Some Thoughts on Online Privacy | Hacker News Reader

Some Thoughts on Online Privacy

avc.com

30 pointsjsherry4 comments

It's worth noting how Fred Wilson is in a very precarious position to be advocating privacy since he is invested in many companies that profit from invading privacy. It's great to see him advocating improvements to privacy even though ensuring privacy by technical means is undoubtedly against his personal best interests.

It is entirely feasible to build a web browser which ensures privacy, but it would come at a steep cost. If you disable the "REFERER" [SIC] sent by the browser, a lot of sites break. If you disable the "USER_AGENT" sent by the browser, a lot of sites break. If you disable "COOKIES" in the browser, a lot of sites break. If you disable "FLASH" in the browser, a lot of sites break. If you disable "JAVASCRIPT" in the browser, a lot of sites break. If you require PROXIES or Onion Routing, a lot of sites break.

With mobile devices, disabling GPS/Signal location, network access, address book, and many other features will break a lot of sites/apps/services.

I'm sure you can see the pattern.

The tough question is, would you use a browser/system that intentionally broke most of the web/Internet to ensure your privacy?

Do you want to be the person fielding support calls from your mom when some company on the `net insists on having privacy invading misfeatures enabled?

The most "ambitious startup" might be in trying to fix the privacy and security problems of the existing Internet by refusing to support the regularly misused misfeatures, but the resulting loss of functionality and compatibility might be too much to bear.

> We should be careful not to undercut the economic underpinning of the Internet in our attempts to regulate online privacy.

Whether regulated by new laws or prevented by technical means, you would not eradicate the economic underpinnings, instead, the underpinnings would simply change. For example, people would still pay Google to display advertising along with search results even if it was impossible to do user-identifiable profiling. The untargeted advertising might be less effective than targeted advertising, but it would still be far more effective than no advertising at all.

Mind mentioning some of the "many companies" that USV invests in that "profit from invading privacy"? Perhaps you're right, but that's a serious accusation without some backup. Aside from Zynga who has definitely had their fair share of well deserved criticism in the past (but has since cleaned up their act), what are the others?

I don't consider it a serious accusation at all, or even a significant criticism. It's merely just a statement of the obvious, namely, the currently used tech/standards. A more fair question would be, "Which of the USV funded ventures refuse to use commonly abused technologies like cookies or javascript?"

The underlying problems of privacy and security cannot be blamed on Fred Wilson or any specific company his group has funded, or any specific company whatsoever. The underlying problems are rooted in the widespread adoption of tech/standards that can easily be abused. In other words, all of us are to blame.

The other important part is looking at what we would give up by trying to abandon the easily abused tech/standards. We would give up far more than just the usability and compatibility as seen from the user perspective; the companies on the provider perspective would have to give up existing investments, profit centers, and competitive advantages by refusing to support easily abused tech/standards.

If some undefined "critical mass" of users started only using tech that prevented privacy and security vulnerabilities, the companies providing services would be forced to adapt. From the other side, companies would not willingly give up their investments, profit centers, and competitive advantages just to be nice to users. In fact, most companies would try to thwart the adoption of software (browsers) designed to prevent abuses by requiring users to use something else. This is already the case with many sites since the sites are unusable without easily abused features enabled.

Pointing a finger a Zynga, or Facebook, or some other company is entirely unfair; they are just trying to compete and profit in the current situation. Even everyone's favorite non-profit Internet darling, wikipedia, can break if you fail to send it an acceptable USER_AGENT string (specifically wikipedia search).

I've had the displeasure of explaining to my mom why the FLASH videos on her favorite recipe site don't work on her iPad. Of course, this is due to Apple simply deciding to not support FLASH on their iOS devices. Some video sites have adjusted to the change, for example YouTube, but others refuse to adapt and require people to use something else to access their sites. It has been interesting to see how this user-based change pushes other companies to adapt, and to some degree, it seems to be working.

If you think about all the investments in FLASH that need to be abandoned in order to support the iPad users, it's a staggering number, but in the long run, it might be for the best. Similar might also be true for other easily abused tech/standards, and it seems a whole lot better than letting clueless people create new laws about it.

Historically, privacy bills that get passed tend to be anti-privacy bills. The Medical Privacy Act gave your doctor permission to sell all your private medical data to marketers. The change is I now am forced to sign a privacy release that states I accept that they will sell my private data, and if I refuse to sign it, they refuse to provide medical services.

Any new bill about internet privacy in the US will be the same way. Lobbyists will make sure the name is orwellian doublespeak. It's not a coincidence that we see anti-privacy people like Wilson advocating for what will soon be a bill their people have carefully constructed in order to give them free reign to do as they please.

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