The Tech Industry Doesn't Understand Consent

soatok.blog

13 points·ColinWright··6 comments

Oh they understand consent. They also want to make people accidentally give consent or to mislead them into consent. Their entire business model relies on exploitation of people - and consent is merely a roadblock in exploitation efforts.

I would say this in a different way, which is that they have an understanding that data handling consent in any sort of way that’s fair to customers is not a legal requirement to operate a tech business in the US.

If you were starting a business and nobody requires you to do a specific action, what’s your incentive to do it? Especially when customers will come your way either way.

> They also want to make people accidentally give consent or to mislead them into consent.

Which is a logical impossibility. You can't be tricked or accidentally give consent. Consent is an informed, intentional decision. Anything else doesn't count.

But I do agree: the tech industry understands consent just fine, it's just fundamentally opposed to the idea.

> Consent is an informed, intentional decision. Anything else doesn't count.

From a legal perspective, consent is merely a database entry with t on it for that user_id.

There is a big difference between English language consent and tech company manufactured consent.

Yes, I'm talking about actual consent, not the legal fiction of it.

Considering the CEO of Automatic is a huge a-hole, I'm hardly surprised.

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