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Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls For Laws To Tackle 'Shadow Economy' of Data Firms (time.com)
Apple's chief executive has called for regulation to tackle the "shadow economy" of data brokers -- intermediaries who trade in the personal information of largely unsuspecting consumers -- as the company continues its push to be seen as supportive of privacy. Tim Cook, in an op-ed for Time Magazine published on Thursday, said: One of the biggest challenges in protecting privacy is that many of the violations are invisible. For example, you might have bought a product from an online retailer -- something most of us have done. But what the retailer doesn't tell you is that it then turned around and sold or transferred information about your purchase to a "data broker" -- a company that exists purely to collect your information, package it and sell it to yet another buyer. The trail disappears before you even know there is a trail. Right now, all of these secondary markets for your information exist in a shadow economy that's largely unchecked -- out of sight of consumers, regulators and lawmakers.
Let's be clear: you never signed up for that. We think every user should have the chance to say, "Wait a minute. That's my information that you're selling, and I didn't consent." Meaningful, comprehensive federal privacy legislation should not only aim to put consumers in control of their data, it should also shine a light on actors trafficking in your data behind the scenes. Some state laws are looking to accomplish just that, but right now there is no federal standard protecting Americans from these practices. That's why we believe the Federal Trade Commission should establish a data-broker clearinghouse, requiring all data brokers to register, enabling consumers to track the transactions that have bundled and sold their data from place to place, and giving users the power to delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all.
Let's be clear: you never signed up for that. We think every user should have the chance to say, "Wait a minute. That's my information that you're selling, and I didn't consent." Meaningful, comprehensive federal privacy legislation should not only aim to put consumers in control of their data, it should also shine a light on actors trafficking in your data behind the scenes. Some state laws are looking to accomplish just that, but right now there is no federal standard protecting Americans from these practices. That's why we believe the Federal Trade Commission should establish a data-broker clearinghouse, requiring all data brokers to register, enabling consumers to track the transactions that have bundled and sold their data from place to place, and giving users the power to delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all.
These tech companies are starting to feel significant push back from consumers on data privacy issues, but they risk losing competitive advantage if they are the first to budge. The data is just to valuable. The government setting up laws which help protect privacy while creating a competitive environment where everyone is following the same rules is perhaps the only good option. They certainly aren't capable of governing themselves in a way which protects consumers (not that any other industry has ever been able to do that without government intervention).
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I sense that AAPL isn't doing too well.
Acxiom
They have for decades been gathering info on first the US and later the world. They get mailing lists from the US post office. They cut the binders off US phone books and scan them. They get all the info off those warranty cards you send in, and all sorts of creative sources of information on you.
Even the US used them after 9/11 to try to hunt down people.
Hell, even major credit card companies use them to clean their databases.
I think they even now maybe own one of the credit bureaus, like Trans Union. If not owning them they are very cozy in business or used to be.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
" intermediaries who trade in the personal information of largely unsuspecting consumers "
Would Apple be quite so in favor of this we we, say, included hardware firms in the 'intermediaries' category?
-Styopa
Make some changes to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and apply it to all consumer reports. Thus you get the following
Access to Your Report – The act requires reporting agencies to provide you with any information in your file upon request once a year.
Protected Access – The act limits access to your file to those with a valid need.
Accurate Reporting – If inaccurate information is discovered in your file, the reporting agency must examine the disputed information, usually within 30 days. If the inaccurate information cannot be verified, the reporting agency has a responsibility to remove it. If you are not able to clear up the matter, you are allowed to add a statement to your file explaining the situation.
Have Outdated Information Removed – Negative information must be removed from your file after seven years.
Maintain Medical Information Privacy – reporting agencies are prohibited from obtaining or using medical information.
Seek Damages – You have the right to sue and seek damages in a state or federal court from anyone, such as a consumer reporting agency or a user of consumer reports, who violates the Fair Reporting Act.
Know When Your Report Is Used Against You – If you are denied credit, insurance,r employment, or any service because of your report, you can ask for the specific reason for the denial.
tech brethren, i implore thee...take a job at these ass hat companies and flay them wide open. Expose the depths of their chicanery !
