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Comment by II2II | Hacker News Reader

Is Wacom's driver an example of excessive monitoring?

While the author presents the graphics tablet as a glorified mouse, tablets usually offer many more features. How those features interact with various applications is important, and they have to prioritize which applications they support. The data collection that the author describes may be viewed, internally, as part of that process.

Now I am not claiming that Wacom is doing the right thing, nor am I claiming that they are doing the right thing in the wrong way. Yet it is entirely possible that they feel justified in collecting that data for product development without having ulterior motives. Their failure may simply lay in the failure to recognize that many people are sensitive to data collection due to real, potential, or perceived abuses by other parties.

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It’s 2020. We’re starting to develop a pretty solid framework around what is respectful to users and what isn’t, how to disclose things, ask for permission, etc. (All knowledge that has been acquired the hard way - through data breaches, users getting their personal data stolen because of a lazy software company, etc)

Wacom is a $500M company. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt.

Starting? It's been known for many years, it's just that $$$ talks louder.

It's just one more example, but one that is rather unexpected. It forces me to ask questions about why? and if we are so deep down that road that this level of monitoring/surveillance became the new normal and an expected outcome of production cycles? However, I think all the gaming companies have much more intrusive monitoring to prevent cheating, NVidia might need to do the same for their GeForce Experience and per-game customization, not forgetting creepy antivirus software like Avast etc.

I have been a Wacom customer for years.

I'm not a graphic artist, but I hate mouse cords and hate having to recharge mice or deal with batteries.

So a series of Wacom "puck" mice on one (over the years, several) of their digitizer tablets has been my mouse substitute at my desktop. I bought the high end ones. On an average of every 3 to 4 years.

They stopped making the puck several years ago. Mine was starting to wear out, so I finally made the leap to Logitech's G703 and the Logitech G PowerPlay inductive mat. So same benefit -- the mouse is just magically always charged.

If I hadn't already switched, I would have anyway after the Wacom selling data thing...

Or the failure may be on your end, believing that "many people are sensitive to data collection" while in fact, most people don't give a dusty fuck about it and happily share everything for saving a few bucks a month.

Hackernews is NOT the people. HN represents a TINY TINY fraction of users.

You're saying this group of "most people" knows what's being sent, that they're exercising informed consent? Surely you aren't hanging this argument on "common sense."

You are saying that most people doesn’t? Any polls or data supporting that assertion? Bring data to the discussion.

Here’s some: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/27/americans-c...

91% of Americans feel that they have lost control of their personal data and privacy. The logical conclusion is that at least that many understand what they have gotten themselves into. That would indicate that a majority of people are exercising informed consent, despite the vast majority of Americans feeling that way, they continue to use the gamut of products and services.

The sad thing is, they don't know, and they don't care. Like at all.

It's true, until you show them how much data is collected and who is buying and selling the information without their consent. Then a significant portion start to recognize the threat. There's a reason none of these companies mention it.

One thing I've noticed about far too many people in tech is that they all seem to believe that those not in tech are stupid.

Many of them are not stupid. On average, half of them are above average. They're just uninformed and busy with their own lives.

They don't care. Until you can show them you know how often they're on Grindr and where their tricks live.

Or that they got a prescription filled. For Valtrex.

What would be helpful -- but that I am adamantly against -- would be tons of data drops, in communities across the nation, of local church leaders and local community leaders.

That's why we should give a fuck on their behalf. In a techno-capital society, it's too much to expect normal people to have to know the technical details of all of these things.

I don't know anything about water treatment or nuclear power, but I still expect the people working in those industries to be held to extremely high standards of competence, virtue and accountability.

We should have the same standards. We don't, so instead we need to demand regulations for these monsters.

Civilized societies don't tolerate "vampires" and cannibals walking among them (or lording from on high). They eliminate them. Eventually the people will wake up.

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