Comments
Winter • July 15, 2021 7:52 AM
@echo
Thanks for the links. These are interesting.
I think these US statutes are also preemptive me-too legislation. The industry’s biggest risk is that the GDPR will be forced upon them by default. By passing ineffective laws that look like they protect consumers, they can prevent, or at least delay, the introduction of effective laws.
With the EU the biggest trade block on the planet, the GDPR is making itself felt everywhere.
ATN • July 15, 2021 8:00 AM
Obviously “Consumer Privacy Law” only apply to people who did not give their consent, so if you have accepted something like the Facebook user agreement (by the fact that you are using Facebook), then it does not really apply to you.
This stuff is so complex it will finish like the list of software licenses you have to accept to run Windows (licenses for Windows software, for the graphic card, the camera, for the sound chipset, the Ethernet driver, the mouse and keyboard, … and any of their security upgrade): a screen is presented where you are allowed to check the box “accept all licenses” (without any of the license text) if you would like to continue… else you are allowed to power-off your PC. Skipping one way or another the license approval is soo illegal you’d better not pretend to have done it.
Concerning “echo” comment, I really hate that one company has to track me personally so that they can “fulfil their duty of not contacting me” due to my GDPR request to be erased from their database. No way to be erased from the database of the people having contacted them under GDPR laws.
echo • July 15, 2021 10:11 AM
@Winter
I think these US statutes are also preemptive me-too legislation. The industry’s biggest risk is that the GDPR will be forced upon them by default. By passing ineffective laws that look like they protect consumers, they can prevent, or at least delay, the introduction of effective laws.
With the EU the biggest trade block on the planet, the GDPR is making itself felt everywhere.
I felt aspects of the US law gave in to business and marketing and perhaps a few of the more foaming at the mouth “libertarian constitutionalists”.
I imagine if you point fingers at a few of the more mercenary lobbyists there will be boggled eyes look of shocked indignation and jowl wobbling sputtering protests. Politicians with all the front of a sound stage wild west saloon and glass jaws to match are hardly going to rat them out as they count the election funding and wrap themselves in flags of borrowed valour.
I’m a European and anti-Brexit so obviously biased but the EU does treat the European Covention seriously. It is also a trading bloc and I’m pretty sure Commssion staff are aware that not just fraud but privacy are not just blocks to human rights but blocks to trade too. Unfortunately smug superiority can only get you so far as Europe has just bungled right to repair.
The EU Parliament briefing is worth a read just to see where discussion is heading. One thing which rarely gets a mention in these kinds of discussions (including on data protection) is predictability, stability, and mental health. There are also other benefits too such as privacy enhanced communication and innovation and repairability especially beyond the expected life expectancy of the product can encourage invention and other social benefits. It’s all that trivial and touchy feely huggy stuf which has some people throwing their canes at the television but used to be a large component of much of Western culture up until customer gave way to consumer.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/640158/EPRS_BRI(2019)640158_EN.pdf
European Parliament
Briefing
Consumers and repair of products
We urgently need a universal Right To Repair
The Ecodesign measures coming into force today are a great step forward. Energy labels are improved and combined with the repairability measures, they’re expected to jointly deliver 167 TWh of energy savings every year by 2030, as much as the final annual energy consumption of Denmark[1] .
But the many restrictions for consumers and independent repairers are a good illustration of how far we still are from having a true universal Right to Repair in Europe.
This is why the Right to Repair movement has been campaigning in Europe for the past year, pushing for more ambitious rules that extend products’ lifetime, support consumers’ desire for more repairable products and benefit a sustainable economy.
Winter • July 15, 2021 10:14 AM
@ATN
“so if you have accepted something like the Facebook user agreement (by the fact that you are using Facebook), then it does not really apply to you.”
The concept of “informed consent” is central to Privacy Law, and the GDPR. Consent must be meaningful, intentional, and free. Which means, that is legally invalid if it is based on incomplete or incomprehensible information, is not intentional, or is part of a tied sell.
The GDPR is pretty clear, consent can never be implicit, e.g., you use it, so you consent, it must be based on easy to comprehend information, not on 100 pages of legalese privacy policy, and should not be a prerequisite for just reading the page or using the service.
In the EU, few if any FB users have given their Informed Consent in the sense of the GDPR. So FB is going through a lot of legal proceedings in the EU to ward off what looks like the inevitable.