Apple is the #1 opponent of right to repair laws across the country.
Another issue is that many of these data brokers exist in different countries. Laws would have to restrict the ability to sell in the first place. I dont see how making a law allowing a user to then be forgotten would impact a broker in another country..
The funny thinh though.. is im not sure people care. Look at programs like air miles... most people will give this away for next to free..
I have trouble sorting out Tim Cook's privacy principals so frequently espoused in press releases, op-eds and quips to the press from Apple's business agenda oriented towards marketing their platform as "privacy friendly".
It'd go a long way towards taking Cook and Apple as sincere if Apple would, in great detail, share with us what data they collect on their users, how they use it, and what data they allow Apps to collect, and what if any strings they attach to that data (which I doubt they can enforce anyway).
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Apple's only in the data collection game in any competitive sense if you're an iPhone user, but compared to Google and others, they're bush league and non-competitive, so "Apple as privacy advocate" isn't really because they care about data privacy, but because it's not a business they're competitive in. But if you *are* an i-device user there is, in fact, a ton of data collected about your usage which is of business advantage to Apple.
Which makes me question the sincerity of Cook's privacy speeches -- how do I know that most of this isn't just a marketing ploy to move users to their platform where they can grab the valuable data for themselves? Maybe they don't sell it to third parties, but they still collect it. And there's not exactly a lot of transparency on what they allow Apps to collect, either.
Overall, I'm inclined to believe that my privacy is moderately more protected on an iPhone than an Android, but only modestly.
Buisness's have been selling our data way before downloadable apps became popular. key cards to save money at supermarkets. That buying information was always being sold. Credit Card spending habits, again. Always was being sold.
This practice of selling information on your buying/browsing habits has been going on forever. And nobody really talked about it before, so again. Nothing different.
With that said though, I would expect any regulation to encompass any area where your private data is being sold.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Well, that's not going to happen anytime soon. So why sweat the small stuff?
Have gnu, will travel.
Every time for the last 10 years I go to their website for my free credit report, the system always says that there is some sort of problem and to come back later.
When you call, you get someone with a heavy Indian accent who won't tell you where they are for "security reasons". But yet, they have all this personal information on me that they blast all over the World without a care.
If you're here and complaining about slashdot, you haven't been here long enough.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Apple believes, like goblins, an object belongs to the creator. What the wizards and muggles call "price" is merely a license fee to use the object during the lifetime of the renter. When the renter dies the object should be returned to the maker and be re-rented. They do not accept as legal, the practice of passing goblin made objects like the Sword of Slytherin being passed from wizard to wizard without additional payments to the maker. [Citation Provided].
So once the data brokers agree to kick back 30% of the revenue to Android and Apple this will quietly die down.
[Citation] Harry Potter 4-7, HP 7 - HP and the Deathly Hallows - CH25 (3) You don’t understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.'
‘But if it was bought –'
‘– then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. You saw Griphook’s face when the tiara passed under his eyes. He disapproves. I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.'
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Quick, look over there!" Until this dishonest charlatan calls for legislation to address the offshore tax havens that Apple so egregiously abuses, he lacks even a modicum of credibility regarding this issue (or any other, for that matter). Go pound sand, Tim.
Judging by the amount of data the iPhone and other Apple products return back to Apple (many megabytes a day), it's clear that Apple are collecting as much data on you as Google et al are doing. No, they're not monetizing this data in various ways, but they are collecting it because it would be too foolish to pass on the opportunity.
The question is what does Apple do with the data, who do they share it with (other than NSA, CIA, FBI because the law requires it), and what will the ultimately do with it?
If you think Apple cares about your privacy as much as they lie about it on TV, you're only kidding yourself.
If you tell me a thing, I can share that thing. If I know a thing, I can sell that knowledge. These concepts have been enshrined into the United States law. You need a clear and pressing reason to restrict the right to free speech.
If you don't want your info shared, don't give it out.
Are there any real, specific examples of Microsoft monitizing (selling) the data they collect off hosts, other than using it to guide their own product decisions?
