If it is "industry standard", does that make it ethical?
Corporations tend not to mind if you take away a business strategy of theirs, as long as you take it away from everybody else at the same time. If you only take it away from one corporation, that corporation will be temporarily outcompeted by the corporations you haven't yet taken the business strategy away from, so they heavily resist that.
Not so if it is the only way for the business model to be profitable. More generally, this argument assumes that there is a fixed profit to the business, and the only thing to compete for is a bigger share of that fixed profit. The reality is that corporations are amenable to increasing the profit all around so long as they get part of it, and don't particularly care who gets exploited in the process. Conversely, they do tend to protest when the pool is reduced, even if it affects their competitors similarly.
However, regulators like to make examples of bigger corporations since the publicity is more effective with them, and also they are able to both pay up and/or change.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/the-largest-fines-dished-out...
If you look at EU court decisions concerning privacy, you see that it mostly concerns European companies and government bodies (e.g. people storing their fingerprints being stored for passport applications). Those cases just don't get as much exposure in the US:
https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/sites/antifraud/files/casela...
Another factor here may be that EU companies generally stick more to privacy rules, because it is easier to get sued directly by their citizens. E.g. in Germany many institutions and companies are paranoid when it comes to privacy and go out of their way to avoid lawsuits.
To use your example, US has targeted companies from IP-protection-weak countries. Was it directly targeting China? I'd say not necessarily.
It is like the Microsoft anti competition case would not take place until we find some small non US OS vendor to punish first so the Americans won't get upset.
But heaven forbid governments hold a dominant corporation accountable in the public interest.
That's not really relevant to the parent's observation that Facebook is likely arguing that they're being singled out in an environment where their practices are so rampant as to be standard.
>But heaven forbid governments hold a dominant corporation accountable in the public interest.
"accountable to the public interest" is an incredibly disingenuous way to say "enforce their laws". The difference matters in this context because the counter argument would be "why is the law being enforced predominantly against a handful of American companies instead of the industry at large?"
Either it is enforced against Facebook first, and Facebook complains "Why don't all of the the small fries have to do it yet" and if it is enforced against the small fries, they will say, "Why doesn't Facebook have to do it yet"?
And the answer is, the justice department will probably enforce the law in the way that the expect to have the best effect for themselves. It is not necessary to wait until you are sued before you become legally compliant?
Still, the lawsuits should be simultaneously served to all companies. Preferably with a courtesy heads up.
GDPR had been announced 2012, implemented fully in 2016. Active enforcement will start May 2018 with again a temporary period to allow companies to correct. Refusal to comply after that can result in penalties up to a maximum of 4% of the companies global revenue.
How much courtesy lead time does a company actually need to comply?
"You have 20 seconds to comply" says the robocop :-)
The summary of the court of the case, if ruled in favor of the one suing or in favor of the public interest, will be used to prosecute all other offenders if they do not comply. If the defense wins, it can be used by others as a defense.
While not 'fair' it works as the smaller fish will probably go bottoms up trying to mount a proper defense against larger governmental or lobbying groups which results in a no-win scenario for all: The company is dead and there is still no ruling, or a ruling lacking proper defense.
Or say Intel users that are now sewing on the meltdown bug should they get involved in AMD too from some feeling of solidarity?
In this case someone did something illegal and someone else complained to the justice, should they first find all (I hope you understand what all means, aka don't forget anybody) and try to do what? start 1000 processes in justice? It makes sense to start with the bigger criminals, if the court decides favorably then you continue to the next ones.
2. Do you realize how much manpower it would take to require that all separate cases be tried at once? You might as well just come out and say you don't want any cases to be tried at all, as that would be the outcome.
When a government agency (think IRS or FAA) decides on a specific interpretation of a law, rule or regulation, they don’t go after a random guy to prosecute. They publish an opinion, a guideline, or interpretation and a compliance deadline. The industry is given a choice to comply or present an alternative interpretation (through courts, lobbyists or legislative representatives).
It’s one thing if one company out of a hundred doesn’t comply, and somewhat different when the standard industry practice goes against new interpretation.
Selective encorcement is more typical of countries with weak judicial systems and endemic corruption, where “friends” of the current government get compassionate understanding, but everybody else is subject to the strict rule of the law.
And I guess Facebook and others have been trying to lobby it away for years already.
Europe, Germany and France in particular, has a strong history of state involvement in large corporations.