TimH • July 15, 2021 10:53 AM
Only CA has a right of private action, and that only for security breaches. As Facebook will prefer not to tell you, co-opting a data protection registrar (DPA in Ireland) is all you need to do to avoid following the law.
The “cure” feature in the laws is nonsense, and effectively nullifies the laws because there’s now no incentive to follow it – just fix each specific problem when complained about. If that was true for shoplifting, you’d only have to return the goods that you were caught pinching.
ADFGVX • July 15, 2021 11:03 AM
@ echo
The General Data Protection Regulation: A Comparative View of Key IssuesThe EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) was approved by the European Parliament in April 2016.
We the people are grieved by the “Federal” or in other words Communist Party form of government which had come to exist in the United States and the E.U. which we feel are headed for the same fate as the former U.S.S.R.
Policies passed by a Parliament of unelected “Christian” Democrat delegates have very limited interpretation as “laws” to be enforced as such by fines and prison terms.
The same of course can be said of federal laws, USC, CFR, etc., in the U.S. whether for instance an election was actually held on the 20th of January or if the whole thing was a fraud after the January 6 –
coup d’état, and they keep telling us there was no evidence, Democrat until proven Republican, as if the Democrats
are so innocent, because in practice the feds just call it child pornography, skip the court process altogether, and put anybody in prison for anything they want, there’s a Reich and they’re shipping “Jews” off to concentration camps.
@ Winter
I think these US statutes are also preemptive me-too legislation. The industry’s biggest risk is that the GDPR will be forced upon them by default. By passing ineffective laws that look like they protect consumers, they can prevent, or at least delay, the introduction of effective laws.
Sure. Much of the problem is in fact with the small-town Republican “parochialism” of states, provinces, counties, boroughs, cities, towns, villages, municipalities, cantons, parishes, etc., passing ineffective local laws and ordinances which are unenforceable outside the boundaries of each red-light district — with the usual barratry of frivolous intellectual property claims and patent troll lawsuits in court, arbitrary and capricious local court decisions, and law enforcement decisions to “railroad” policies as law without any court process at all.
Winter • July 15, 2021 11:57 AM
@ADFGVX
“Policies passed by a Parliament of unelected “Christian” Democrat delegates have very limited interpretation as “laws” to be enforced as such by fines and prison terms.”
I find your comments almost, if not totally, incomprehensible. I have no clue why you think the rule of Stalin and Bresznev had anything in common with the European Commission. I cannot see any parallels and you also do not tell us where you see them. Also, where do you see the concentration camps in Europe? Please tell us.
As for the quote, FYI, the European Parliament is chosen in free and fair elections. If you have evidence to the contrary, please let us know.
echo • July 15, 2021 12:51 PM
@Winter
Additionally anyone can write to an EU commissioner and request they investigate an issue or write directly to the EU Commission and request they propose a law. Citizens of EU member states can write to their Euro MP’s. This is all in addition to the existing rights of representation held by citizens in member states.
Subsidiarity is a principle of the EU in that power is to be conferred to the lowest competent level. Also human rights may not be derogated.
As for two names in particular on this blog they seem to be posting a pick and mix selection of largely far right talking points with a strong US bias all woven together. It’s quite the Rorschach test. “Incomprehensible” is the best I can say of them.
echo • July 15, 2021 1:11 PM
Only 20% of consumers are saying yes to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt, which means they will enable apps to personalize ads by tracking their personal data. For the traffic Bowman’s company evaluated, performance has faded. Across paid social platforms, downstream event optimization and “lookalike audience performance” is also eroding.
This is interesting real world data. My personal view is that platform design and marketing funnels and encourages users towards certain types of behaviour. Some people will obviosly complain if this does’t work anymore but there are questions. For instance I read someone saying the other day that their reading of books had dropped off because of Twitter. Other people at an extree may play more games tha is physically healthy for them and in some cases the sheer amount of time taken up puts relationships and marriages under strain. People only have so much time and energy and money and I feel this whole argument isn’t about who is spending or not spending but who gets the money.
I’m sure there is an academic kicking about or academic papers on this but is it really a net opportunity loss for an economy if privacy and human rights law ends up putting the brakes on some people’s endevours? That time and effort and money will be going somewhere else perhaps better, healthier, and some may say wiser than where it would otherwise have gone. In fact it may be possible the gains are significant enough there is a compelling case for stronger legislation.
