I hear your take, and your examples are illuminating: 1. Top-secret research (fighter jet development) 2. Credit card info 3. On-boarding checklist for new developers
Three different levels of security required for three different levels of sensitivity of data. Thing is, while everyone would agree that example 1 requires specially hardened systems, surely you'd agree that almost everyone requires secure computing that protects information like example 2? And not by creating an air-gapped local secured system, either, because people want to *use* their credit card info daily. Is a ChromeBook good enough for that? Don't know. But that's the problem that Apple devices are designed to solve. They might not protect against a determined attacker with the resources to buy kits from Israeli cracking companies, but they'll do the job for most other circumstances.
Anyhow, though, the point I was making is that Google is creating its own view of who you are, using your data to do it. It keeps that view secret from the world, but: a. That's kinda creepy b. There are solutions that don't require allowing a company to do that c. They use that view of you to make money out of you, and the temptation must be strong to do that by understanding aspects of your behaviour you don't understand about yourself, including how to nudge you to pages and purchases you have a predilection for, even when it's against your interests.
I don't get this at all. Google is very impressive at collecting, organising and searching data. They monetise data. That creates a conflict of interest with acting as a custodian of your data.
Surely it's noteworthy that FB was only able to behave this badly on the Android platform. Whether it was for technical or policy reasons, it wasn't possible on iOS.
Specifically not Apple. Apple makes money from selling you a device, not from selling your data. That's why this story is about what happened to Android users.
And you missed my point about US-centric. I meant your world-view was very US-centric in how you thought about regulation. A starting point that says government action is typically ineffective. I agree that FB needs regulating in the US. It also needs regulating in other countries.
Also, you're moving the goalposts here. Your original claim was that there was no difference between monetizing and selling. I pointed out there's a large difference. Now you're essentially saying that monetizing is also bad. Which is fine, you can try to make that argument (though it does reek of a slippery slope fallacy), but it's a different argument than you started with.
I don't understand this at all. I'm saying that the *reason* there's no meaningful difference between monetizing and selling data is *precisely because* monetizing is also bad, just like selling. How is this a different argument? And the reason why monetizing and selling are both bad, is because it is observably the case that when companies treat data as a monetizable asset they frequently break any limits placed on what they can do with the data. This may reek of slippery slope to you, but it's an observable fact about the universe. I speak as one of the 1.6m people whose data was given without my consent to DeepMind for the purposes of building an AKI app at the Royal Free hospital. It doesn't matter if there are noble intentions, as there were in this case: patients should have been asked. But DeepMind didn't see the problem, because the whole purpose of the company is predicated on not seeing that kind of problem. (By the way, this is an example of another kind of nefarious activity beyond renting the data etc etc.)
You're being too kind to FB and too harsh on users. The FB app asks users if they will let it *access* their contacts, and links this request to *helping them find their friends on FB*. It allows them to assume that this is *all* it wants to access their contact for. They assume good intent, and more or less that means "FB wants to look through my contacts *once* to find my friends who are on FB". That is completely reasonable, and completely different from what FB actually was saying, which was "we want you to give us permanent access to all your contact data, which we'll use as we see fit, and our excuse is that we want to find your friends who are on FB".
This kind of clever-clever hiding behind people's reasonable expectations to do bad shit is exactly why FB needs regulating.
Monetize can include renting access to the data; renting analytic access to the data without allowing actual access to the underlying data; plus plenty of other nefarious activities. That's why I said what I said. If your starting point is that this data is a monetisable asset, you're going to end up doing bad things with it.
I'm comfortable with forcing FB to do the right thing. Same way as I'm comfortable with forcing airlines to maintain their aircraft in accordance with schedules set down by *gasp* gummint regulators. The modern world is complex: people cannot possibly be expected to understand the complexities of all the industries which they interact with every day. Regulation is part of the answer. It doesn't need to be perfect to be self-evidently much better than the alternative.
I don't know how you can be so sure of the assertions you're making. (Not to mention there's an inherent contradiction between your description of regulations as being mere "feel-good band-aids" and "This isn't to say that regulations are inherently bad". A regulation that is merely a feel-good band-aid is indeed inherently bad.)
Some regulation we observe in the world is effective, some regulation is ineffective. Some powerful industries are successfully regulated, others aren't. Regulatory capture, regulatory inflexibility and the various other issues you cite are all risks, yes, but there are risks of not regulating, and regulations aren't like pregnancy -- they can be a little bit outdated and still be useful, for example.
