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Comment by ghm2199 | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps its time that YC mentioned explicitly that if they are going to fund a company which holds specific PII data(i would include precise location history to start with) they would have to guarantee:

1. An erase-me feature if they gained over say some X unique/active users.

2. Disclose to their best legal abilities on warrants served in the countries that allow such disclosure. Allow for strong whistle blower protection if warrantless wiretapping becomes a thing.

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Why would they do that? Venture capital isn't there to serve people like us or to protect any kind of common interest. There is only one thing they know - money.

Sure, but YC can enforce it if they want to. VC after all is a private body governed by private individuals, they can make moral choices. VCs could even support this by offering terms to offset the costs. I cannot believe that a company cannot be profitable but at the same time not build for at least some better privacy guarantees.

They could do anything if they wanted to, but there's no point in discussing it, because they won't. Self-enforcing moral standards interferes with the money thing, which is the only thing they will not sacrifice. The goal isn't profitability, there's been plenty of profitable and moral ventures in the past. They need as much money as possible. They lie awake at night thinking about the cents they could squeeze out of a business if they just treated their customers way worse, partnered with a dictatorship or found loopholes in regulations.

To protect their future reputation. There's a civil rejection brewing about YC, and it will affect both Flock and Sam Altman.

You can’t even do that with your HN account..you think Flock, with its lucrative gov contracts…would ever?

You can email dang and co and they’ll delete your HN account (maybe even remove your posts? Might be making that up?) they just prefer folks not IIRC.

Per friends who have done this, you apparently need to explain why and have reasons™. It’s not just a quick “hi forget me” request. All of which I find a bit absurd.

I imagine they don’t reject it though. Inconvenient, should be one click, but I also get it on some level even if that’s not how I’d handle it.

I should have been more clear. You have to give reasons why, as in - if your identity is at risk, legal issues, company concerns..etc. This was the push back my friends and I have joked about (only two so far who have made this request).

The request is not taken at face value, you have to have it approved.

Google did make location history private in the maps app(delete on server side) at some point, if I recall correctly everyone can at the least opt in(i may be wrong and it may even be opt out!). I believe out of the exact concerns of warrantless sweep of all location data of all users around a lat long for server side storage by law enforcement.

It went under the radar but is a good example of _some_ incremental positive improvement over centralized storage.

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