ADFGVX • July 15, 2021 1:22 PM
@ Winter
Also, where do you see the concentration camps in Europe? Please tell us.
Europe maintains a consumer mental health system to this day, just like Germany and Poland in the 1930s in particular.
As for the quote, FYI, the European Parliament is chosen in free and fair elections. If you have evidence to the contrary, please let us know.
https://www.dw.com/en/cdu-christian-democratic-union/t-17351950
Same old Democrat trope as in the U.S. “There’s no evidence.” Just like the Mobsters running elections out of Tammany Hall in the days of Al Capone.
Guys got drunk Saturday night, and somehow got off the property before the cops showed up at the pub, the girls were hustled off to the abortion clinic in the middle of the night, their buddies got around early in the morning picked the locks and stole the rape kits from the evidence room at the police station, and now there’s a whole political party of righteous women in church on Sunday, other guys are sitting back listening to the sermon taking notes.
echo • July 15, 2021 1:57 PM
Europe maintains a consumer mental health system to this day, just like Germany and Poland in the 1930s in particular.
I have no idea what this means. AI bots have some way to go!
C U Anon • July 15, 2021 3:17 PM
@echo:
“I have no idea what this means. AI bots have some way to go!”
You need to follow the handle trail back to when the person had their own web site, or earlier.
If you are not sure who they might be they do radiate some very very loud sirens every so often. Such as,
“… as well as establishing a comprehensive arms control list of identified “prohibited persons” who are disarmed, disenfranchised, and prohibited on the basis of mandatory fingerprinting and universal background checks for MENTAL HEALTH etc. from embarking on any sort of profitable employment or business or going to court as a plaintiff to seek redress for any such matters.”
Clive Robinson • July 15, 2021 5:06 PM
@ lurker,
I don’t know what to think…I’d dead tired to click and adjust on EACH AND EVERY SITE those cookie settings…
I default to having both cookies and javascript off.
If the site still blocks, their loss, I can usually work around it without to much difficulty.
Take the Rupert Murdoch Empite News Corp and their desperat desperate attempts to squeeze money out of people.
Most of the News Corp “news” is actually stolen from other content providers by Rupert Murdochs “click-bait, cut-n-paste” excuses for journalists.
Thus actually finding the original source via a search engine is generally not difficult. You get the search engine to pull up a few lines of the stolen news on the News Corp site via the URL. Then if it looks interesting run that text through the search engine and low and behold another several sources pop up. Avoid the US ones and the chances are you will get the text but maybe not the photographs or pictures.
Yes it’s a little slower than just clicking on a News Corp link to stolen news, but… Often you find the story is not realy of interest on the retrieved text in the search engine.
The nonsense a few months back in Australia with News Corp is because Rupert does not want you finding out through search engines the obvious truth that he is at best a total plagiarist but more accurately a thieving old psychopathic narcissist desperate to prove he’s still relevant in a world that has long since passed him by.
Thus you have to “be agile” to his enfeebled luddite stompings and ravings for a time he did not require Sildenafil just to sit up in the morning…
@SpaceLifeForm:
“#comment-383806 is fake.”
Yes I kind of spotted this was going to happen the other day with the HTTPS is “climate change” nonsense, and thus called for ‘clean up in isle 13’.
But a whimsy for you to think about…
In your minds eye see that Trumpian 400 pounder, bashing away at it in the parental home, as an incel of their own making… Then ask the question,
“Would a Troll-Tools seat, smell just as unsweet by any other name?”
(with appologies to Shakespeare)
That is judge not by the handle but the odious nature of their effluvia.
@SpaceLifeForm:
Observe carefully,
You can see the Troll-Tools so busy tootling with their horn they messed up…
It is ironic that the faker can not even get a simple fake right.
And whilst they might drink or drug themselves to death eventually as such foolish self entitaled morons do all to regularly. Their sense of the dramatic is at best prosaic, thus they never will ‘kill themselves for the sake of art’. Because their basic narcissism and cognative failings will prevent that as they inist on projecting their dull whit on an audiance that wished they would be “dramtic” and swan dive into a swamp somewhere.
Winter • July 16, 2021 1:56 AM
@echo
“This is interesting real world data. My personal view is that platform design and marketing funnels and encourages users towards certain types of behaviour.”
I was wondering what all this “add tracking” was about because, who clicks on ads? The conversion rate is minimal.
