This isn't merely a legal technicality hidden in the terms of service. We know they're doing it, and by continuing to use the service we are consenting, however unhappily.
(In case you weren't aware, Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp)
My impression of the issue is that most people simply don't care.
This is my impression as well, and I find it a bit of elitist arrogance to tell them they should. Different people value their data at different levels and we shouldn't be so quick to make it harder for them to give it away if they choose. A simple question one should ask while picking up their pitchfork is whether their perceived righteousness is based on perceived stupidity by the masses (and whether the perception is based on some anecdotal evidence). And if you really believe stupidity is that rampant, you can set your law-making pitchfork down and advocate education.
> that they should be informed as to what they're doing so they can actually make that decision
These two items are at odds with one another in an opt-in situation.
Facebook and Google should get in major trouble when they mistreat their data (like the Cambridge Analytica scandal with Facebook), but you disliking the data they collect and/or their business model does not mean that everyone else will.
I know full well the type of data Google and Facebook collect about me and I just don't care. There's plenty of people in the tech industry that don't care either.
I never said that, in fact I explicitly said the opposite.
"I know full well the type of data Google and Facebook collect about me and I just don't care."
Yes, and you were able to make an informed decision because you do know. Not everyone knows. That's the entire point I was making.
With regards to "shadow profiles", someone else's actions do diminish my privacy. I don't find it elitist or arrogant at all to protect my privacy in this way.
And, if someone came to me and said "stop doing this because it is negatively affecting me", I probably wouldn't think twice before stopping.
"stop increasing compliance burdens on the internet because it is negatively affecting me and my business"
Ya know, sometimes people actually do understand and they just don't agree with you. I'm not a Trump supporter, but I believe people who say they like Trump for reasons that aren't "politie".
These anti-Google and anti-Facebook people should learn to disagree better.
It's not difficult at all actually.. it becomes increasingly more difficult when you want to use these services and apps which you are the product by design, and the truth is this is week within the rights of those companies that are giving you their services for free..
This is all virtue signaling to the max as well as endorsing a more censored, controlled internet by these media outlets, tech, or govt..
After all, mums the word on an actual problem, the data breaches of credit reporting agencies, e.g. Equifax. These companies have essentially a govt endorsed monopoly on all of our data. And no one goes to jail when my actual important info gets hacked even after being warned, (DL/SSN, last 10 addresses, loan amounts and who I owe, etc.). On top of this, these companies can sell my info to other 3rd party vendors, and I literally have no recourse..
All this Facebook nonsense is hogwash. If your conspiratorial, there is a strong case to be made that this is about censorship, deference to the experts who know the web better than the masses who are "incapable" of using any discernment regarding bots or fakenews. These are the same people who brought us SESTA, FOSTA, PIPA et. al., same ones who told us we'd go back to dial up without net neutrality..
I personally think it's just virtue signaling to the max..
My impression is that people have absolutely no idea that Google has become so invasive as to purchase copies of most people's credit/debit card purchase histories, and would be horrified to learn that they have taken surveillance capitalism to such an extreme.
>Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-...
If your solution is "don't use the most popular service in the world", your solution is simply not realistic for most people.
I've commented here many times about Seisent (bought by Lexis/Nexus). In the mid 2000s they had uniquely identified everyone in North America, Caribbean, and making in roads into Central & South America. Just from public records. One of their customers was the NSA, which also tied in money and phone.
(My employer was prototyping using Seisent to help uniquely identify patients across heterogenous orgs. It worked great, but cost too much for our use case.)
Seisent was (is) just one of many "independents" (third party). Today, FAANG and all the little dragons are doing the same.
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The ridiculous part of the controversy is pretending we don't know who everyone is. Our voter registration database could trivially be near perfect in real-time. Every immigrant. Every homeless person. Every missing person (not yet dead).
Etc.
"dropping off the grid" is not possible.
Yes, we can.
1. Some people (mostly technologists) are aware, but many people aren't.
2. Much of the awareness that does exist was not the result of those companies being transparent about their practices. It's the result of inferences based on scraps of information and speculation.
That's a really weird statement. Articles are published so that readers can be informed of things that the author and editors have become aware of. Often many articles are published on the same subject because 1) many people missed previous articles, 2) there a new update that people aren't aware of, 3) people forgot and it's a good time to remind them, 4) it's not news-facts article but a persuasive piece, 5) etc.
>> 2. Much of the awareness that does exist was not the result of those companies being transparent about their practices. It's the result of inferences based on scraps of information and speculation.
This means that "we" aren't as aware as you make us out to be.
This is an opinion piece. It's written to persuade, not to inform, but its argument is founded on shaky ground.
> This is an opinion piece.
Opinions and ideas are things that one can be informed of.
Yes, I can. Why?
Because I only have a vague abstract notion that they collect data and do something with it before turning that into cash.
How am I meant to explain this to my friends and family, beyond "they are bad"?
I've never seen a fully worked through example of exactly what they are doing with all this data. Please point me at an article or video or something that everyone else has already seen a hundred times, because I still haven't found that one thing that will convince other people.
It is same thing that people here consider those half million salaries normal in valley without honestly thinking how this is made possible in first place. For them its cutting edge machine learning work etc, is a good enough answer.
Also Amazon and Apple, too.
If we didn't know they were doing this we might have a legitimate objection that the ToS are abusive, but that argument is far less compelling if we know they're doing this and agree to the ToS anyway.