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Comment by Invictus0 | Hacker News Reader

Consider this though: you walk into a casino and start gambling, and the casino hires a third party company to watch its security cameras. No one seems to have any issue with that arrangement; is this really so different? I think the key to understanding the situation is that the establishment makes the rules; the establishment put the like button there.

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This calls out a really interesting extrapolation of privacy laws that have existed for many years.

For a long time, I (as a human) have permission to watch people around me.

I also have the legal right to record what is happening around me (many states only require one people to be aware of recording activities)

I also have the legal right to record YOU, assuming we are in a location where I can lawfully stand. And I can tell other people what I saw.

Now, I can put a camera somewhere, record EVERYONE, track people, and sell that tracking information.

All because we didn't anticipate the computing potential to record and process EVERYTHING.

So do we consider the web and websites to be public places or private places, and does out change depending on who runs the site?

Is a government website a private setting? Is a personal blog private or public?

I wonder if other countries have already explored this and written some law about it.

Any website that is not behind a pay wall or does not require me to login to read the content, I would consider it to be a public site.

I think you are using "public" differently here than a lot of people would. A public bathroom is still "public" in that it's available to anyone and doesn't require specific information about you to use. However, most people would still consider it a private place, and expect their privacy to be respected while using it.

That's a good distinction. If the casino sent someone to listen at an unaffiliated restaurant that is different to the casino having agents in it's own premises.

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