If this was publicly available document so I could fill in the missing bits, I'd send a dozen of these tomorrow.
I'm sure no one at Yahoo actually thought or had any plan for all of that personal data to be data mined wholesale by Verizon a decade later. And nobody at Google right now believes all that data could be sold to Comcast or whatever. But things happen and then...
What's their privacy policy?
Have we reached peak data privacy paranoia? Harmless lil projects that harken back to the good ol' days of the internet are somehow actually devious PII honeypots?
Why do people think their data is so valuable on its own without being connected to their actual consumer related behavior? Truly, what is a name and address worth vs. anonymous user on smart TV id_8z6748dxzh watched 3 hours of Hoarders on Amazon Prime, skipped 85% of ads, but did not skip 50% of ads relating to early onset male pattern baldness, and resides in Ohio?
We somehow both overestimate and underestimate the value of our personal data. Which leads to unwarranted paranoia in inappropriate contexts and alarming indifference in the most common but mundane contexts.
I've work in ad tech,and with CDPs for nearly 20 years.
It isn't paranoia when the threat is real.
> We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.
> To provide You with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive such information.
Safe assumptions with most any "tech" industry company or individual now are that they will behave completely like sociopaths when it comes to personal data.
It's so baked into "tech" culture now, even people who may be ethically inclined don't recognize it as a problem.
So I object to blaming the victim, or gaslighting, suggesting that people who are aware of this crisis of widespread antisocial behavior are being paranoid.
But it’s hard to have a conversation about appropriate calibration of what is private, and what are reasonable expectations, when extremists from both pro-privacy and scorched-earth commerce are so strident.
You'll have to forgive those of us who simply want to remain safe.
Currently: a letter choosing formal legal vocabulary (/s) to create social network metadata, endorse human activity ("you'd like the recipient to continue doing"), disclose someone else's physical address and record the interaction in the national postal system.
Future, https://continueandpersist.org/terms-of-service-privacy-poli...
We may share Your personal information in the following situations:
For business transfers: We may share or transfer Your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company.
With business partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.What we have reached is peak neoliberalism.
1. The site was never going to scale. The guys are printing physical letters and hand-inserting them in envelopes with stamps, for free!
2. So some entrepreneurial folks on the internet have gathered a hundred physical addresses, and they know a self-reported name and IP address, and maybe some persistent cookie info about a human that might be the first person’s friend. So what? Go bring up https://www.beenverified.com You can gather more info there in 15 minutes than the Continue and Persist guys will get over their whole project.
3. Learn to recognize a fun project that was done out of kindness and a spirit of adventure! Yeah maybe they should have not put up the language of “we get to sell your data if somebody offers to buy our web site”. But so what! The whole thing is just a kind adventure that brought a smile to the faces of some strangers, and will never be more than that. I appreciate it!
As insidious as data harvesting is, I am even less of a fan of the pearl clutching / performative cynicism that is so popular these days.
Why yes, when I say “good morning” to the barista who hands my my coffee, it is possible that the shop is recording me and will use my voice in an elaborate voice cloning scam to get grandma to transfer her life savings to Nigeria.
But breathlessly alerting me to this impending disaster and soberly advising me to never use my voice in public is not going to impress me.
These things can be done at massive scales cheaply.
> for free!
That increases my level of concern, not decreases.
> Yeah maybe they should have not put up the language of “we get to sell your data if somebody offers to buy our web site”.
Maybe? What the heck do they need the data for a second after they sent the envelope?
> But so what!
So they don’t get my friends addresses. So that.
> The whole thing is just a kind adventure that brought a smile to the faces of some strangers, and will never be more than that.
You say that. But that is at contention here.
After collecting data content for the physical letters with a commercial survey/marketing website.
I find this so annoying and to a point even criminal, as it's basically a scam, but App Stores do nothing about it, even if you report the apps.
It is: you can click on 'WRITE YOUR OWN CONTINUE AND PERSIST HERE!'[1] to be sent to a Google Doc with the template.
[1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Um9z87Zv_zLRZRRHpii-Mwm...
My job puts me on the receiving end of a lot of gratitude, and I absolutely adore it. It's one of the main perks of the job. After experiencing it, I have become a lot more lavish in my praise, and frequently email people to thank them for their work. Most of them are very appreciative of it, especially when they make their work freely available.
>> I’ve done this about 20 times. I never got a response only once or twice, but the rest responded warmly. Many of these people have turned into friends. We actually call each other on the phone and shoot the shit. A couple of them have even turned into best friends.
more here: https://sive.rs/2020-04-email
To tie the back to a HN context - this works great for academic papers. I've had some great email exchanges from original authors including a few people I've absolutely idolised. Turns out they're human too.
It sure does.
And lack of gratitude goes a long way in the wrong direction. Big time demotivator.