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Comment by nerflad | Hacker News Reader

> For all we know, these claims could as well be made up.

The companies have confirmed that is not the case.

> They didn't actually violate these peoples privacy by dropping their names.

The articles mentions a Spotify ad that said “To the person in NoLiTa who started listening to holiday music way back in June, you really jingle all the way, huh?" I mean, how much more specific can you get? Nolita is five square blocks[0]. If you think I'm making a fool out of myself by being concerned with this, I don't know what to tell you.

[0]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nolita,+New+York,+NY/@40.7...

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> The companies have confirmed that is not the case.

Okay, so we can't trust them with data but their statements are 100% to be taken seriously? Slightly contradicting.

> how much more specific can you get?

Well, put their names on it

> Nolita is five square blocks

Umm, yeah in New York City, meaning we are talking about 50k people [0].

[0]: https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Manhattan/NoL...

What level of specificity would you no longer be comfortable with? If it had been 500 or 50 people, would that still have been okay? How you can be sure that this data is inocuous? You can't predict the intentions of every stalker or bad actor that might have access to this data or be able find a use for it.

Listening habits can make a good forecast for other lifestyle habits; i.e, he listens to a lot of jazz, maybe I can find him at Maxwell's drum shop. She streamed a song by Purity Ring 25 times, I bet she'll be at their show in Brooklyn this weekend.

> he listens to a lot of jazz, maybe I can find him at Maxwell's drum shop. She streamed a song by Purity Ring 25 times, I bet she'll be at their show in Brooklyn this weekend.

He/she is on Hacker News, showing off his/her New York specific knowledge and making vague points about privacy. He/She is probably an software engineer living in NYC. \s

Sure listening habits are information worth keeping a secret, but that's not the topic discussed here. And all they said is that someone in NoLiTa listened to Christmas tunes in June. That is nothing of value for anyone and Spotify and Netflix did a good job not doing harm to anyone by this campaign. Again the real privacy invaders are somewhere else, sitting there silently collecting your data!

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