Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kenji | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why the state has to become involved. Let the free market work and people decide for themselves.

I stopped using WhatsApp the moment I read that facebook bought it.

Privacy is strongly regulated in EU, there was a strong push for it from both our legislators and normal citizens. We asked the states to be involved and not let the "free market" decide by itself. In my state one of the most important and independent role in government is the "Privacy Regulator" which has the power to check, verify and impose strong regulations on how you manage others data, and is very active.

I'm sad to inform you, this is a horrible trap you and many Europeans fall into. All of this legislation comes from lobby groups representing the big telcos, who are just desperately looking for ways to keep the OTT's away. Just a couple of weeks ago a draft bill was published indicating that OTT's must be able to comply with the same regulations as a telco, which means, among things like "ability to call emergency services", that end-to-end encryption would NOT be allowed, because end-to-end encryption kills the capacity for "lawful interception". [1]

[1]: FT article, looks like it paywalled, link to google cache: "Brussels to tighten grip on web services in telecoms shake-up" https://goo.gl/MFYaIx

So would you say the situation is worse than elsewhere? Especially considering we are not US citizens and thus free game under the US constitution.

All that I can say is that if we actually had free markets, one's citizenship wouldn't matter at all. For better or for worse, it would be up to individuals to inform ourselves and seek privacy, security and financial profits as we see fit.

And we'd be up individually against huge conglomerates full of lawyers and psychologists trying to trick us. Without some sort of organization with comparable power on the consumer's side, this is not a very bright proposition.

edit: (Bright not as in 'intelligent', but as in 'bright future'.)

> huge conglomerates full of lawyers(...)

I think it is easy to challenge this notion that Corporatism is something that comes to existence due to the absence of regulation bodies and government intervention. If you have solid institutions and a simple code of laws that allows well-intentioned people to work for their self-interest and of their society, we wouldn't have the amount of regulatory capture that we see nowadays.

> some sort of organization with comparable power on the consumer's side.

When Adam Smith was talking about "the invisible hand", it is precisely this kind of organization that is being talked about. All the people need, as a whole, to have "comparable power" is the freedom to choose and access to information.

What is an OTT?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-top_content

Whatever you are citing is not competence of the "Privacy Regulator" nor it can take any decision on it.

The Privacy Regulator rather is pushing for strong end-to-end encryption to protect user data, at least in my country. You are citing something totally different and out of his scope.

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy..."

End-to-end encryption, by definition, is something that excludes any third-party from being able to intervene. If you take the Hobbesian view of the State and subscribe to the idea that Government has a legitimate monopoly on violence, how would a government be able to exercise this monopoly without relying on cooperation from any of the end parties? It is not in the interest of Governmental agents to give this much power to its citizens.

End-to-end encryption is something that NO government will ever adopt or actually push to its citizens, ever, unless they are one of the "ends" on this.

I don't buy it, and I hate that I am starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but if the concern about privacy was serious, why haven't we seen any legislation about encryption on email? Which country is actually educating people about PGP? Why is the privacy concern only for phone and messaging, where the telcos have been making their money all these years?

You can have a "Privacy Regulator" all you want, in the end it is just a role that is being used to give some sense of legitimacy in this play directed by the corporations.

Data protection legislation long predates OTT services. The original UK act dates from 1984, the EU act from 1995. True, there have been revisions since, but this didn't come into law to prevent Netflix from starting.

Because the free market is very slow, and it's a greater total harm.

Would you rather your child learned which items are hot by scarring themselves each time?

That analogy makes no sense, and your view of consumers and individuals as children is patronizing.

Free markets also include the spread of information and signaling. People can learn from the mistakes from others. It is precisely in a free market where the information gets to be spread out the quickest.

I did not find the above comment patronizing.

Some types of signaling are best to be learned before it becomes a problem. Like killing.

So, we the people are essentially children and the state is the parent? Nice metaphor, you just proved my point that the state should not interfere.

Not everywhere is Libertarian

> Let the free market work and people decide for themselves.

Free market has regulators. This IS the free market deciding.

So in order for a company to violate your privacy without losing you as a user, they just need to not be acquired by Facebook?

Edit: My point is that you will not automatically have your privacy violated when a service is acquired by Facebook and most importantly your privacy will not automatically be safe on a service merely because they have not been proven to violate privacy for the time being.

The government is involved either way, generally the decision to deregulate a market in order to "let the free market decide" is made by the government - see financial deregulation, airline and energy deregulation in the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com