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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

>I can provide all the sources used for the company I used to work for, however that's irrelevant if you as you said wanted to learn how to fish.

Personally, I think this should be a requirement of the government: "HERE IS A LIST OF ALL PEOPLE THAT ARE COLECTING AND SELLING YOUR PERSONAL DATA, CLICK THIS BUTTON TO DELETE YOUR RECORDS" sort of thing... it should be a mandated public service of regulation.

Then, they have a list of all opt-outs from which companies you may have selected to opt-out from, and you can simply send them any further contact from the opted-out companies you may receive and the company gets a fine, you get a compensation fee...

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It used to be like this in many European states back in the 80's. If you wanted to keep a computerized database of personal information, you had to apply to the state for a permit, so there was central control of all the lists. Of course this was extremely difficult to enforce... Eventually that type of legislation was replaced by the EU data directive.

e.g. In Sweden: http://www.datainspektionen.se/om-oss/historik/

2 things, 1.)if you make government enforce this, then we are all going to be paying more and things taking longer. This will push the society toward a fascist or communist states where the government is the all powerful and might beast. I do not like this.

2.) in western countries there are already laws that allow you as the consumer to remove any personally identifiable information from being shared. The ownus is on YOU to go do that, it's not hard but will require to track and follow up every year for ever. However you also have a choice of companies that you provide the information to, and what you provide. Any credit agency when you apply for credit asks if you would allow them to resell this. Opt out!

The fact that in most cases people are to lazy to read and understand what they are provinding and for what purpose is the real issue here. Government is not going to make things better or more secure or even be able to enforce this type of governance. Only you and the lawyers can do this.

I don't think it's fair to call people lazy for not reading every line of an exhaustingly-long TOS. Also, it isn't fair to expect every consumer to fully understand the legalese that they are reading if they do decide to read it end to end. "Don't click 'I Agree' if you don't know what you're agreeing to!" is unrealistic.

This is sort of how European data protection is supposed to work, although you have to maintain your own list as there is no central one. And the enforcement is intermittent.

(Data subject requests are a very powerful tool)

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