Comment by peterwwillis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by peterwwillis | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

"Consent" is an agreement by two or more parties on some specific subject, preferably when all parties are properly informed about the subject.

Putting your dating profile on a dating site, with preferences for matches, means explicitly "I want these specific people to look at my dating profile - FOR DATING". That is the obvious purpose of the site and the profile, and the "preferred matches" only reinforce that, not to mention the internal filters OkC allows you to use to block people who don't match a certain %.

There is not any explicit purpose or intent that says "I want this personal information to be used by researchers in a large group study". There was no explicit agreement between the user and these researchers. Hence, no consent.

However. The question then becomes, "Do they need consent?"

The answer is: Check the Terms Of Service on the website. If the website explicitly forbids using the data for research purposes, they can probably be sued by the website for breach of TOS. If the TOS does not explicitly prohibit research use, then no, they don't need consent.

Oh - and if it wasn't already obvious, the users don't own the data, so they have no say in how it is used.

> the users don't own the data, so they have no say in how it is used.

That statement requires proof, preferably in form of recent case law.

In either case, the TOS states: “You further agree that you will not use personal information about other users of this Website for any reason without the express prior consent of the user that has provided such information to you.”

> That statement requires proof, preferably in form of recent case law.

Uh, i'm pretty sure the company collected and possesses the data. It's on their hard drives and they allow you to view it by connecting to their servers using their software. A user, as an outside party, has no claim to someone else's property. (But you're right, IANAL, so maybe there's some freaky justification for being able to tell someone else what they can do with their own data on their own servers?)

Well the TOS seems to spell it out! Unfortunately, as it is [probably] the company's property, it is probably the company that would have to issue any lawsuit. Then it's up to the courts to judge whatever legal argument is made.

If the data is generated by or concerns the users, then they have ownership (degree varying on jurisdiction).

So it's a violation of OkCupid's TOS, which makes it a civil matter between OkCupid and the study authors.

I completely agree with you. This boils down to OKC needing to enforce some kind of, "Our users have this expectation, so let's formalize it in writing somewhere."

Informal systems and agreements are hard to navigate, and I don't think this one falls on the side of "should have known better", which is what the writer of this Wired article implies with his/her tone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com