But I was wrong, this is not about the ad click through:
Some advertisers, like e-commerce sites, appear to be hit particularly hard. Many retailers run software like Shopify, which shares customer data, including details about purchases that customers make on the site, with Facebook. That allows Facebook to refine its “lookalike” audiences, which advertisers buy access to so they can target other people who may be interested in buying the same thing.
…
Before the new iOS feature was rolled out, media buyers reported that Facebook could capture as much as 95 percent of sales made on their clients’ sites. Now, many media buyers are reporting that Facebook is capturing only 50 percent of sales. One buyer reports that, with one client, just 3 percent of sales are showing up in Facebook’s ad manager.
Other people visit e-commerce sites without purchasing anything, and to close the deal, retailers will “retarget” those users, showing them ads on Facebook for an item they viewed but didn’t buy. Those ads aren’t possible when “ask not to track” is enabled.
ht tps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/facebook-advertisers-are-panicking-after-ios-cuts-off-key-tracking-data/
Clive Robinson • July 16, 2021 4:43 AM
@ Winter,
I’m not sure, but my memory tells me Facebook has never made a real profit in it’s existance. Also that the shareholders have no control what so ever due to the way Facebook is set up.
Also as we know Facebook is not exactly popular with entrenched MSM and more recently politicians.
So I guess it would not be such a daft question as to ask as to ask how vulnerable Facebook actually is.
Along with who profits most if Facebook has say 15% less income, and becomes shall we say of much less interest to investors…
echo • July 16, 2021 5:00 AM
@Winter
I was wondering what all this “add tracking” was about because, who clicks on ads? The conversion rate is minimal.
But I was wrong, this is not about the ad click through:
This too! Good catch. It sounds a lot like “Hey you’re really cool and I really like you… BTW, do you know so-and-so because I really want to date her”. I’ve also had the “Where do you guys hang out because I never get to meet any of you”. Like, the same places everyone else does??…
When the corporate mask slips how different is this kind of objectification from another objectification? Job titles and organisations and policies and working approaches can push people away to being this abstract “other”. It’s just code. It’s just a protocol. No harm no foul, right? If you don’t measure this or examine the knock on effects or the public interest issues these concerns can be neglected.
On reflection the advertisers seem like old style door to door insurance sales people. The big thing was generating leads. Most recruits would go through all their family and friends and run out of leads. The ones who had an ongoing job were the ones who turned every social encounter into lead generation. It was a pretty scuzzy operation and generated its share of scandals but seems to have gone the way of an ashtray in every office.
Winter • July 16, 2021 5:06 AM
@Clive
“I’m not sure, but my memory tells me Facebook has never made a real profit in it’s existance.”
Then have a lot of billions coming in under:
Facebook annual net income for 2020 was $29.146B
Facebook annual revenue for 2020 was $85.965B
Facebook 2020 annual Earnings Per Share was $10.09
However, I have no idea which would qualify as “real profit”. They have never paid out dividends, I understand. But there is a lot of real money flowing around FB.
@Clive
“So I guess it would not be such a daft question as to ask as to ask how vulnerable Facebook actually is.”
The same questions can be asked about Google and Twitter. Google’s income is based on advertisement, like FB. I have no idea how Twitter makes money, if it even does make money.
What I do understand is that a large part of succeeding in trade&commerce is having good data about the customers and the market. Targeted advertisement is the least important of that, I think. Good data on customer preferences, buying practices, and needs relative to other variables (e.g., the weather) is crucial to profitability. That is what FB and Google try to deliver.
Clive Robinson • July 16, 2021 5:46 AM
@ Winter,
You left out “the other one”, I could not find the article I eas looking for but,
https://www.protocol.com/apple-facebook-privacy-fight
Tells you Apple dors not like Facebook and thinks it’s a blight on the face of not just the Internet but the Earth it’s self.
But the point is when you get doen to it Facebook is a one trick pony with a distinct lack of diversified income.
Apple and Google have
1, Hardware.
2, OS.
3, Their own Apps
4, Third party Apps
As income sources as well as several other more diverse income sources.
The fact that Facebook and similar are having to twist the arms of overly compliant regulators, should indicate what the real issue is.
