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Comment by uxamanda | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how many times I have opt-ed out of Verizon's cool new surveillance feature, this appears to be a new one. I will say the typo in the copy that says they might, for example, mark me as a "spots lover" is pretty nice [0]. Bring on the leopard spam!

[0] 'The program uses information about websites you visit and apps you use on your mobile device, your Verizon Fios services, device location and Customer Proprietary Network Informationn (CPNI), including phone numbers you call and those that call you, to help us understand your interests, like "spots lover" or "gamer."'

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That's why "opt out" is not an ethical or practical solution. There needs to be a (legally mandated and enforced) requirement for such things to be opt-in.

Agree with you completely, but companies/governments do not. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_paternalism

Any opt-out agreement puts the user signing the contract at a disadvantage; the opt-out could be 'lost' and then the upper-hand in the agreement prefers the service providing the contract, the same party which has the most to gain from the 'loss'. Whereas an opt-in agreement defaults to the upper-hand in favor of the user if the contract is lost, forcing the owning party to keep careful track of the signature.

Of course this doesn't preclude forged signatures/agreements.

Every year I opt out of emails from Elsevier. Exactly one year later I get spam from one of their journals. I've taken to grabbing a screenshot of the opt-out screen before submitting, and writing them vaguely threatening emails over it.

I've opted out of Verizon's spam texts, which I would get 3-5 times per day. But I didn't get the text offering me the ability to opt out of this shit, because I opted out of their texts. Cool.

Even opt-in is not always the solution:

https://stevestreza.com/2020/02/17/ios-adware/

Discussed here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29356496

More than this, I was not even notified by VZW that I was being opted in. I've used VZW for many years, have opted out of surveillance for many years, then suddenly my mom texts me an NPR article and I check to find that I've been opted in to more surveillance? If companies are not legally required to inform me when details of a contract change, what else am I consenting to without my knowledge?

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