If anything, Apple does far too little to reduce their tax bill. They should be zeroing it out the way that GE does.
Every dollar in government hands is dollar either wasted, or spent on causing bloody mayhem.
100% (or close to it) participation is critical to the business. Having both total access to us, as well as good quality/representational data, is crucial to the business. If the data is reduced by opt-out to any significant degree, the risk of a selection bias that makes the data marginally representational makes it virtually (!) USELESS.
So if you opt-out, and your favorite store knows you shop there but don't show up in their vast and viral marketing subconscious, they don;t know enough about you to expand their marketing, develop reliable trait definitions, and ultimately can't hit you as hard as they were paying for. And so they don't want to pay for semi-useless or less-useful data. The data aggregators lose revenue. And power. And they will fight back.
They will ignore your opt-out. Their surveillance will become even more covert. They will lie, and pay the fines (always insufficient to deter abuse). They will partner up with those who cannot be defied.
There isn't much we can do, short of punish the transgressors by refusing to do business with their willing partners, and that assumes we don't NEED to do business with these partners, some of which we will have to, no matter what.
Lost. We have lost.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Are there any real, specific examples of Microsoft monitizing (selling) the data they collect off hosts
Microsoft owns Linkedin, which has the same business model as Facebook.
Although it happened before Microsoft acquired them, Linkedin has used some extremely slimy business practices. They would deceive people into disclosing passwords to their email accounts, and then send out massive spams to their contacts. When I created my Linkedin account, I though "WTF are they asking for that?", but my spouse fell for it, and they auto-logged into her Yahoo account and spammed over a thousand people on her behalf, without her permission, many only casual acquaintances that she hadn't heard from in years and barely knew.
Right. Being a product manufacturer they just recognized a person's data as sacred and something to be respected.
The other "tech" firms were only ever able to monetize by serving ads. As soon as they went down that rabbit hole they got data greedy. Thier survival depends on getting data every which way from Sunday. They only way they can collect it and have it mean anything is to pin it to an identifiable person...otherwise thier data becomes detached and meaningless.
This has all come about quite unexpectedly. At first we were cool with Google showing us ads to use thier search. It felt a little dirty but some thing had to pay for that amazing and much needed service.
Going public, they needed to grow. There was no way to use thier data to grow unless they could track trends to a person.
Imagine trying to make sense of website traffic without attaching it to an IP address or session. Garbage data without the identifier.
Now we are asking regulators to let the air out of this massive industry.
Don't even get me started on Facebook. The value they provide doesn't even come close to Google and they are harvesting much more personal information.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
No taxes!? Hold up, is that a thing? Sign me the fuck up.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
When the summary says
"as the company continues its push to be seen as supportive of privacy."
- it is correct, the company does do that.
But the clear implication is that this effort is misleading. That Apple does not, in reality, support privacy. That is dishonest and doesn't belong on Slashdot.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Just off the top of my head, check your network traffic if you have a fresh install of Windows 10. I recall reading on Slashdot a few years back that Google's servers are being sent some form of telemetry data from fresh installs. Oh, and what about the personalized ads that show up in Windows and Xbox? How do you think that happened? Then there's LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, which is quite obviously in the business of selling access to user data.
I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface here, but yes, Microsoft sells access to the data they collect off of their users.
I work for one of those data aggregators. The public would shit their collective pants if they knew all the info we had on them. Most of the info is protected like standard PII, but the full amount of raw info we mine is mind-boggling.
The government themselves are the biggest data miners on the planet, Its called the census. and people want to think our government cares about our privacy when they have been making billions off of it themselves and still do. were fucked...The big players our government, then Google and FB follow inline so the less being able to data mine the more value it will have that's why apple doesn't want small players..and yes i concede they do more then any company to protect their customer privacy that's why their stuff is so expensive..but not the only reason. man polished metal finish is the bomb hahahah
Jack of all trades,master of none
Here is their opt out.
https://isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx
-Long time AC.