Now, if users can get better privacy with Facebook and worse squashed out I’d be interested in examining the business model. However both Google and Apple have better access to users private data thus you have to ask what happens after the “bug bomb” blitzes the cockroach, as like vaccumes ecological niches once established especial faux market ones can be hard to remove and keep away.
Denton Scratch • July 16, 2021 6:19 AM
@ADFGVZ
“We the people are grieved by the “Federal” or in other words Communist Party form of government which had come to exist in the United States and the E.U. which we feel are headed for the same fate as the former U.S.S.R.”
Who are you claiming to speak for? By what authority? Why don’t you just speak for yourself?
There’s nothing remotely “communist” about the EU. It’s a neo-conservative institution by design, run by a Commission of failed national ministers appointed by their respective national governments, and “overseen” by a toothless parliament. None of the EU national governments is remotely “communist”.
The lack of accountability, and the supremacy of the bureaucracy, are marks that vaguely resemble some kinds of communist government; but the EU is heavily corporatist. Perhaps, for you, the word “communist” is synonymous with “government”?
Now the suggestion that the Federal government is “communist” is a joke, surely. The US systems of government are apparently black-holes for idealism. Even extreme conservatives flap like flags in the wind of lobbying and fundraising. No US political leader can afford to take a principled stand. The USA is quite safe from communism. There’s no need to froth like that.
Clive Robinson • July 16, 2021 6:35 AM
@ Winter,
Facebook 2020 annual Earnings Per Share was $10.09
It sounds good, but…
It’s a statistic not an actuality as there would have been a dividend payed in a normal company.
But from memory Facebook is a “Company within a company” the old way to do that was with A shares and B Shares. However it appears that whilst investment from shareholders flows up into the inner company as do earnings, total control remains with less than twenty people most of whom are above even the inner company…
I suspect that those twenty are well aware they are a one trick pony, hence in part the notion of setting up it’s own trading currency to diversify etc.
I was under the impression at one point Facebook was going to try similar tricks as Palantir but for some strange reason that’s when the political situation blew up for Facebook. Thus business had gone to Palantir because of it.
I just get the feeling Silicon Valley Corps want shot of Facebook one way or another and they care not how it gets ripped apart.
Thus if I had shares in Facebook I would be looking to get rid of them at as favourable price as I could. Because I suspect Facebook are now “the bear in the pit” and there are no shortage of “pit dogs to throw in”. Thus they are going to get troubles after troubles in the near and longer term future.
The simple fact is the “online marketing” industry is a bubble market driven by unrealistic ideas and drawing in not just chancers but real crooks and criminal including money laundering services.
Thus the question is will it defalte back to something sensible, or will it explode under privacy and similar preasure to in effect totally implod as the backlash makes hundreds of thousands unemployed and entire business models shown to be the frauds they actually are…
Winter • July 16, 2021 7:19 AM
@Clive
“I suspect that those twenty are well aware they are a one trick pony, hence in part the notion of setting up it’s own trading currency to diversify etc.”
FB was set up along the dot.com mantra of “Eyeballs == Money”. And there are flowing massive amounts of money through FB, ~$85B. So that does seem to work. Dividends are a waste of money for a “fast growing internet company”, so the shareholders are not yet complaining, I think.
However, they do know that a one-trick pony is very vulnerable. They subsisted by simply buying up or copying every possible competitor, but with this many enemies, that will go wrong eventually.
The diversification to financial markets has been in the works for a long time. Also, in many regions of the world, FB is the internet, for better or for worse (in, e.g., Myanmar, for a lot more worse).
ATN • July 16, 2021 8:49 AM
@Winter • July 15, 2021 10:14 AM
The concept of “informed consent” is central to Privacy Law, and the GDPR. Consent must be meaningful, intentional, and free. Which means, that is legally invalid if it is based on incomplete or incomprehensible information, is not intentional, or is part of a tied sell.
What is the limit of “understandable” when most of the countries in EU have laws like “you cannot claim to not know the law”, and the “law” is a lot less understandable than the agreement you pass with Facebook for the right to use their service.
Can you read legalese? That language name is not even recognised as a syntax error by the automatic corrector! You are not allowed by law to not understand it!
And frankly, I do not want another law to say that, as an individual, I cannot have a complex contract with a company of my choice. Complex for who, the legal team? Last time I asked to the company legal team if we could use GPL software, they told me I would get an answer as soon as possible (it was few years ago…).
