Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook’s Data-Mining Profit Machine? | Hacker News Reader

Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook’s Data-Mining Profit Machine?

ineteconomics.org

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Rather than try to apply our existing laws in novel ways to protect consumers against predatory data collection and bad behavior from entities that we couldn't have imagined when those laws were originally written we really need new laws and regulations specially targeting these new beasts. It's long overdue that our legal system catch up with the internet and the abuses it has allowed.

>Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook’s Data-Mining Profit Machine?...

Probably not.

But an anti - "data sharing" law can. A HIPAA like law for personal data would stop, not only FB, but all of these companies in their tracks. Just make it illegal to sell access, in any fashion, to a user's personal data.

To get the government on your side, just make it like HIPAA. Law enforcement can still access your data, if they have a warrant, and demonstrate an urgent need. Everyone else is SOL. Any violations should be punished in the same draconian fashion that HIPAA violations are punished. (This will make the business of selling data unprofitable in the extreme.)

In your opinion, have HIPAA laws been a success? I've worked in 2 roles where I was the part of the technical implementations of compliance... and man, the stories I could tell.

They have. I made FDA regulated medical imaging software. (Diagnostic and treatment software.) And HIPAA was always front and center with us, as it was with any such business or healthcare delivery organization that wished to continue as a going concern.

We have to instill the same urgency on the personal data side, that HIPAA has instilled on the healthcare data side.

Like it was a bureaucratic nightmare or it wasn't properly implemented?

it was a checkbox in a training ledger that nobody else cared about. People were passing around unencrypted csvs on flash disks, sending them to their gmail accounts via email. Parent company at one place (healthcare provider) couldn't even reconcile how many patients they had each year. (It was under 15k, so we're not talking like millions of patients)

HIPAA would prevent a doctor from telling a drug company which patients might want its products, but not from recommending drugs to patients according to their symptoms. Facebook's ad-targeting business model is entirely consistent with a HIPAA-style regulation. The data are not for sale; the eyeballs are.

It's difficult to imagine a government that is pro-surveillance and dedicated to its expansion is going to want dismantle / disarm its #1 partner - informal or otherwise.

To think that no one of significant power / influence in Washington DC has been aware of FB's depth and breadth is naive. Things are, from that POV, exactly how they're supposed to be.

Can Facebook wither as a social pariah?

Maybe, but it won't happen fast enough. No sarcasm/snark; I mean this seriously. Things are happening now and we can't wait for it to die of old age to fix them.

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