I suppose you could call that an administrative philosophy. To me it sounds like another form of corruption.
EDIT: Downvotes? I'm stating facts. How can you downvote facts?
[0] https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...
Such activities are illegal and considered corruption in most countries.
Lobbying has nothing to do with donating money, and lobbying elected representatives is definitely not illegal in most democracies.
This is flat-out untrue, and repeating this incorrect meme ad nauseum simply makes it harder to address actual problems when they arise. Lobbying is simply the process of petitioning elected officials. It's a necessary part of any functioning democracy, or else there's no fundamental feedback loop connecting elected officials to their constituents in between elections.
> If there was a lobbying group that did not donate money you would have to specify that in conversation
Corporate entities are prohibited from donating money to campaigns, whether or not a quid pro quo is implied.
The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.
As to your second part about corporate entities being prohibited from donating money to campaigns, excuse me while I set up a PAC to donate funds to a senator who is aware that I donate to the PAC and that I would really appreciate it if I got a tax break.
What the law intends != what is actually happening
Yes, and just as we ignore people who dismiss evolution because "it's just a theory", we should take the same attitude towards people who conflate lobbbying and campaign contributions, because they clearly don't understand how the democratic process works, and acting on their demands is actively harmful.
> What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money.
Yes, and the "common vernacular" is wrong and actively harmful. The two things are completely unrelated, and perpetuating the conflation makes it harder to understand what's actually going on.
If you think something is broken, you actually have to understand how it's broken in order to fix it. There's no virtue in going out of your way to make it more difficult for people to understand how things work. That's how you end up with people wasting time advocating "reforms" that span the range from "well-intentioned but redundant and/or ineffective" to "completely self-contradictory and nonsensical".
Please don't twist conversation into debates about semantics: it's not helpful.
Yes, and you said that both are illegal in most "other" counties. Except lobbying isn't illegal in any healthy democracy, including in Europe. Donating "millions of dollars" isn't really legal in the US either.
The US is not unique. If you see something happening here, it is almost always happening in other western countries, and acting like we are the only to have a problem does a disservice to worldwide development.
[1] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...
[2] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...
> How can my argument be US centric when I'm European and have never even visited the US?
You don't have to be from the US for your post to sound US centric. It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems." argument which is found everywhere online, especially on sites with a large proportion of US users (like HN).
The comment I replied to had no sources as well and yet it isn't downvoted.
> It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems."
Actually my comment says the exact opposite, it says that at least the western part of the EU is less corrupt than the US. Do you realize that I said the west [of EU], not the west as in the US? You're the one who is thinking US-centric after all, thinking that when someone says "the west" they mean the US even though it's in a sentence that talks about parts of EU, this possibility didn't even occur to me - that's how foreign it is to me.
Read it again. It stated much less confidence in those baseless claims, inviting sourced rebuttal. You claimed to be "obviously" right without any sources, and apparently you were not.
Edit: also, complaining about downvotes, especially without even trying to admit mistake is considered as a bad behavior here.
Telling people to go and verify for themselves a claim that you made is just lazy and disingenuous.
That kind of hand-wavy stuff doesn't fly here. If you're going to make a claim like "EU Countries are more corrupt than the US", YOU have to provide a credible source for that claim.
E.g. your assumptions being incorrect. You could have avoided a lot of downvotes with showing some humility. Assuming someone does not know about large shifts in EU membership seems like argument in bad faith.
That erosion is not corruption on its own, but can lead to it.
Which, granted, is something that happens but people largely regard this kind of unequal protection of the law to be a bad thing.
I don't see the point of this sort of "but johnny did it too" line of argument. So authorities are looking into a report of widespread abuse. Where's the relevance of not advertising how they may or may not look into other small-scale and lower-profile cases? In fact, aren't resources better spent by going after the single largest and more eggregious source of abuse that has a global reach and has been continuously abusing its position for over a decade?
The entire tech industry can now consider themselves warned. Not even giant American corporations with direct links to the White House are above the law.
That's not a counter argument but dissatisfaction. Are you saying that EU companies also don't follow their laws?
You're correct but mainly because I wasn't paying attention and phrased it as a question. Written instead as a statement, it's a valid counter argument because it's criticizing the parent comment's ridicule of a different instance of criticism.
> Are you saying that EU companies also don't follow their laws?
I'm insinuating that if someone wanted to defend Facebook's position one avenue would be to argue that the law is being selectively enforced. Obviously this isn't a comprehensive argument but it's an easy platform to jump in other directions from.