When I need a new car insurance, I am selling my own data (brand of car I own, if I am a home owner, my age…) to a third party in exchange for quotes from a range of insurances. It is for the user to accept or refuse to provide those “personal information”, the user cannot use the service, and then claim he did not intent to provide that “personal information”. Most of the laws would agree “nothing is free”, you would be expected by law to pay one way or another – even if of “low intelligence”. And obviously the comparison company would never have existed if providing service for free. And obviously insurances have that kind of information even before Facebook, before Internet your previous insurer would offer you a better price than your current renewal one year after you switched.
The law can only regulate what happens after the contract has finished, kind of delete the information after a month (time in between quote and insurance paid) – but the EU law do not want to do that, GDPR is so much nicer (and non understandable – details are completely impossible to implement without knowing who you are serving a WEB page to).
Moreover, you personal information is a lot less useful few months after collection, so the “comparison company” of my previous example would be OK to delete it. They already have updated information about you, you agreed to something else.
So FB is going through a lot of legal proceedings in the EU to ward off what looks like the inevitable.
Like what, FB to close or FB to provide the current level of service for free? What would the people do when they no more have FB? They would sell their personal information to somebody else, and then claim they did not want to sell their private information?
Who are those people who sell/rent all their private information, and then claim that is their own private information, nobody should know it?
echo • July 16, 2021 9:14 AM
@ATN
When I need a new car insurance, I am selling my own data (brand of car I own, if I am a home owner, my age…) to a third party in exchange for quotes from a range of insurances.
No you are not. I just used a UK based insurance quote website the other week. Data is covered by data protection law and is not for sale. They are paid by commission.
It is for the user to accept or refuse to provide those “personal information”, the user cannot use the service, and then claim he did not intent to provide that “personal information”.
Women drive cars too, you know?
The law can only regulate what happens after the contract has finished, kind of delete the information after a month (time in between quote and insurance paid) – but the EU law do not want to do that, GDPR is so much nicer (and non understandable – details are completely impossible to implement without knowing who you are serving a WEB page to).
Like a lot of people making Alt Right style arguments you don’t know the law or facts. If you are so agitated on this point try taking it to the courts and see how far you get.
The onus is not on me to inform you on my time for free. Hire a lawyer so they can tell you how wrong you are on your time and money. In fact there have been a few cases with the courts or lawyers over this past year and they have all come out on the wrong side of the judgment. I know because I read the court judgment as well as pre and post judgment commentary by lawyers!
Winter • July 16, 2021 9:19 AM
@ATN
“What is the limit of “understandable”…”
Informed Consent is a very well known principle in law. There really is no problem with it. The point is, that in informed consent, the side that claims there was consent has to prove that the subject was informed and understood the terms, and gave her or his consent freely after having been able to ask all relevant questions. Also, consent can always be retracted for any or no reason.
The legal bar for proving consent is well known and pretty high.
It is quite simple, although might be difficult to understand for an American: The GDPR puts all the power in the hands of the consumer. The side that claims there is/was consent has to prove there was indeed consent and they were rightfully storing and processing the data. If they cannot prove there was consent, they were illegally collecting, storing and processing data which is a crime.
@ATN
“And frankly, I do not want another law to say that, as an individual, I cannot have a complex contract with a company of my choice.”
You can do so, but the GDPR makes it difficult for the other side to enforce the contract.
Like when you sign a contract to donate your kidney or be a surrogate mother. If at any moment you decide you do not want to go through with it, the contract cannot be enforced. At least not in Europe.
Winter • July 16, 2021 9:21 AM
@echo
“Like a lot of people making Alt Right style arguments you don’t know the law or facts.”
That is why they pound the table so much 🙂
echo • July 16, 2021 9:47 AM
@Winter
You can do so, but the GDPR makes it difficult for the other side to enforce the contract.
Variation of contract is possible (whether adding a term in your favour or striking somethig out) and refusal of variation may be a breach of consumer law. However, all the other law regarding informed consent and privacy and so forth still applies.
Some contracts as you note on the issue of consent are not enforceable. With regard to consent another element is coercion. CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) guidelines have now been updated to recognise complex and indirect coercion as a criminal offence with respect to some outcomes. It’s a niche area of law but stops the police saying “No it’s not” which they have a habit of doing when they don’t understand something or too lazy to do the work. In fact I had the exact same argument with the police late last year (I would need to check my logs for an exact date) so the updated CPS guidance is timely.
