Comment by someplaceguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by someplaceguy | Hacker News Reader

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First of all, I said it's not possible currently. Which is what I'm interested in. Not that it might not be possible in the future if enough pressure is applied (that might be interesting for activists, which I am not and have no interest in being).

Second, it's not mine or EFF's responsibility to police what Google does. Let's make it very clear that the current situation is Google's responsibility and nobody else's.

Third, it doesn't matter whether I stop using Google services because other people using those services will track me anyway.

And fourth, what does it say about a company that you can only use its services if you agree to be tracked and agree to track everyone on the planet without their explicit consent?

I mean, let's be clear here. This is not "I'm tracking a pseudonymous ID across websites". This is literally tracking the physical location of someone whose real ID Google can easily find out, through a wide variety of means.

> Second, it's not mine or EFF's responsibility to police what Google does. Let's make it very clear that the current situation is Google's responsibility and nobody else's.

That's not how society works, though. There's no such thing as "natural human rights". If you want rights -- like privacy, or the requirement that you can control all aspects of your devices -- you have to fight for them sometimes. Millennia of human history is littered with examples, and plenty of people in power would prefer you didn't have any rights.

Companies are in some ways sorta just agnostic: they often don't care if you have rights or not, but if you don't, they're going to exploit that situation for their own financial gain. It's lame, but that's the system and society we live in. Ignoring that doesn't make it go away. Organizations like the EFF exist precisely because this sort of thing is our collective responsibility.

So I 100% reject your assertion here. We are all responsible for our collective situation, even if often it feels like we are powerless to change things. Ultimately we aren't actually powerless, but it's hard (and sometimes risky, depending on the issue at hand) to work to band together to form a large enough power base to change things, collectively.

If you don't want to be an activist, that's fine. But complaining about your rights then feels a little hollow and lazy.

You're the one looking for help, you're not gonna get it by antagonizing others and waffling off your own responsibility.

Best of luck.

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