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Comment by nxsynonym | Hacker News Reader

This is the crux of the whole privacy issue for me.

I understand there is way too much money in advertising, and therefore data collection, to ever go away. What I want in an ideal world is transparency. If I opt-in to using web services that collect + sell my browsing data, I want to know what data is collected, how much, and who it is sold to and for what. Then I can make an informed decision about the services I'm utilizing and if I think they are handling data responsibly.

As far as I'm concerned, targeted ads are fine. If you're going to berate me with visual pollution for crap I don't need, at least let it be somewhat relevant to my life. What I don't want is "targeted information", "curation", or any other buzz word that describes showing me filtered content based on an algorithm. Of course that is already happening, but it could be much, much worse.

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Ideally instead of a wall of text preceding the use of a service, or even worse hidden away somewhere under a fine-print footer link, I'd like to see services have to do something like this:

"You've just entered some search text. May we store this text and future search queries?

[ ] yes, anonymously to help suggest searches for other users [ ] yes, along with your user name to help refine future searches, and to improve the targeting of our advertising [ ] oh god no, forget I asked"

When clicking a search result:

"Before we redirect you to this page, may we record the fact that you clicked on it?

(similar choices)"

And as they build up history:

"From information you've previously allowed us to save and information we've bought from authorized third parties, we've determined that you are a 35-year old green-skinned right-wing vegetarian with the following sexual fetishes: <redacted>. May we share this information with our advertisers?"

I would hope things would change if permissions were this explicit.

This would quickly become the incessant prompts about cookie usage that the UK enforces. Like most alerts users quickly become blind to them and click through to get to what they are trying to accomplish.

"This product is known to the State of California to..."

If you got asked 5 questions for every page you visited, what would end up happening is people would start clicking yes without reading. You would get overwhelmed by requests that you would start paying less and less attention to them.

Or just assume everything you send someone else will be saved by that person.

This is on the right track. I'd like to see it go farther though. Each of these pieces of information has value of X to an advertiser. Flip the relationship management, so vendors treat their users as content producers, and pay some fraction of X to access the user's information. This would need better trust technologies, but is the right path. It's the path groups like the Project VRM folks at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society are working toward, and ties in to Cory Doctorow's concept of Whuffie. Also ties into my concept of Communitivity enhancing software technologies - technologies that help people do community.

It's easy to think "more logging/transparency never hurts" until you actually try it out and see how much data you get that you don't really care about. The EU cookie law is nothing but an annoyance already - making it even more laborious and universal is not going to help anyone. It'd basically be EULAs everywhere.

I see your point - I was thinking more along the lines of a directory of sorts that would show recent data purchases, partnerships, etc.

It's too easy to hide your true intentions behind generic EULAs that are inundated with lawyer speak.

Perhaps if companies that collect and share data were required to maintain a list of their transactions, press release style? Statements could be generalized such that it is understood how all users were affected collectively by a particular decision. It might be a workable middle ground.

> If I opt-in to using web services that collect + sell my browsing data, I want to know what data is collected, how much, and who it is sold to and for what.

Hm...

1. I install an Android app.

2. Android app requests access to data sources A-Z.

3. I can safely assume that the company which owns this app is collecting all data their app running on my device sends it through data sources A-Z.

4. I can safely assume that the company is leveraging all that data in whatever way suits them, including selling it to third parties.

5. As far as who it is sold to and for what purpose, I can safely assume I won't be getting access to that information, ever. There was a very simple question asked on this forum awhile back merely requesting the names of the companies that are in general trafficking in people's personal information. You had to scroll way down the list to even see someone willing to list some of the obvious data brokers.

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