You have to take a pretty US-centric starting point with your political economy to be so sure regulation is not a significant part of the solution. Lots of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way. Including me.
I just don't understand your post: I've never used any content on FB that *was* "promotional contest giveaways, and chat/email/scheduling analogues". The only thing I use it for, is keeping in touch with people. Hearing what they're up to. It's an easy way to stay in touch with friends and family scattered round the world.
Jeez, I really don't understand comments like this. It's perfectly obvious what people use FB for. Literally billions of people use it to share and receive updates from friends and family without having to initiate a direct interchange with a specific subset of people from among their contacts. It's a simple and effective way to keep up to date with contacts around the world, and email just doesn't work in the same way, otherwise those billions of people would use email instead. You may not see the need for such a service yourself, but self-evidently that is not true for many other people.
For someone on a tech site, you seem remarkably ignorant of the basics of how FB works. Ghost profiles are a thing so, no, staying off FB does not prevent them from doing things you don't like that directly involve you and your data. And obviously, with nearly 30% of everyone in the world using FB, just waiting for FB to be out-competed is not going to prevent a ton of public harms happening in the meantime, and assuming that a startup can compete if the government would simply clear out of the way is wilfully naive. Network effects are an economic thing, you know.
So what if lots of smart, successful people don't use FB. Two *billion* people do. When nearly a third of the Earth's population are using a service, then *of course* there's a public interest in making sure that service is reasonably safe through regulation. We can't just wait for it to die on the vine, assuming it ever will...too much harm will happen in the meantime.
Slashdot Mirror
What was the logic behind your square brackets?
You describe what you've had to do to go off-grid, and it's extraordinarily restrictive. And you think *regulation* is a poor solution? Sheesh.
I hear your take, and your examples are illuminating:
1. Top-secret research (fighter jet development)
2. Credit card info
3. On-boarding checklist for new developers
Three different levels of security required for three different levels of sensitivity of data. Thing is, while everyone would agree that example 1 requires specially hardened systems, surely you'd agree that almost everyone requires secure computing that protects information like example 2? And not by creating an air-gapped local secured system, either, because people want to *use* their credit card info daily. Is a ChromeBook good enough for that? Don't know. But that's the problem that Apple devices are designed to solve. They might not protect against a determined attacker with the resources to buy kits from Israeli cracking companies, but they'll do the job for most other circumstances.
Anyhow, though, the point I was making is that Google is creating its own view of who you are, using your data to do it. It keeps that view secret from the world, but:
a. That's kinda creepy
b. There are solutions that don't require allowing a company to do that
c. They use that view of you to make money out of you, and the temptation must be strong to do that by understanding aspects of your behaviour you don't understand about yourself, including how to nudge you to pages and purchases you have a predilection for, even when it's against your interests.
I don't get this at all. Google is very impressive at collecting, organising and searching data. They monetise data. That creates a conflict of interest with acting as a custodian of your data.
Pretty much everything described on this page, for starters: https://www.apple.com/uk/educa...
Agreed, FB certainly doesn't. But Apple can enforce policy by controlling what's allowed on the App Store. Maybe that's a mix of technical and policy?
Matt Ridley presided over the downfall of Northern Rock. His energy would be better spent reimbursing the people who were ruined by that disaster.
You must go to very big parties. The false positive rate is 1 in 1m.
Surely it's noteworthy that FB was only able to behave this badly on the Android platform. Whether it was for technical or policy reasons, it wasn't possible on iOS.
Specifically not Apple. Apple makes money from selling you a device, not from selling your data. That's why this story is about what happened to Android users.
What regulations did I call for, specifically?
And you missed my point about US-centric. I meant your world-view was very US-centric in how you thought about regulation. A starting point that says government action is typically ineffective. I agree that FB needs regulating in the US. It also needs regulating in other countries.
Users should be repeatedly bashed over the head until they stop blindly clicking "next"
I appreciate the purity of your position, but I suspect you may be waiting quite a long time...
I see "breaking up FB" as just a pretty dramatic example of regulation.
Also, you're moving the goalposts here. Your original claim was that there was no difference between monetizing and selling. I pointed out there's a large difference. Now you're essentially saying that monetizing is also bad. Which is fine, you can try to make that argument (though it does reek of a slippery slope fallacy), but it's a different argument than you started with.
