Verizon shouldn't be allowed to own any web properties. They inject a unique subscriber identifier into your HTTP requests unless you turn it off.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-hea...
http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-hea...
Vilifying carriers only attacks half the problem.
Highly doubtful. Someone running ads on their site doesn't make them suddenly complicit and knowledgeable about the creepiest corners of ad-tech. This is _exactly_ why knowledgeable regulators should make this illegal - this is a situation where the people on both ends are unaware of an explicit MITM attack happening between them.
so does Let's Encrypt prevents / subvert Verizon's HTTP modification?
EDIT: ah it's supercookie[1] and apparently a full protection is "Only a VPN or Tor"
In each of these cases the traffic is encrypted, Verizon can read only gibberish and cannot know where to insert its tracking code, while with HTTP it sees exactly where the HTTP headers end and can add another to them.
Case in point: Google Fiber
Case in point, Comcast is capping their Internet in order to hinder competing video services, but their own video is not capped.
I think the suggestion that carriers shouldn't do this is wrong and naive and here is why:
User count should not ever be exponential of customer counts. It inescapably results in fundamentally unethical business practices where users are exploited.
That is google's business model and they stand uncontested today.
Carriers that end up doing any amount of content monetization will never disrupt Google, but they can create pressure that drives the cost of ads down, making google's life harder. I think this is so important that I am happily willing to endure the judgement of everyone here. I know this is downvote bait, but I keep thinking at some point everyone here will see the net positive on all possible angles.
I'm not seeing the connection between content monetisation and Google's ads business either.
W/r/t ads: the carriers who are aggregating anonymous useage data and reselling it are not revolutionizing their revenue. They are deflating the value of ads. This cuts into Google profit margins.
This makes no sense.
This is the backbone of the entire internet. Ethics and the value that users get from a company/service are all subjective, there's no hard rule that you can lay down like this.
Here is an article from 2012, enumerating the same point: http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre-...
Here is another from 2010: http://lifehacker.com/5697167/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-you...
If this is a new idea to you, you might want to consider broadening your debate network.
This is a tired argument that doesn't really make a point. People being "the product" isn't some inherently bad thing. These platforms have so many engaged users because they do actually deliver value to those users, whether you think so or not.
Maybe you want to pay for a social network but others want it free and are fine with the trade-off. Both perspectives are fine and what's important is that you have a choice, but saying that "user counts should never be exponential of customer counts" still makes no sense as it not up to you to decide everyone else's fate. Does that really seem logical to you?
>>it not up to you to decide everyone else's fate
I'm not asking anyone to live to my values. Many others share them.
I think the point that users should not exceed customers is easy to understand. Many people agree with me. Many others dont.
I have turned down an offer at Google because I couldn't reconcile the bad stuff. I wish more people agreed with me, but I don't say that those who don't are illogical. They simply have different values. That is OK if you value diversity.
This is what you wrote. Why make this proclamation? Why should free users be limited regardless of whether they derive value from the service and are ok with being "the product"? The ethics of a company and the value they provide to a user are all subjective and thus you cannot state that the company is unethical or the users are being exploited as a rule. This is why your statement does not make sense.
> Strawman ... I have turned down an offer at Google because I couldn't reconcile the bad stuff. I wish more people agreed with me, but I don't say that those who don't are illogical. They simply have different values. That is OK if you value diversity.
This is actually a good example of a strawman argument - and completely irrelevant to the discussion. I'm not calling you illogical and I don't see how diversity has anything to do with this. You've made a statement and I explained why it doesn't make sense (see above). You're still free to say it and I'm still glad you did as it led to this discussion.
Please focus on the arguments instead of being so defensive and using these passive accusations.
This seems to me to be the crux of our disagreement. You believe ethics are so subjective that ethical stances should not be expressed.
I reject that whole heartedly.
Businesses with user counts that dwarf customer counts generally are exploitative and bad for the consumer.
They are incented to harvest information that results in privacy violations.
Who is stopping you from saying anything? You expressed it and I said I'm glad you did. Again, please stop being so defensive for no reason, it's not conducive to any discussion.
> Businesses with user counts that dwarf customer counts generally are exploitative and bad for the consumer. They are incented to harvest information that results in privacy violations.
Not really, again you say "exploitative and bad" but this is according to you. It's up to the actual consumer to consider this for themselves, which is why there's no valid way to make a statement as how to how this generally works or that users should always be fewer than customers. You can look at open-source companies that produce software used by thousands but sponsored by a few customers as just 1 of many counter examples.
