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Comment by apatters | Hacker News Reader

A less heavy-handed alternative could be to pass a law requiring the clear disclosure of certain privacy-compromising or otherwise user hostile behaviors prior to installation. Not hidden in a 100 page EULA that no one actually reads, but summarized briefly and clearly on the same screen where the user consents to the install. We do this kind of thing successfully with nutrition facts for example. This regulation would be easier for even small companies to comply with, and as a consumer if you still eat the candy bar or install Windows 10 at least you're informed and who are we to say you shouldn't be able to make your own choices.

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That feels like the android permission page all over again. Not saying I have a better suggestion but that didn't seem to change things for the better much.

[Edit] Maybe add a sample of live data potentially usable with the requested permission? Give people the 'why does he want my fiancé's number?' moment

The problem with the Android permissions page, in my opinion, is that it doesn't give enough information for people that care, and it gives too much information for people that don't. It's pretty much impossible to create any non-trivial app without at least one permission that will cause the permissions pop-up on install. That's the "too much" part. But then, it doesn't show you the actual permissions requested, but instead some general grouping that makes it extremely difficult to know exactly what you're agreeing to without feeling paranoid. That's the too little part.

The Android permissions system has changed a lot in Marshmellow. Now the system ask for your permission when an app actually requests personal information, not when you install an app for the first time.

It's still inferior to Cyanogenmod's Privacy Guard feature that can silently revoke permissions without the app being aware of it, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

... and still almost no-one has it. Those who are eligible for it are also omiting it because it takes away vendor features like STAMINA that's superior to Doze on Sony devices. Some are also omitting it because of the various Bluetooth audio issues.

What I'm trying to say is that there are various other reasons people care about then just permissions and security.

I have it. All it did was move the prompt from installation to app startup. AFAIK the permissions themselves did not change, and it definitely still has the problem of overly-broad generic groupings.

You can remove permissions you've given to an app as well, under Settings > Apps > [App] > Permissions.

I think it will cause the app to ask you for permission again when it starts, but it's good to know it's not a one-time-only option.

This might just be me, but I feel like the big win would be exposing the permissions an app requests in the Play store search/browse experience. The store often returns 5 or 10 apps which all seem to do basically the same thing and I don't know which to install. If I can sort them by least Orwellian first, my decision is made.

The problem is, in today's world, where companies like Facebook and Google only exist because of lack of informed consent, you'd find the amount of lobbyist pressure not to pass such a law staggering.

This is exactly the problem. What is needed is a movement of angry populists which will unfortunately introduce its own set of problems.

Although I agree with you, I'd say it's just as much because of massive apathy as lack of informed consent.

I can't even bring myself to use Facebook with how little I trust them with my information, but my friends are comfortable logging every place they go in it for the whole world to see? I can't live in this world...

There's definitely a lot of that too. But sometimes I'll tell a casual user to check out the Google Location History page, and they're SHOCKED to see Google knows where they are all the time. Many people are basically apathetic about it, until they're confronted with the full scope of how they're being tracked.

This isn't to say Facebook is better, it's just far easier to surprise someone with Google because Google makes it possible for you to see what they know about you. It's safe to assume Facebook has the same information.

True.

I was already aware that they were doing it, but I was still shocked to see it in the Google Maps App (Menu-Your timeline).

Just seeing all that information about me with a nice calendar interface of where I've been on any date, I found very confronting. Up until then I had it in my mind as some ethereal "I know they have that information", but it's just so easily accessible it's scary.

And the creepy notification popups asking me for more information about places that I've been... Creepy.

It's still turned on for the time being, because I'm vaguely curious about the tracking itself, but I'm very nervous about the whole thing...

...who are we to say you shouldn't be able to make your own choices.

Externalized costs complicate the libertarian approach.

What are the externalized costs of running software that violates your privacy?

For starters, it often forces others to run the same software and allows privacy-violating corporations to earn more than responsible corporations.

That is a really extreme definition of externalized costs in my view. No one is literally forced to run the same software as someone else.

By extending the definition of 'force' to include 'being inconvenienced' we cheapen and muddy an important concept. Asking your colleague to convert a Word doc to a different format is inconvenient. But forcing compliance for something via fines, jail time etc. - essentially at gunpoint - is a much more serious affair, even if the person being forced is the CEO of one of those evil privacy-violating corporations.

If you draw the line that far away from sanity then, really, non-smokers aren't forced to breathe foul air (they must simply inconveniently hold their breaths and stay inside), poorer children aren't forced by drivers using leaded gasoline to have brain damage (they are simply inconvenienced by having to be born into a richer family), and illegal overfishing doesn't force other fishers to overfish to compete and eventually collapse the ecosystem.

Your appeal to worse problems[0] does not invalidate any of the problems with privacy violations we are discussing here.

Here's a better definition of externalized costs in the form of force: any behavior which, when engaged in by a company, causes other companies' or users' life options to be reduced (even if just by increasing inconvenience of safer/healthier/more private options), or which when practiced by a plurality leads to a net negative result for society at large, is an action resulting in externalized costs.

What is your horse in the race?

[0] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

Externalized costs would make tons of entire industries completely unviable. We as a society completely ignore them when it comes to business for a reason. It's shitty, and usually at the expense of our long term sustainability, but good luck changing it.

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