DuckDuckGo, Proton, Mozilla back bill targeting Big Tech ‘surveillance’ | Hacker News Reader

DuckDuckGo, Proton, Mozilla back bill targeting Big Tech ‘surveillance’

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206 pointsmikece51 comments

Here is the text of the act.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3816...

The privacy and "surveillance" aspect only comes into play because these large platforms can pick and choose who they allow on their service, denying end users access to privacy protecting services.

I use some of these services on big platforms. Right now, I do not see a need for legislation to fix the problem. I hate to see more legislation and regulation in general. Duckduckgo and Proton are doing great. In twenty years it is totally possible that they become the next Apple or Google. They can create the competition and allow users to make the choice. I would love to see a ProtonPhone.

"I hate to see more legislation and regulation in general"

With the same approach we would still have child labor in factories...

And no net neutrality.

Net neutrality was terminated in the US at the end of 2017, and this remains the case. An executive order in 2021 did not change this.

I used to think this was a compelling argument. Unfortunately, child labor is really good economics. So is slavery.

An economics textbook I studied at university calculated the value of a slave in the US before the Civil War. Conclusion? “Perhaps it is a good thing they did not try to quantize back then. Slavery was profitable.”

What does child labour and slavery being profitable have to do with whether “without regulations we’d still have child labour” is a compelling argument?

At the micro level it may sound like good economics. Slavery is not good macro economics. For example, slaves in the US south were intelligent human beings that had they been in the free market with their ideas and efficient use of time and labor, the south would have advanced beyond plantations at a similar rate to the north prior to the US civil war.

Even if it turned out that slavery was enormously profitable at both micro and macro scales that still wouldn't make it a good idea. Just because something is profitable that doesn't mean anyone should involve themselves in it, all it means is that someone is going to be more likely to try involving themselves in it. It falls on the rest of us (and so our governments) to punish anyone who acts in ways that are both abhorrent and highly profitable and that punishment must be much more extreme than any potential gains for it to work as a deterrent.

We should tell this to Dubai's migrant workers.

Sexual harassment laws existed prior to the "me too" movement. Known harassers were still in positions within their companies. The cultural movement helped change the tolerance of this behavior. I sincerely doubt that anything but a small minority of children would be toiling away in factories today in the USA.

In todays litigious USA, children would come with too much liability to employ in many many settings. Children are quite capable of doing many different jobs. Total exclusion from the workplace delays the earnings, experience, learning, and networking of people.

Child labor laws have made exceptions for performers for some reason. I think most people would agree that this is fine. Why have we not made exceptions for other areas of work?

A less regulated child labor market would find those exceptions naturally.

A small minority already toils away in factories in the USA:

>In fiscal year 2021, the division found 2,819 minors employed in violation of the law and assessed employers with nearly $3.4 million in civil money penalties.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20220729

If it was legal it would be very widespread and you're lying to yourself if you say otherwise.

Oh come on, let's just admit that USA is much more sex-obsessed than the rest of the world..

Do you have any data at all to back this up?

The whole world does not understand that some nudity and affection makes anything PG rated, but depiction of violence and weapons really has to get very visual before it gets that rating.

> I would love to see a ProtonPhone.

Depending on what you mean here, it might already exist: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5.

I really want to try this... but at $700, not $2000.

It's $1300 for the standard version, not $2000. Alternatively, there is less performant https://pine64.org/pinephone.

Ah, I was looking at Librem 5 USA. Normal Librem 5 has a 52 week lead time.

Conspicuously missing is the EFF, who masquerades as a privacy watchdog which is actually there to promote anti-regulation of telecoms and other big tech and has historically accepted millions from FAANG and their leaders’ charities.

FOSTA/SESTA was the moment when I lost my hope in the EFF's cause. I'd previously thought they had some power, and there was genuine mass support behind them. When FAANG abandoned them and supported FOSTA it showed the EFF's prior successes were actually thanks to the industry lobby. Without FAANG behind them, no one gave a shit what the EFF thought.

Actual source:

https://spreadprivacy.com/privacy-companies-call-for-vote/

Shouldn't Apple be here too, given their public stance on privacy?

Apple talks privacy as a selling point but their actions leave a lot to be desired. They collect MASSIVE amounts of data about their users, possibly as much as Google does. Since Apple is raking in gigantic profits from high-margin products there's little motivation for them to try to monetize the data of their users, but there is absolutely nothing that would prevent them from doing so if they desired.

apple is still the least bad option, but make no mistake, their longer term strategy is all-in on services and content, which means becoming more invasive over time.

i'm planning to get one more iphone (a 14 pro) but it's likely to be my last because of this direction. really hoping that the independent phone developers (pinephone, fairphone, etc.) have a decent consumer (not just techie) offering by the time i need the next phone after that.

