Are “free” web-services cheese in a mousetrap? | Hacker News Reader

Are “free” web-services cheese in a mousetrap?

povolotski.me

The last few months everyone seems to be freaked out about NSA spying on the world (and their own citizens in particular). It seems to even have become fashionable to complain about surveillance, demand stuff from congressmen, CEO’s, the government. It’s all very nice, but people seem to be missing the point: Your privacy is being sold every single day to the lowest bidder for a price as low as 5$ per year, and the NSA isn’t the only buyer.

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I know it's popular to use the "you're either the buyer, the seller, or the product" meme for this, but I think sometimes the idea that we're the product hurts more than it helps.

This is more like a case where somebody is selling something and they don't have full knowledge of what they're selling. Companies like Google came to us with a deal: give us your email business, and we'll provide it for free -- as long as we can mine the data to serve you ads. That's how we'll get paid.

But that was bullshit -- and I don't think it was the fault of the companies involved. The problem is, once you start instrumenting the internet, every activity you take online is part of some massive surveillance mechanism directed at your personal life. What started as a simple transaction between you and Google, or you and your ISP, now can involve any other organization that can get that information from those companies.

Sure, some companies are vehement about protecting your privacy, but with governments involved, it doesn't matter. They run the show. Also, this is a "weakest link" problem. Even if Google and 90% of all the other companies you deal with have some technical way of keeping others from your data, but as along as the other 10% is compromised, it doesn't matter. Keystroke readers defeat just about anything. Trans-Atlantic wiretaps allow governments of all sizes a fun playground full of data.

So the real deal isn't what these companies offered. It's more like "use the internet, and we'll track you like an animal. We'll know where you go, what opinions you have, what you eat, who your friends are, and lots more. And we'll keep that information forever"

That's not an acceptable deal. We're the seller, the product is our interaction and the history of it, but we have been seriously misinformed by the buyer about the nature of the deal involved. This is a serious problem and needs immediate resolution. Nobody directly lied to us, but we were misinformed and screwed just the same. Nobody in their right mind would have agreed to such a thing.

When Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Cisco et al. ask for your money, it doesn't stop them to also ask others for more.

In fact, they are legally and extra-legally compelled to do so. Besides their on profit and extra-profit, obviously.

True. However, it's in the interest of any company to protect its' customers.

I'm not saying the government wouldn't be able to tap into our communications, and it doesn't have to be dealt with, but that as long as we're the product, and not the customer - no one really cares about our interests.

We like free stuff, but we don't always realize that it makes us the sold product, and not the customer.

My God, the product is ad space, you're not the product being sold.

And I don't get what difference makes being a free service or not, government will tap exactly the same.

i have seen many people spill their guts on-line, and i did so myself until, at last, i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a money-value. in the nineteenth century, commodities were made in factories, which karl marx called “the means of production.” capitalists were people who owned the means of production, and the commodities were made by workers who were mostly exploited. i created my interior thoughts as a means of production for the corporation that owned the board i was posting to, and that commodity was being sold to other commodity/consumer entities as entertainment. that means that i sold my soul like a tennis shoe and i derived no profit from the sale of my soul. people who post frequently on boards appear to know that they are factory equipment and tennis shoes, and sometimes trade sends and email about how their contributions are not appreciated by management.

as if this were not enough, all of my words were made immortal by means of tape backups. furthermore, i was paying two bucks an hour for the privilege of commodifying and exposing myself. worse still, i was subjecting myself to the possibility of scrutiny by such friendly folks as the FBI: they can, and have, downloaded pretty much whatever they damn well please. the rhetoric in cyberspace is liberation-speak. the reality is that cyberspace is an increasingly efficient tool of surveillance with which people have a voluntary relationship.

http://alphavilleherald.com/2004/05/introducing_hum.html

It's both. Sure there's ad space sold, but there's also ad space that targets specific people with specific interests.

What ads you end up seeing could be based on a whole range of your personal data, usage history, and the subject matter of your own content. In many ways, these details about you make the ad spaces more valuable than if they were just random ad spaces.

Perhaps then, "your life is the product" is more accurate than "you are the product".

> It's both. Sure there's ad space sold, but there's also ad space that targets specific people with specific interests.

It is still ad space what is being sold

"Your ad here" is one thing, but "your ad in this person's life (which we track for you and report back)" is another thing.

The ad space seller arranges a stealthy introduction between ad space buyer and Dave user. Without needing permission because Dave "agreed when he started using our free service, that we could change the terms at any time, do stuff in the background to keep the business running etc" a silent on-going relationship is established without Dave being reminded of that persistent connection.

We now have default permission granted to contact list and personal details when installing some apps. I hope the rumored Android 4.3 selective permissions control per app is true.

What a great day for privacy that will be when we can stop apps bullying their way into our [contact list + internet access] when that isn't needed for the app to work.

The marketing-programming that is entering apps, whereby an impolite, unchecked persistent tracking, ad placement, additional purchase persuasion spamming and infiltration of our private data is happening, you don't need a tin foil hat to justify a few concerns.

If people aren't the product, then why is ad space seen by more people more valuable?

Because the product isn't ad space, its advertising views, which are supplied by people.

People are the supplier, not the product.

Is this a joke?

No. People are valuable. Space is just a way to get to the people.

> However, it's in the interest of any company to protect its' customers.

Its also in the interest of any company to protect its suppliers -- which is what consumers of free web-services that provide the views that are sold to advertisers are.

OTOH, this general interest in protecting "suppliers" or "customers" doesn't imply that it is in the interest of the company to protect the interests of any individual or small minority of either its paying customers or suppliers when it has a very, very large number of either, and the cost of protecting the individual or small minority would be high compared to the revenue produced directly from them (in the case of customers) or from resale of what they supply (in the case of suppliers.)

So, the web service operator isn't much motivated to be concerned about you, personally, no matter whether you are one of a very large number of paying customers or one of a very large number of suppliers of views to be sold to advertisers. It's an inherent feature of long-tail services whether they are monetized by directly or via advertising.

And, in either case, there is little in the interest of the company of protecting abstract interests of either suppliers or customers, only those interests which are likely to impact their ability or willingness to continue to purchase/supply the way they have been.

That is too generally, most of companies allow a free usage, because they want to convince about their service and set the hurdle of usage as low as possible.

Companies like google, yahoo, facebook, ... are a different kind of "free" web-service.

Or free 2 play games, free players are "content" in that games.

This argument applies to any web service. There's no guarantee that a $5/yr paid web service isn't profiting from your data the same as anyone else. Why only make $5 when you could make $35?

It really boils down to who you choose to trust with your data. As an insider, I'm very happy with the privacy controls within Google. I'd be more worried about a less well-established player, regardless of whether they charge a fee for their product.

The data authorities in France had ordered Google to comply with its national law by defining specified and explicit purposes; to inform users about how it was processing their data; to define retention periods for the information it holds; to not proceed, without legal basis, with the "potentially unlimited combination of users' data"; to fairly slurp and mine passive users' data and get consent before storing cookies on their device.

But Google has declined and criticised French data protection legislation by claiming the law is not applicable to its online services.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/27/google_refuses_to_co...

All the "if you're not paying you are not customer, you are the product" talk aside, I find it risky to use free SaaS for work because it most likely doesn't have a viable business model and could go under any moment.

That's why in the StartHQ SaaS directory (https://starthq.com) we clearly mark which services are free. This is not meant as a positive sign, but as a warning.

Quite a hyperbole. I use many free "services" on the web and I provide some myself because they are someone's hobby (sometimes mine).

> Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn were all among the 10 biggest IPO’s ever

Twitter's IPO? Not quite yet...

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