Bullshit. Apple is no less evil than Google. Read Apple's TOS a little more closely. They don't "sell" your data. They lease you instead of information about you. The walled garden is a holding cell, and Apple's customers pay to use you instead of buying you. The difference is trivial.
Could the solution to sneaky people using our data without our knowing be to publish that same data in an easy to search/share format?
I don't see returning to the time of (assumed) hidden actions as possible. The next logical solution to my mind is to make the information universally available. Share the result of all that work (noting what brands we buy, or how often we tan) that's already being done in a way that allows everyone to benefit.
Free markets only work with equal access to information, and we seem to be ignoring that detail by trying to monetize that information.
Seems like real estate and stocks should already need something like this, so we wouldn't be starting from ground zero. And I'd hope it wouldn't force a particular payment system along for the ride (an obvious part of transactions are payments, but not for all transactions).
Scratching the "SURFACE"
I see what you did there. Well played sir.
"Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls For Laws To Tackle 'Shadow Economy' of Data Firms "
No irony here, nosiree, not one bit, not even a smidgen.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
When the US gov gets bulk data from US brands is ok.
Junk encryption, US gov and mil working on US brands products and services.
US brands that think the US freedom of speech is sinful and that the internet has to be curated.
Brands that shadow ban, report and remove users content?
Now a US brand wants to tell the world about their understanding of terms like "privacy"?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You only stop those who are more defective than you only after other discovered them.
By other "Tech" firms you mean google, data mining has always been their business.
Microsoft on the other hand started out like Apple, selling products - yet they chose to also follow google presumably out of greed to add an extra revenue channel.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
What about them? Never got one, never will.
That said, would you prefer the television model? Just serve up random ads to you? If ads are going to be part of the world, you pretty much have the choice of random ads, or ads restricted to things you might, just possibly, be interested in buying...
Don't know about you, but if I have to see ads, I'd rather see ads for products I might want rather than random whatever....
Oh, and amazingly, I've never actually felt a compulsion to buy something just because I saw an ad for it.
Disclaimer: I use ad-blocking software. I haven't actually seen an ad on my computer in a very long time. But I couldn't care less that someone is trying to show me ads for products/services I might be interested in buying....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I stop them using data that works & make it easy for others to do also - do you? No. You're a CHATTERING TWAT "ne'er-do-well" DO-NOTHING, lol!
The DAY (the "12th of NEVER", lol) you design & create something as good as I have for this purpose? THEN YOU CAN "TALK", chattering little TWAT that you are UNTIL then.
* :)
(STALKING me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts too? LMAO - please: Just DIE you useless WASTE OF LIFE!)
APK
P.S.=> Puny little TWAT that you are, RoTfLmAo... apk
Stop DNS requestlog & ad/script trackers via APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p (remove spaces between chars & download)
APK Hosts File Engine 10++ SR-1 32/64-bit for Windows https://hosts-file.net/?s=Down... (DL link @ bottom)
* Soon for MacOS too (I just got a NEW Mac-Mini to port it there too).
APK
P.S.=> It's 100% free & it works, natively, minus the BLOAT & INEFFICIENCY of addons (that are 'souled-out' to ADVERTISERS who track you so they don't work fully by default) in slower usermode + messagepass overheads & RAM use galore PLUS they're not SECURITY-ISSUE RIDDLED like DNS/Antivirus are (Tavis Ormandy anyone?)... apk
I tired this host file engine and I am still seeing ads. Doesn't work. The creator of it is a crank.
See subject: + YOU trolling by anonymous. DOZENS of registered /.ers disagree w/ you https://hardware.slashdot.org/... + RESULTS vs. MALWARES GALORE prove otherwise https://hardware.slashdot.org/... & SECURITY PROS GALORE seconding me on the value of hosts files for more speed/security too https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
* So, STFU "raisin penis" amicusNYCL (behind your FAKENAME)...
APK
P.S.=> Yes, I KNOW it's you amicusNYCL fakename "raisin penis" & I shot you the FUCK DOWN easily here on ALL counts you DO-NOTHING useless undereducated DEFECTIVE "ne'er-do-well" CHATTERING twat https://slashdot.org/comments.... ... apk