That is why they pound the table so much
Quite likely! I pinched the point off a lawyer. I know of at least one lawyer who said the Alt Right tend to lose their minds on things. Dogma and emotional attachments can do this to people. There is also law on this which basically make them invalid reasons in law before they get started. In short find another hobby and/or get therapy.
ATN • July 16, 2021 10:49 AM
@echo
No you are not. I just used a UK based insurance quote website the other week. Data is covered by data protection law and is not for sale. They are paid by commission.
I did not say they are allowed to re-sell the data I have given them, they are still allowed to do statistics with those and sell such statistics.
In this business you never want to sell anything permanently, you want to rent stuff, their main costumer will need to know how many of 40 years old bought a brand of car, how old was the second hand car, stuff like that.
That is how they make their main source of income, commission is just a small part – when the commission is not negative. Welcome to the world of “Big Data”.
@echo
Women drive cars too, you know?
I did not want to go deep into that kind of argument, you know that the classification man/woman is incomplete? Please replace “then claim he did” by “then claim one did” and read my argument about asking the company legal team if we could use GPL licensed software for our product. Big company, big legal team, massive legal budget – no answer – let the engineer decide, and go to court against the employee if he fails to get the right answer. The employee signed he will never do anything illegal anyway.
@echo
you don’t know the law or facts.
I was not talking about how the law is, but how it should be. Limiting the duration a company keep my data is simple and enforceable, trying to limit anything else and you need a big team of lawyer in each company.
I am not agitated, and I want to keep lawyer as far as possible as I can get, I know how long they take and how much they cost – I do not have such money.
Have you ever asked a lawyer if you can use a mobile phone in your company? Obviously the legal answer should be “NO”, too many copyright have been broken, company selling it do not have the right/license to distribute the software inside the phone. But it is not possible anyway for a legal team to answer “Yes” or “No” anyway – try it!
@Winter
You can do so, but the GDPR makes it difficult for the other side to enforce the contract.
I do not want to live in a country where small companies cannot survive by providing a service (i.e. nothing physical), where the costumer can complain and refuse payment (whatever the form of payment) after receiving the service. That leads to multinational company without possible local competition, what we have now.
ADFGVX • July 16, 2021 10:54 AM
@ echo
Variation of contract is possible (whether adding a term in your favour or striking somethig out) and refusal of variation may be a breach of consumer law. However, all the other law regarding informed consent and privacy and so forth still applies.
The boilerplate has to be done away with entirely.
The paying customer is ultimately the boss.
We don’t like our I.D.’s stolen and used by marketing partners and law enforcement partners for other purposes.
Bottle of Elmer’s glue mixed with some lemonade, squirt it on the bedsheets, some girl at the crime lab hunched over a microscope with a nightclub blacklight swears up and down in a court of law that’s the guy’s DNA 93,000,000:1 odds-on match. Hell, why not? We’ve done it before. It’s always worked for us.
lurker • July 16, 2021 12:35 PM
@ATN
When I need a new car insurance, I am selling my own data (brand of car I own, if I am a home owner, my age…) to a third party in exchange for quotes from a range of insurances.
Twenty years ago insurance, companies or brokers, guarded that data zealously, it was their customer; and depending on domicile existing law may have required them to guard it. What has happened since? Third parties have assigned value to that data beyond the value the insurer believed it was worth. Insurance is a market driven industry. If an aftermarket arises for data the insurer is just sitting on, follow the money…
ADFGVX • July 18, 2021 12:38 AM
hxxps://amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/18/dozens-arrested-in-los-angeles-as-anti-trans-protest-outside-spa-turns-violent
How do these “privacy laws” being passed everywhere impact locker rooms, dressing rooms and other such sex-segregated areas?
There’s always a know-it-all pimp with privileged access to everything, and certain other areas where people don’t need to know their privacy is being violated.
This is in the area of High California, though not in San Francisco or even Toronto, Ontario which are historically perhaps better known for “bath houses” etc. I am thinking cell phone cameras and possibly even newspaper reporters or undercover cops in public locker rooms, and other miscreants who post “revenge porn” online…
The trite solution is, “Just don’t go there.” Which sounds simple enough for the average person to avoid trouble, but don’t go to any swimming pools, don’t work out at any gyms, and don’t use any public restrooms if you can help it either.