I don't understand this at all. I'm saying that the *reason* there's no meaningful difference between monetizing and selling data is *precisely because* monetizing is also bad, just like selling. How is this a different argument? And the reason why monetizing and selling are both bad, is because it is observably the case that when companies treat data as a monetizable asset they frequently break any limits placed on what they can do with the data. This may reek of slippery slope to you, but it's an observable fact about the universe. I speak as one of the 1.6m people whose data was given without my consent to DeepMind for the purposes of building an AKI app at the Royal Free hospital. It doesn't matter if there are noble intentions, as there were in this case: patients should have been asked. But DeepMind didn't see the problem, because the whole purpose of the company is predicated on not seeing that kind of problem. (By the way, this is an example of another kind of nefarious activity beyond renting the data etc etc.)
Apple servers know which devices (and associated phone numbers) are iOS devices. There's no scraping going on.
You're being too kind to FB and too harsh on users. The FB app asks users if they will let it *access* their contacts, and links this request to *helping them find their friends on FB*. It allows them to assume that this is *all* it wants to access their contact for. They assume good intent, and more or less that means "FB wants to look through my contacts *once* to find my friends who are on FB". That is completely reasonable, and completely different from what FB actually was saying, which was "we want you to give us permanent access to all your contact data, which we'll use as we see fit, and our excuse is that we want to find your friends who are on FB".
This kind of clever-clever hiding behind people's reasonable expectations to do bad shit is exactly why FB needs regulating.
Monetize can include renting access to the data; renting analytic access to the data without allowing actual access to the underlying data; plus plenty of other nefarious activities. That's why I said what I said. If your starting point is that this data is a monetisable asset, you're going to end up doing bad things with it.
I'm comfortable with forcing FB to do the right thing. Same way as I'm comfortable with forcing airlines to maintain their aircraft in accordance with schedules set down by *gasp* gummint regulators. The modern world is complex: people cannot possibly be expected to understand the complexities of all the industries which they interact with every day. Regulation is part of the answer. It doesn't need to be perfect to be self-evidently much better than the alternative.
https://www.easa.europa.eu/eas...
I don't know how you can be so sure of the assertions you're making. (Not to mention there's an inherent contradiction between your description of regulations as being mere "feel-good band-aids" and "This isn't to say that regulations are inherently bad". A regulation that is merely a feel-good band-aid is indeed inherently bad.)
Some regulation we observe in the world is effective, some regulation is ineffective. Some powerful industries are successfully regulated, others aren't. Regulatory capture, regulatory inflexibility and the various other issues you cite are all risks, yes, but there are risks of not regulating, and regulations aren't like pregnancy -- they can be a little bit outdated and still be useful, for example.
You have to take a pretty US-centric starting point with your political economy to be so sure regulation is not a significant part of the solution. Lots of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way. Including me.
I just don't understand your post: I've never used any content on FB that *was* "promotional contest giveaways, and chat/email/scheduling analogues". The only thing I use it for, is keeping in touch with people. Hearing what they're up to. It's an easy way to stay in touch with friends and family scattered round the world.
Monetize vs sell: a distinction without a difference here.
Jeez, I really don't understand comments like this. It's perfectly obvious what people use FB for. Literally billions of people use it to share and receive updates from friends and family without having to initiate a direct interchange with a specific subset of people from among their contacts. It's a simple and effective way to keep up to date with contacts around the world, and email just doesn't work in the same way, otherwise those billions of people would use email instead. You may not see the need for such a service yourself, but self-evidently that is not true for many other people.
For someone on a tech site, you seem remarkably ignorant of the basics of how FB works. Ghost profiles are a thing so, no, staying off FB does not prevent them from doing things you don't like that directly involve you and your data. And obviously, with nearly 30% of everyone in the world using FB, just waiting for FB to be out-competed is not going to prevent a ton of public harms happening in the meantime, and assuming that a startup can compete if the government would simply clear out of the way is wilfully naive. Network effects are an economic thing, you know.
So what if lots of smart, successful people don't use FB. Two *billion* people do. When nearly a third of the Earth's population are using a service, then *of course* there's a public interest in making sure that service is reasonably safe through regulation. We can't just wait for it to die on the vine, assuming it ever will...too much harm will happen in the meantime.
When the Wind Blows
Maus