Another issue is this: breaking some of these privacy laws both in force and proposed, is really quite easy to do - as easy as a misconfigured logger or a developer including the wrong field in a query.
Another issue is this: breaking some of these privacy laws both in force and proposed, is really quite easy to do - as easy as a misconfigured logger or a developer including the wrong field in a query.
So if I drive accidentally over the speed limit I should not get a ticket? That's a weird argument isn't it? Moreover, we are talking about companies with billions of revenue, they can afford to pay people to make sure things work. If you are worried about large incumbents using the laws as barriers (a weird argument, should we not protect people first, not companies?), just lobby for fines to be a fraction of revenue.
Moreover, the behavior of the big companies in Europe shows that they have and continue to intentionally skirt and break the rules as much as possible until they get hit with fines. I really have very little empathy with Google, Meta et al.
Indeed and I don't see how that changes _structurally_ when people "in the know" are always going to be a tiny minority — they say that about 3% of the population has the profile to work in tech, and I tend to agree anecdotally.
I feel it's comparable to the inception of medicine for instance, and the solution was auto-regulation of the field by itself through the application of a loud (public and transparent) set of deontological rules of practice ("Primum non nocere", etc).
Awareness of society about these issues re. privacy and information sanctity in a democracy will not come naturally, structurally as time goes by. Just like they don't really know how doctors make life-or-death decisions on the spot. Nevertheless, the right principles should eventually exist, be known, and abode to, by those who work in the field. It should be loud and clear that we all have ethics (rules, implementing guiding principles), and which exactly.
A deontology of information technology and its practice in relation to human beings is one big "TODO" of this century, and it should concern anyone even remotely skilled to understand the problem.
Yeah, that seems to pretty well describe most all legislature these days.
This isn't just about revenue. People are assassinated by the US government without trial based on metadata.
Besides, private companies don’t have the force of law to force people to do anything.
Giving the government more power over your freedom is never the answer.
As more and more consolidation happens I'm not so sure this is still true. If all grocery stores become zero-human Amazon markets and their AI decides your long forgotten, hobby EC2 instance is past due then can you buy food?
Rent an apartment?
Fly on a plane?
Elections in the US need reformed, no doubt. And governments have a monopoly on legal violence. The answer isn't to keep handing the keys to the government over to whomever/whatever has the most money.
https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jas...
The grocery store market is definitely not a monopoly
https://www.statista.com/statistics/818602/online-and-offlin...
And Whole Foods makes up less than 2%
There is definitely not a “tech monopoly” on renting an apartment. On the other hand, the government can and does take away peoples property through both imminent domain and civil forfeiture.
The government already controls who can fly and who can’t via “no fly lists”
https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/grounded-life-...
So no, I have no desire to give government more power.
A company can only “violate my rights” if I choose to use those services. It’s much easier not to for instance use a phone with an operating system controlled by an adTech company than it is to not have to deal with a government.
Do you really think a government that always pushes the limit on being a surveillance state cares about your “privacy”?
Prior to 1983, nearly everyone in the US and Canada had to lease their physical telephones (wired and wireless) from Ma Bell, and if you didn’t like the phone Ma Bell gave you, tough luck. Your other choice was to simply not have access to the PSTN.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/finance/encyclopedias-almanacs-...
If you want to have rights in any meaningful sense, people's actions must be limited such that they don't violate them overmuch.
>A company can only “violate my rights” if I choose to use those services.
That's complete nonsense. But even if it were true, how do you suppose that would help you if you don't have a handy oracle that provides you perfect information about every company's actions past, present, and future? It's not as if a company is likely to advertise practices they don't want you to know about. And there's nothing (aside from the government) preventing them from deciding the day after you purchase goods from them that, for example, they're not going to honor warranties anymore. And, of course, you don't have to buy from a company for them dump industrial waste on your property.
>It’s much easier not to for instance use a phone with an operating system controlled by an adTech company than it is to not have to deal with a government.
Is it easier to purchase all your goods and services from companies that have no objectionable practices? You probably don't have many choices of ISP and it's increasingly difficult to find a TV without some manner of integrated as tech.
>Do you really think a government that always pushes the limit on being a surveillance state cares about your “privacy”?
"The government" is not a single entity with only a single goal. Do I think that well-written legislation aimed at protecting privacy would, in effect, tend to protect privacy? Of course. Do I think that would stop the NSA from violating citizens' right to privacy? Of course not.
The last law related to tech that I can think of that was user friendly was phone number portability.
This is an oft repeated argument that makes no sense. The point of privacy legislation is not to increase competition. The point is to increase privacy. The government has other legislative tools to increase competition should it wish to do so.
> With sadness, StreetLend was shut down in April 2018, after five years of operation.
> Unfortunately the European Union's new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), introduced on 25th May 2018, creates uncertainty and risk that are impossible to justify for small non-profit websites.
It looks more like someone who does not like the GDPR (because it affects them in some other way, because they are mislead, out of principle or who knows what reason) who then chose to sacrifice their pet project to make a statement.
It's so nonsensical that occasionally I wonder if this is an argument made primarily by the incumbents themselves in order to maintain the status quo.
There is no point without a person to have one. This is your point. It's absolutely impossible to generalize it to everyone who works to pass "privacy" legislation, and simply incorrect. Sometimes you try to pass privacy legislation to reduce privacy. Sometimes you try to pass privacy legislation because you have a product that would sell more if it passed. And yes, sometimes you try to pass privacy legislation because it adds so much red tape that you need a full time employee, a team, or a department to comply with it, and you know potential challengers can't afford that yet.
/s
Nobody is unseating social incumbents. The industry is out of the growth phase and needs a firmer hand.
Privacy regulations can make it very difficult to for competitors to start up with abusing information.