Younger women offering themselves to older ladies just to snatch their purses, boys asking men to borrow an I.D. to purchase alcohol or tobacco products. People are being fleeced — you might go blind in that locker room and walk out of there with a white pole and a seeing eye dog.
ADFGVX • July 18, 2021 2:40 AM
hxxps://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6294&context=ylj
And how is it that the CIA has a so-called “black budget” outside statutory law for COINTELPRO and other projects undertaken to ruin the lives of everyday citizens, wreck their homes, and trash their cars?
And meanwhile by 18 USC sects. 922, 925, etc. there is “no budget” under any circumstances for a restoration of rights to the poor whose rights have been wrongfully revoked by fictitious court processes and expansive privacy-intrusive government databases for extended background checks and enforcement of Mafia-dominated downward mobility.
JonKnowsNothing • July 18, 2021 10:33 AM
@ADFGVX
re: USA Black Budget or Not Openly Reported Funding
In the USA, at the Federal level, there are specific committees that oversee the budgets for Off The Books transactions and funding. Mostly these sorts of funds are used for Military procurement both Offensive and Defensive purchases. They also include maintenance and payroll considerations. Included in these budgets are a particular areas of funding for Law Enforcement Activities, that are defined as “secret”.
Standing armies, like standing police systems require a great deal of money. Just having uniforms in various sizing, boots, hats, pants, underwear is an expensive on going expense. Buying weaponry of all sorts is even more expensive. Paying for the fuel to fly the fighter jets could pay for a good number of civilian salaries but is burned up doing touch n goes and flight maneuvers. Having overseas presence, officially, in Embassies, Consulates and Military Bases costs more funds.
For some items, the public does get to know, as these are good Talking Points for Election Cycles. Makes folks feel good that those crisp starched shirts, jackets and creased pants with the red stripes down the legs and white hats are what they are paying for, and they look good marching down the street on the 4th of July (pre-COVID of course).
For the rest of the Black Budget, you do not want the public or your adversaries to know how much you are spending or on what. Its a security thing.
Like telling the troops to turn off their fitness tracker logging functions which record their daily runs and hikes and geolocation coordinates which are then displayed on a G-Map. Using a heat map analysis, you can find just about anything you are interested in finding and someone did. They found a whole lot of stuff that even the locals didn’t know was there.
The primary point being: It is known but not to many. Only The Few.
ADFGVX • July 18, 2021 12:29 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing
USA Black Budget … particular areas of funding for Law Enforcement Activities, that are defined as “secret”.
https://news.yahoo.com/los-angeles-police-declare-unlawful-010600664.html
“There is no such thing as transgender. He has a d***. OK? He has a penis,” she responds, later adding, “As a woman, I have a right to feel comfortable without a man exposing himself. OK? … It’s traumatizing to see that.”
And that’s Los Angeles? I thought it was only in San Francisco they had the lesbian bathhouses, or else it’s ladies night certain days of week at a gay men’s bathhouse. What a sh!tshack, hell’s angels or somebody will burn that place down soon anyways.
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
echo • July 15, 2021 7:10 AM
UK and EU data protection law has been better for years than the listed table of comparisons. The main areas of divergence are thresholds, consent and opti-in and opt-out, and remedy. UK and EU data protection is secure for the citizen by default across the board. While this is a step forward by the US I hate to image what the legal gotches are and how the loopholes in the policies will be exploited.
In the UK data protection violations are prosecuted with remedies and in some instances large fines. All the citizen has to do is complain to the regulator and sit back and watch the fireworks.
On balance I feel the GDPR was an inprovement over existing UK data protection in law in theory and practice, and with the added heft of the EU behind it did more on a European and global stage.
Two interesting documents here on the influence of the GDPR, and a table comparing the UK’s Data Protection Act and GDPR.
https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucilr/vol10/iss4/11/
The Changing Wind of Data Privacy Law: A Comparative Study of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act
https://www.thorntons-law.co.uk/sites/default/files/2018-03/DPA%20v%20GDPR%20AComparison.pdf
The General Data Protection Regulation: A Comparative View of Key IssuesThe EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) was approved by the European Parliament in April 2016. As a regulation, it is directly applicable without the need for domestic legislation and it is due to be applicable in all member states from 25thMay 2018. It shall effectively repeal the current data protection regime under the Data Protection Act 1998 (“DPA”) and introduce a new framework regulating the processing of personal data