Comment by diamondlovesyou | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diamondlovesyou | Hacker News Reader

diamondlovesyou

What I'm about to say may go against what many of the HN community believes. This isn't an attack on anyone's beliefs; I'm merely expressing my thoughts in an attempt to solicit constructive discourse.

I'mma be honest. I don't understand the repulsion at the possibility of corporation X knowing my personal info, (excluding the usual things like bank account info, SSNs, etc) like my location, search history, etc. To be clear, I'm 10000000% against warrantless (FISA court "warrants" excluded) government access to this information. Here's my reasoning:

* Governments

Have the power to arrest and detain on a whim. Not to mention, use drone strikes.

* Corporations

... Don't. These entities have self-interested incentives to provide tools which are economically productive for users. For example, a smarter smartphone, whatever that may be.

Regarding Vizio, my grip is that Vizio's goal (for this product at least) is to make a profit producing TVs. So, after the TV is sold, the product is individually "finished" (not considering support stuff). So, then, what other product is the data collection for, and what does this product give me in return for my data? The answer to both is no, and not just for Vizio.

Maybe I'm naive.

One thing to consider is that regardless of original motivations, once data has been collected by any party, that data CAN come into another party’s possession. Maybe the company network is not secure and the data is just stolen. Maybe a disgruntled employee screws them over. Maybe the company is bought out by someone else with different goals.

The point is that you can never assume that something will only be available to certain people for certain purposes. Even if you know this at one point in time, things change.

Therefore, one must expect and demand the highest security throughout technology stacks, and implement laws to clean up whatever cannot be guaranteed by security technologies.

Let me shoot a few holes in your reasoning.

> Corporations ... Don't [Have the power to arrest and detain on a whim. Not to mention, use drone strikes.]

... yet. In western countries. It's not unheard of in history for corporations to have armies.

That said, the primary issue today is that once data is collected, a government entity can subpoena for it, essentially turning the thing into a user->corp->govt data pipeline. In cases where you'd be worried about serious government abuse of data, the corporate databanks are not safe from it either.

Secondly, some companies do have a way of ruining your life. Think banks and insurance companies, for example.

> [Corporations] have self-interested incentives to provide tools which are economically productive for users. For example, a smarter smartphone, whatever that may be.

No, they don't. That's the naive story you may hear about market economics in primary school. The truth is, these entities have self-interest incentives to make you pay them for shit. It doesn't matter if it's economically productive for you, or if it's economically destructive. Think cigarettes, addictive entertainment, crappy products that break quick, planned obsolescence, various marketing shenanigans they pull with telemarketers, etc. Companies make useful products only when, and only to the extent, that they sell better than useless products.

It's the lack of transparency that's the real problem. I like to know as much as I can when something I own is sharing personally identifiable data about me and my habits to companies (and governments). The fact that the whole effort on Vizio's part was under the radar means that consumers lacked important information about the functioning of their TV's. If they had known about the depth and breadth of the data collection, maybe some portion of purchasers would have made other decisions. Once that's on the table, then you're free to make the choice to let that data be shared if you're comfortable with it (as you indicate you'd be in your case).

Yes, yes, yes. For example I am perfectly okay with Google slurping up every bit of data they can about me, tracking my every move etc. because the benefit I receive (i.e. really spooky-accurate suggestions & info in Google Now) is worth the privacy tradeoff.

Also, based on their past actions and statements, my level of trust with them is very high that they will be transparent with their uses of that data and that they will diligently guard against that data being put to other uses that they or I didn't allow.

But what Vizio has done here makes it perfectly clear that providing any benefit to the end users was never their goal and that keeping the true nature of this program secret was an intentional act. That's enough to ensure I'll never buy a Vizio product in the future.

I think your idea of distinction between "governments" and "corporations" is naive

What do you think the corporation does with your personal info when the government asks for it?

The collected data about you will be used by marketers to sell you goods and services at a higher price and not to make a "smarter smartphone". For example if an online shop somehow knows that you live in your own house it can set higher price for you than for people who rent a cheap apartment in a city.

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