Very good points. Additionally, Apple's silence speaks volumes as to what they are really about.

This is a joke, right? Tim Cook is on an anti-privacy spree, using some ridiculous "children protection" slogans as a pretense for invasive, user-hostile changes.

Link for those unaware: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202.

Tim Cook is actually completely right to offload scan from the servers to client devices. As a little clueless man you just don't understand world you live in. Every "digital" business is oblige to spy ànd report you by laws you hardly understànd made by people you never elected. People you will never know exist from departments that's ring no bell can request your location, video recording of your from thousands of cameras, your call recordings, your chat logs and all your photos "protected" by 2FA and "encrypted" all from single convinient UI. You have no privacy. It is too late. You can deny it, and this is ok, while you pay taxes and not asking questions. What happen to you if you start making problems to them?

Doesn't apple own an ad network? You can't even restrict which apps are allowed to use the internet in the first place, which is a gaping security hole in the context of protecting you from the apps you have on your phone. They aren't exactly pro-privacy.

To add to this, it's pretty convenient to firewall Android apps with AFWall+

iCloud backups go to Apple as plain text by default because it lets them give data to cops and FBI. Apples privacy stance is marketing, pure and simple.

The FBI asked, Apple delivered: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

>Shouldn't Apple be here too, given their public stance on privacy?

Keyword, "public".

I suppose they lose some competitive advantage if being-mass-scale-creepy-stalker is no longer the norm (or, indeed, legal) in the rest of the industry.

This is the first time I've seen a American news platform use the British version of "tabling." In US Congress, "tabling a bill" effectively means suspending action on it indefinitely. Only in British English is a bill "tabled for discussion."

I (an American) was actually unaware that "tabled" could mean the same as "shelved". I'd always heard those used as antonyms but I've also only really heard the word "tabled" used as it was in the articled, "tabled for discussion".

I'm a bit suspicious I've heard it phrased that way for clarity's sake. Probably some good editors behind that.

American here. Tabling to me means putting it on hold and coming back to it later when we have other things figured out.

It's an autoantonym, but one where different Englishes have chosen different preferences. Like "moot."

Is "moot" an autoantonym? It just takes a different meaning depending on if it's a verb or an adjective.

It always has the same meaning if you squint hard enough (like many autoantonyms.) A very similar meaning to "tabled", which is why it came to mind.

If a question is moot, it has been proposed but isn't necessarily useful. It could be because it was a question about a decision that has already been taken, or it could be because it's the first time the question has been asked.

If a motion has been tabled, it is an issue that is pending a decision (on the table.) When Americans table a motion, they're saying that the only thing currently being done with the issue is to leave it on the table (active) to be dealt with later. When others table a motion, they're putting it on the table to be dealt with now.

Americans leave things on the table to be dealt with, others put things on the table to be dealt with.

Why is the word "surveillance" in quotes? Is calling it surveillance controversial at this point?

It's only surveillance when it's citizens and persons of a country. Any other time it's "surveillance" to calm the big tech companies from reacting in a snow flake fashion.

From the bill’s summary, “… prohibits the platform from restricting access to platform data generated by the activity of a competing business user.” This sounds like it eliminates iOS’s App Tracking Transparency.

Too bad Fastmail isn't on this list: I really like their email service.

Fastmail is an Australian company. Granted Proton isn't based in the US either, but their whole schtick is privacy, whereas Fastmail is "just" a commercial email provider. Note I have nothing against them, just saying there's no particular reason for this US legislation to be in their focus.

They have a US office. Fastmail's "schtick" is that they very much support open IETF standards which I admire. Their CEO, Bron Gondwana, is a frequent participant at the IETF.

Disclaimer: I work for a competitor of theirs, but work with Fastmail folks on standards development.

Yeah, i half expected a bunch of "smaller" companies - like in the email space but not only email - to add their support as well. Would be really cool, if tons of smaller firms rally like mad around this, and make PR headlines to bring tons of attention to the lawmakers. Fingers crossed!

Don't they provide unique aliases? That's a competitive advantage over protonmail in case of surveillance.

ProtonMail purchased SimpleLogin which is a great email alias service.

i'd incidentally just learned about this a few days ago, posted here (with no traction): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32782944 , which in turn links out to https://simplelogin.io/blog/simplelogin-join-proton/

they have a limited free tier and a paid tier. i felt a little uneasy about the emails seemingly going through another set of servers (in plaintext?) for the filtering so i didn't sign up, but would love to hear other perspectives.

I absolutely love SimpleLogin. It is open source as well, so if for some reason the SaaS platform ceases then you can use a VPS. They support PGP encryption and hiding subjects too. They also have an open source app in the Fdroid marketplace.

Yes.

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