Hacker News Reader

Comment by A4ET8a8uTh0 | Hacker News Reader

So one of the comments on the post got my pressure up before coffee had a chance to kick in:

"It's just offline conversion events being uploaded so you'd stop getting these ads, or so they can market to you again in the future. You purchased this product, gave them a phone number.. Not sure where the issue lies? You agreed to the terms on Spreadshirt which is probably where you opted for marketing."

This is the basic approach. You give it to us. You agree to whatever we put in legalese and now we can do whatever we want. What?

It is disheartening, but I agree with the rest of the posts on HN that it is not at all surprising.

I just don't know how to approach it.

View on HN

Devil's advocate for a moment: why can't the business do whatever they want with the data? It's not clear to me that I own the data in any single transaction with a business. I could see us both owning it, either shared or independently.

For VISA to sell transaction data, that's one thing. But a business that uses it to run their marketing, using transactions with their business? That seems less clear.

To further muddy the waters, if I can tell the business how they can use transaction data, shouldn't they also be able to tell me how I can/cannot use it? That seems like it would infringe upon bad reviews/etc., but it feels more consistent.

It is a good question to ask. I still am kinda struggling with deciding where exactly I stand on this.

In my case, it always seems to be some sort of invisible line that I can't quite articulate. For lack of a better term, it feels like transgression. For example, I give the business my credit card information, but I don't give them permission to use that card on anything other than that one transaction ( or more if recurring ). If I give them my phone, it is for the express purpose of handling my business. That phone is not there to be sold to the highest bidder.

For the record, I am agreeing with you. The waters are definitely muddy, but we need some sort of enforceable and enforced ground rules.

You are struggling to articulate why it's not okay for a company to quietly hand all of your purchases over to facebook without ever telling you about it or asking you if that is okay?

Neither. I am not certain where the line should be drawn. I am not a zealot. I evaluate both positions and see if there is a way to balance both interests. If there is none, I err on the side of the customer ( ie. me ).

And I am saying all this, because there is a reason for business to gather this information. I am willing to entertain an argument for keeping some of that data for efficient processing of my business. I am less charitable with hoarding data for no other reason than selling me more stuff and or outright selling that information to 3rd party to that in some other way.

So yeah. Neither. But there is a line. I just don't know where it should be.

> But a business that uses it to run their marketing, using transactions with their business?

It's about informed consent. The businesses should at least warn their customers that they're doing this, and who they're ratting us out to. That way we can each make an informed decision about whether or not to use that business.

Exactly this.

If I know a business I’m thinking of purchasing with is going to send my purchase info to Facebook, I’m picking a different business.

What would be even better is if not only would they have to tell you this, but that you could say, "No. I don't agree to this nonsense" and they would have to refrain. They wouldn't even be able to deny you service based on that. They would, of course, be able to use the data if they needed to fulfill the contract with the customer, or if they had some legitimate reason for using it, or if there was some legal requirement for using it. Otherwise they would have to get consent.

It would be a kind of General Data Protection Regulation. All joking aside, and as much as I've grumbled about implementing it at the company where I work, I really wish this was a thing world wide.

> why can't the business do whatever they want with the data?

Because we have yet to tell them they can't do whatever they want with it. That's the purpose of regulating it.

For starters, we can vote for candidates who will be tough on overly-powerful corporations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com