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Comment by phailhaus | Hacker News Reader

> Doing things without content is basically the prerequisite for hostility here.

Do you understand how often websites change without asking the user? Websites are constantly being updated, algorithms tweaked, features being added and taken away. You seem to be taking offense to the fact that they're providing a different experience to different subsets of the userbase? Is that what you're trying to ban? What could that possibly accomplish?

If you don't have A/B testing, then websites are just going to do it the old fashioned way: collect data, make the feature change, compare the data. What does this solve?

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Look this clearly is not in the spirit of the argument I'm making. Why would I advocate for rules that restrict a websites ability to change? Again, im talking about consent when it comes to how your behavior is going to be used.

Further I would say that the parent post isn't even about this. It's about protecting the consumer and yes, I would go so far as to say that if the "change" that the websites want to do has violates the rights of the user then yeah they should be restricted in their ability to do so!

No company in any domain rolls out products globally all at once. McDonalds introduces new menu items in test markets, tv shows start as pilots, software is deployed gradually and as it’s deployed it’s usually measured and rolled back if it’s not working as expected. AB tests are hardly any different. Smart companies experiment.

Why do users need to be explicitly informed of AB tests but not about other new gradual feature roll outs?

Frankly I think when you use a web site you are giving consent for your behavior on that site to be analyzed. I wouldn’t act indignant at traditional retailers attempting to learn from my shopping behavior in their stores so that they can improve their shopping experience. That’s just how businesses work.

> Again, im talking about consent when it comes to how your behavior is going to be used.

Why? To make a physical analogy, you're on their property. You're in their store, walking around perusing their wares, using their tools, so of course they have the complete right to watch you.

There is no way to legislate this, your only option is to raise a stink about it and hope that they'll be more transparent in the future. You can't "require" companies to tell you how they're using your data. Once you've consented to your data being collected, that's it.

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