount of money to the in-no-way-directly-productive task of apprehending and punishing criminals. As a long term, society wide, investment it may be a net gain; but it's a cost center in the near term. The people who handle civil lawsuits are essentially the same thing, just on contingency rather than salary.
Unsurprisingly, though, none of the 'tort reformers' ever seems to propose replacing those wicked trial lawyers with state regulators who have actual teeth, nor do they celebrate the fact that so much regulation is simply left undone on the state side, with for-profit private actors going into the business of taking up the slack... You'd think that, among people who dislike state regulatory power, 'trial lawyers' would be the private-sector heroes of justice, doing well by doing good, and discouraging malfeasance so that the dead, bureaucratic, hand of regulatory entities like the FTC, FDA, etc. don't have to. This is not, however, a position much seen in the wild...
The trend in the last 15 years or so has been "if it's good for a corporation's profits, it's good for America." Rep. Lowenthal is either going to see her political adversaries get a fat campaign check or the anti-privacy coalition will make her an offer she can't refuse. I've seen too many of the staunches defenders of the public go 180 when the cash starts moving.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
with my business and website. I have dropped my Google+ page which showed in the search results and will not be using Facebook/Twitter and etc... Also deicde to either go with Vimeo $200 per year or pay OVH $59 for a server to host my product/how to videos instead of Youtube.
I have the products that my constomers want and I don't want ME my BUSINESS and my CUSTOMERS to be someone elses PRODUCT.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
People don't want to pay for Google, Facebook, etc.
I don't even want to USE Google, Facebook, etc. But the thing is that they want to track me anyway. They lurk on almost every website. These companies invade the web. So don't pretend it is my fault. I have to install a zillion firefox plugins to block them. This is not a "it's free, so shut up" situation, but an "it's evil, these corporations must be punished" situation.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
...it is called stalking, and is a crime. When corporations do it, it is called a business model. If corporations are people, they are committing the crime of stalking and should be held accountable for it.
The article quotes TechAmerica's director of California government affairs Robert Callahan stated that a 2005 California privacy law already enables consumers to ask what personal information companies are using.
Does anyone know what this law is and how to use it?
Indeed. If they're afraid of costly lawsuits then they have no business in the tech industry. Nor any other industry.
A lot of companies have discovered this, and therefore moved their business operations elsewhere. Hence this whole deal about outsourcing - too many people here are big whiners who make the legal costs associated w/ doing anything skyrocket, w/ the result that the cost of doing business in the US is orders of magnitude higher than the cost of doing it elsewhere. So they simply move operational costs offshore, fire Americans - whiners and non-whiners alike - and then everyone is left whining that outsourcing is looting US jobs.
Indeed. If they're afraid of costly lawsuits then they have no business in the tech industry. Nor any other industry.
A lot of companies have discovered this, and therefore moved their business operations elsewhere. Hence this whole deal about outsourcing - too many people here are big whiners who make the legal costs associated w/ doing anything skyrocket, w/ the result that the cost of doing business in the US is orders of magnitude higher than the cost of doing it elsewhere. So they simply move operational costs offshore, fire Americans - whiners and non-whiners alike - and then everyone is left whining that outsourcing is looting US jobs.
That is a false assumption. It might partially apply to the US but the US is not the only western country to have experienced a boom in outsourceing, and that is regardless of fuckedup-ness of legal system. Outsourcing is a financial decision for the most part, and a decision about putting your fingers in your ears and hoping for the best, in the short term.
The bill is a problem for the kind of business who does not wan't people to know what kind of data the business keeps on them, or does not yet have an automated solution to those requests. The former: Good riddance, hopefully the latter will wisen up and implement it. In either case, you and I are better off with the bill than without.
... whatever
Actually, there was a guy I work with who was dealing with some real estate agency who was selling a house to him and really gave him some nonsense about these various programs. They kept steering him in one direction but he had VA benefits to use and other qualifications. I'm not quite sure of all the details, but in the end, he ceased doing business with them and didn't get the house because of all the games they were playing trying to get him to use a particular financing plan. I'm not sure who lost out the most, but they could have sold the house and I'm sure that loss must have hurt. But they were most definitely willing to play that game with him primarily, I believe, because he is military and they really believe military people are really THAT stupid. (For the most part, 'they' are correct in that assessment, just that he wasn't one of them... and neither am/was I --- reminds me of the time a car dealership was trying to sell me a "sport" version of the "Yugo" for like $12,000... it had racing stripes... it still had the weak engine and no real features. I was like "are you shittin' me?! A Yugo?!" I didn't want one of those at any price, but I did try to mess with him by negotiating down but he would budge. Sickened me, because it meant they were dead set on raping the next sailor who came onto that lot.)
Oh the sales game.. and especially sales with financing involved. They sicken me so much. And yeah, there are contracts and legalese involved. Last car I bought, I just got pre-approved for an amount, went shopping, got what I wanted and told them "No, I will not be financing through you and my lender will ONLY give me this much. Give me what I want at this price. I cannot bargain with my lender." In the end it worked. Good car; exceptional price and no weird contracts. The dealership called me back within a few days trying to convince me I owed them some more money somehow. I told them "fine... okay... I'll just bring the car back. I really told you the finance company would not give me more and I simply don't have more... so when do you want it back?" They called me back and said "keep it...." hehehe...
Why can't buying a car or a house be like buying a can of soup? I give you money, you give me the thing? No? You want to dick around with me to see if you can squeeze a little more out?
And don't get me started on "trade-ins." They scam people out of FREE CARS so damned often that practice should be 100% criminal as fraud and/or theft. They accept the "trade in" and roll whatever is left on the loan (if there is any) into your new loan (if you finance through them or their company) and accept your car. Whatever they offered in the trade, they ALSO roll into the loan "to pay off the car." In the end, you paid off the car and gave it to them for free!! Nice deal right?! READ the paperwork carefully... VERY carefully. It seems they will ALWAYS try to pull some crap or another. As I said with my last car purchase, I thought I finally defeated the games when I had ONE MORE to deal with... I was literally prepared to return the car. I was NOT playing. But they gave in. Shit made me so mad.
Sorry... someone pushed a button there didn't they?
We cannot pass a law that would permit people to know how data about them is being used because the companies who are using that data would be liable for what they are doing.
So if companies start breaking the law early and often, we're obligated to protect them so they can go on doing the same and prevented from stopping them.
Jesus fucking christ.
I'm sorry. I can't help but think that Google is incapable of stopping sucking on the money spurting cock long enough to think about ANYTHING else.
You really can't represent to end users how their data is being used without implicating yourself in criminal and or civil wrong doing?
You have no way of communicating that information at all without also being crushed under the weight of viable lawsuits by scammer attorneys and their *wounded clients*?
Because I think I could do that. I think I could do that in such a way as to make any scammer attorney and their "aggrieved clients " realize they're going to lose and lose big time. I think I could launch an sympathetic educational / PR campaign to virtually all potential jurors which would 1) tell the truth and 2) prevent almost all lawsuit abuse.
That is, if I wasn't doing anything against the law.
Hey Google. Privacy is a thing of the past- get over it. If you're doing something online you don't want people to know about, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
In Europe, lawsuits are limited by the 'loser pays all' principle, which is not there in the US. As a result, such a bill in Europe wouldn't result in a flood of litigation. But in US, where even the winner does not see his legal costs reimbursed by the losing party, such a thing would threaten a flood of litigation. And anything that makes operating a business more difficult or expensive, or eliminates the number of ways that businesses have of making money, is just one more contributing factor to such a business looking offshore for alternatives, as opposed to simply closing down.