I doubt a statement expressing dissatisfaction is a valid legal argument responding to a legal ruling. Clearly the term argument in this context is for a legal argument not a colloquial use of the term, since a legal appeal is what is being discussed.
When people get traffic tickets, the judge won't let them off for saying, "But, your honor, the police officer didn't pull over any of the other speeders around me."
The courts are just agreeing with these citizens/rights group. It's not like an EU agency is targeting Facebook unfairly.
Personally I can only see this as a good thing. As a non-user I don't want Facebook tracking me. Same as I don't want tracked by any other company.
Because the largest companies that European citizens are using and that breaking the law are American. There is no point in targetting first the Chinese and Russian companies doing the same tracking, as few European citizens are affected. And as far as I know, there is zero European company doing the same thing on such a level.
"Officer, The guy in front of me was driving fast too, so why not him?"
Well, you are just the fisrt one and the biggest one.
I read that as: why are you only paying attention now? (i.e. after allowing the industry to reach its current, pathological state)
Do you prefer that we create laws for fixing problems that do not exist yet?
"But, officer, everybody else was speeding, too!"
That said, you'll end up driving white-knuckled and fearful of your life if you dare go the speed limit on the Mass Pike. You'd have to drive 70-75 minimum here just to feel safe.
I hate when someone drivers respecting the limit and you get jerks with big cars or trucks behind you and force you to go faster(by force I mean get close behind you, use the horn and other bad behavior that can intimidate a new driver).
If I go to the police to complain that my neighbour is spying on me, it's only natural that the police only investigates that neighbour.
Also: from the jurisdiction's point of view, this is perhaps the only efficient way to allocate legal / judicial resources. You go after a small handful of big-name "make an example" cases, and hope that this deters use of the business strategy by the long tail of smaller companies you can't afford to go after.
That's not true in this case. As the large incumbent in social media and advertising, Facebook are the company most impacted by this, whether or not their competitors are impacted.
"Why have you singled us out for dumping 1000 tonnes of ash into environment each day? Look, this guy is dumping his ashtray on the grass right now!"
Nope, not at all. Standard practice does not override ethics. Tobacco companies would consider advertising and promoting smoking as industry practice, but we cracked down down on that because encouraging people to do something that is demonstrably bad for their health was something we decided wasn't ethical and would be cracked down on.
FB's system is much more reliant on tracking though. Google's can at least work anonymously, eg searched 'dentists' in some area. FB's is almost useless without tracking.
Seems innocuous enough until you really think about what they're saying. "But, tracking these people without their consent allows companies, including us, to make money off of them".
That's actually a pretty brazen thing to say; as if the fact that people can be monetized should trump their right to privacy.
Industry here is essentially Google and Facebook. The other "players" fight for the crumbs. Ethical? They need growth, every quarter.
1. I don't have an account on Facebook. 2. Blocked Facebook domains via /etc/hosts 3. Use ghostery
And despite all of these steps it feels like we are wasting our brightest minds to always be a step ahead in surveilling what the humans of this world are doing to exploit it for targeted advertising.
That's the wrong question to ask. You shouldn't have to tell it not to track you. That shouldn't be able to do it, unless you explicitly tell them "hey you can track me."
Google, Criteo and other have long had a default opt-in policy for their retargeting products, etc.
Or is my sarcasm sensor not working this morning?
Someone should invent a http header that lets you signal that you don't want to be tracked. It could be named something like DNT, for do-not-track. People could then set DNT=1 and websites such as Facebook would know not to track you...
- it was on by default. You shouldn't have to 'opt-out' of invasive surveillance.
- it was enforceable and backed by a vigilant regulator and credibly enforced legal deterrents. We're far beyond a 'pinky-promise' being enough.
Conmppanies did not liked when IE did this but I think the solution would be simple, when you start the browser for the first time you will be asked if you want to get tracked or not, you will have 2 big buttons to chose.
Then FB. Google and others should ask the users to switch this because they want to track you on a different website and explain to the users why.
This the most G. K. Chesterton-esque comment I have ever read on this site.
Poe's law may apply, but if you're actually being serious, "Let's build a list tracking all the people who want to avoid tracking" first, probably wouldn't work, and second, is the surveillance equivalent of a "standards problem" [1]
By not having a fucking Facebook account! it seems to me that's actually the crux of that court decision.
