Hacker News Reader

Comment by hcks | Hacker News Reader

I wish euros could explain to me why they speak of "their data" as if that was their souls

I have one answer for that if the asker is based in the US:

I see Americans going on and on about denying warrantless searches of their house and car. It's everywhere. Assert your rights, don't consent to a search, remain silent, don't talk to the police. That position is logically inconsistent with then letting every random company you ever have any vague dealings with (like loading their web page) deeply investigate your life in excruciating detail. If you're arguing against the first of these, you should be arguing against the latter too.

I agree 80%, but it isn't logically inconsistent. Google can't arrest you, the odds of Google employees shooting anyone in their day-to-day work is extremely low, and Google (all capitalist enterprises, really) managers are heavily incentivised to ignore any beliefs I hold that aren't strictly impacting their ability to do business.

Any data that Google has is available to law enforcement, and that is a major problem, but in the abstract someone can object to government invasion of privacy without objecting to Google's dragnet.

The amount of data you generate and store about yourself is akin to everything you generate and store physically. Between the bills I pay, the notes I write down and the photos I take, I find it pretty reasonable to affirm "my data" are representative of what I am.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com