Seemed to result in some issues as I recall.
Mixing common-carrier status with provider-of-goods is quite inherently problematic.
I've got some pretty strong issues with Google's status as both search provider and other services, or with their dominant position in infrastructure, services, operating systems, applications marketplace, and on a growing basis, bandwidth provision.
Some of that is based on actual practices of the company. More is on the basis that when this has been tried before it's come to tears.
As to the price of oil, I can pretty much guarantee you it would have been far lower, though also quite probably much more volatile. I've posted a few times recently on the Texas Railroad Commission and general tendencies throughout the history of oil, and other extractive industries, for either monopolies, consortia, cabals, or government controls (or some mix of the above) to form to limit extractive activity and drive prices up.
I have concerns about private appropriation of the fruits of this activity. I'm also fairly convinced that oil prices are set low by the market. By something on the order of a millionfold.
Why and what to do about that is a longer comment.
As to the particulars of Standard Oil, the company arranged for rebates, intercepted (and occasionally changed) competitor's communications, engaged in what are now entirely illegal, and were seen then as highly immoral, business practices, and much more. The industry as a whole tended to be organised around such practices, and if it weren't John D. it would likely have been someone else who'd have emerged. He played the game best and/or had some early lucky streaks.
But I really cannot support the methods he used. If power is to accrue, let it be channeled through the democratic mechanisms for managing it: government. Not privately held corporations.
Fuller expansion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140195
I'm really interested in this comment: "oil prices are set low by the market" Do you mean when externalities are included?
Re: consortia, and cabals - restricting output and raising prices will bring new entrants into the market. Eventually the cartel loses control.
It's as if you came into a windfall account, and could make withdrawals over time, but only counted cab fare to the bank as cost, not depletion of the principle amount.
I'm researching on why that was the case, though a developing understanding of many factors involved seems to be at play.
One book notes that at the present rates of consumption, a single cubic mile of U.S. coal reserves would last 1,000 years. And there were 1,100 such cubic miles, a one million years' supply.
(Henry Erni, 1865, https://archive.org/stream/coaloilpetroleum00erni#page/14/mo...)
At the time, estimates of the age of the Earth itself ranged from a few tens of thousands of years to perhaps a few tens of millions. So one million years was a substantial fraction of all eternity.
Oil was thought to flow underground in rivers, and the "rule of capture" from English common law held (and still does in some states of the U.S.).
Incentives were to massively over build extraction capacity, absolutely flooding markets, despite crashing prices.
Normal consideration of externalities still fails to properly account for this. It's a flaw in fundamental economic pricing theory. There was a time alternatives were considered. They've been wrongly abandoned.
> At the time, estimates of the age of the Earth itself ranged from a few tens of thousands of years to perhaps a few tens of millions. So one million years was a substantial fraction of all eternity.
James Hutton had been investigating the geology of Scotland and forming much of the basis for modern geologic timescales in the mid and late 18th C. By the mid 19th, most of the geological periods, we still use today, had been produced. Of course many geologists of the time had a tendency to believe in unlimited age!
Were it not for Lord Kelvin being so famously wrong we may have got decent estimates quicker. Even Kelvin was in the 30-400m years range.
http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0108/Supplemental/... (pdf)
So they were mainly arguing about tens and hundreds of millions by mid 19th century I believe.
It took 50 more years until 1913 when Arthur Holmes took estimates from hundred millions to billions.
Hutton, Huxley, and Lyell famously argued for longer periods, but didn't have a solid basis for their argument other tthan general geological principles. Holmes applied radiologicaal methds and got to the right ballpark, 1-3 billion years. By the mid-1950s, currently accepted estimates of 4.5 billion years were given, with high accuracy, based on meteoric samples as well as very old Earth rock from Western Australia. Note too that plate tectonics, also crucial for understanding fossil fuel formation, weren't accepted until that time.
Age estimates were further validated through Lunar and Martian (meteors found on Earth) rock samples.
My point is that early theory, law, and practices of petroleum and other fossil fuel extraction were made with a significantly incorrect understanding of the actual facts of their origin. I'm rather in the middle of trying to figure out how inaccurate those beliefs were, but the time period was distinctly off.
At risk of distracting you there was a good documentary series, BBC's Men of Rock a few years ago. It's all on Youtube if you want to watch. It's maybe a bit light on details at times, but the stunning views of the highlands make up for it!
it is buying legal condoms to continue to abuse its subscribers.
That's pretty good.