It's more complicated than deciding not to have a Facebook account, though that's a great first step.
Since I'm not a member of their service there's no valid reason for them to maintain personally identifiable data about me. Let alone that they never asked for my permission and that I never, ever consented to their gobling up of my data and that of other non-members.
At least according to my understanding this is a very clear violation of the GDPR, which - if the courts agree - could cost them dearly.
I wonder how Facebook intends to deal with that. If I interprete the directive correctly they are obliged to delete all such data since storing, mainting and proecssing it clearly violates the law.
Interesting times...
>all of which upload your personal data from the phones to their own servers without your knowledge or consent.
Our default legal position shouldn’t be one of accommodating a corporation’s existing market-acquisition practices over people’s privacy.
I'd think the most pro-privacy reasonable approach would be to stop companies from identifying them beyond "someone who did not consent to being tracked".
Facebook has such incredible smart engineers that they can file patents to identify you based on the dust of your camera lens [1]. It should be a cinch to them not to track such third parties in any way, shape or form.
The problem was that they gave zero fucks about the privacy implication to third parties, which have nothing to do - and no business relationship with Facebook. It seems quite the opposite: That the go through great length to maintain shadow profiles and track everybody.
I really hope that the GDPR forces them to clean up their act.
https://gizmodo.com/facebook-knows-how-to-track-you-using-th...
For instance, it could still be legal for Facebook to slurp your friend's address book (and your profile, indirectly), but the regulation could require them to discard and purge that information if they can't immediately match it to an account.
There should also be a central place for us to put our emails there so spammers won't spam us?If this seems a horrible idea then your suggestion is exactly the same.
I am not defending FB, my point is that you do not need an army of geniuses to extend the tracking to everyone.
How much "brightness" is required to carry out such a strategy? If millions of users followed step 2 (or blocked Facebook domains through another means), what would happen? How would the "brightest minds" respond?
Very much not an excuse. It's up to the business to work out how to do this within the law.
> and reach customers
If I am not a Facebook user I am not your customer.
It is even worse to be made into a product that FB sells when you aren’t even a FB user.
A bit like when you wait for the green light to walk over the street; if you see someone walking the red light, you walk it too.
Of course you still get flattened by a semi-truck doing 50 kph.
I also don't see any advantage for the user, getting ads is not in their interest.
I really don't like your definition of 'free'. wikipedia has been relying on donations for quite some time. guardian.co.uk is one of the recent examples asking for donations and working out for them.
>science articles
Ok that has to be a joke, the paywall journals subscriptions are nothing like ads.
Please, don't conflate any pay method with pay wall (which is a pretty good one). If business cannot retain itself w/o breaking the law and has to shove unwanted images/videos/etc. straight in the face, it may as well not exist. The ads have degraded user experience in so bad ways that having a page with little content and 'next' button just to show more ads is pretty much the norm now.
> breaking the law
No one is breaking the law yet. The law has been changed, and has been changed in a way that destroys businesses and people.
Or: just make it opt-in.
If users want your service, they will pay for it. If they don't, well then your services is not needed.
If you want to host your blog, then just pay for it. I do the same. Not because I want to earn money with it, but because I want to. I can see why this is a problem for commercial entities, but not for personal stuff.
Revenue might be lower. That is not in itself proof of a worse outcome. Maximising numbers like revenue or GDP is not good per se. Neither is maximising the amount of content created. If you want to know the trade-off is worth it you also have to look at the costs. The impact of tracking on privacy is not zero. The impact of ever more attention grabbing ads is not zero. The impact of persuading us to buy ever more stuff is not zero.
Also, the vast majority of small scale content creators are hobbyists.
So the site will die, because nobody thought it had any value.
What's the problem?
Nobody owes artists a living, a vocation that traditionally was engaged in alongside traditional paying work.
Nobody owes advertisers living, or their eyes and attention.
Nobody owes a living to the person who makes their money from ads all over their blog.
I'm sorry, but if your business model boils down to using your unknown blog and barely visited web site as a vehicle to bombard people with ads for money then you don't have a business model at all.
A somewhat related note: Relying solely on ads is a bad idea. Personally, I'll install an adblocker on every PC I get access to (family and friends stuff).
And let's be honest, most ads are total garbage.
EU doesn't care about this. Like this argument works only in the US.
Yes, tracking cookies is ethical. If some internet users do not want to get tracked - they can run their browser in Incognito Mode.