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Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

I want to reiterate one line of thought that's been seen here before but bears repeating: you should not give your data to Google, Facebook, or any other commercial entity just as much as you don't want NSA to have it. While NSA may have political motives and thus may use illegally obtained information for political ends, Facebook et al. could use it for reasons that serve their economic gain. That's a conclusion that's just as undesirable (if not moreso) than NSA using it.

I don't see a very good future of fighting the 'surveillance internet' if we don't face the notion that once data is out there -- of lots of people, in one place -- NSA will always be interested in it and will probably get it. Pragmatically speaking, pulling out of Facebook, Google, etc. is the only surefire way to fight the surveillance internet.

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Does Google kidnap people? Confiscate their equipment? Harass travellers at the airports? Send IRS after their competition? No?

Can Facebook maybe deny me a business license? Cancel my passport? Is there a Facebook commando that would break down my doors if I did something Mark Zuckerberg didn't like? No?

Can we then stop pretending like corporations and governments play even remotely in the same league?

What can Google actually do? Target me with ads? I won't so much as see them.

And I don't use facebook, it barely raises an eyebrow. I couldn't try that with a national ID because I wouldn't be able to do anything.

>> What can Google actually do?

Give everything to the NSA, IRS or anyone else that asks.

Wouldn't the upside be that at least they'd have to ask? Just saying there is a difference even if they get the data either way. Well, there should be at least.

Did you miss the recent news about the NSA tapping Google's internal server-to-server communications in real time? They don't have to ask anymore.

Edit: this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6680763

I (probably) did miss that. I only have so much time to spend on here and so much stuff just falls through the cracks. It's the worst of both worlds then already.

and that is the purpose of the Constitution. Eventually, governments can force their way into anything. Which is why the Fourth Amendment is so explicit. They are breaking the law.

A few months ago they were using the "metadata" argument. Where are the prosecutions now that thats obviously BS?!

Apparently you missed it. That was done by the British and shared with the NSA. Maybe that narrative doesn't work for you but that is what happened.

Google also doesn't: molest me at airports or train stations, drone civilians, assassinate anybody, launch wars that kill tens of thousands, murder your family with a SWAT team, violate your rights with force via parallel construction, threaten you with the espionage act, sell guns to Mexican cartels, sell weapons to anybody much less theocracies and violent 3rd world states. Google also can't null and void the entire US Constitution at will by using force.

Yep, it's absurd to the extreme to compare the NSA and Feds to Google.

With all the uproar about Youtube comments, you'd be forgiven to think Google was doing all of that.

All that stuff is not surveillance. The NSA/FBI/TSA etc. can do all that with or without information about you.

I thnk you're missing the economics of all the bad stuff: without dragnet surveillance, the NSA/FBI/TSA can't really drone-whack anyone appropriate. They have to put out a little old-fashioned effort to decide who to drone. It's inefficient at best. Also, without dragnet surveillance, the TSA can only hassle random travelers (which might actually be an improvement in security).

Does the NSA do any of that? Does the NSA even run operations at all? Can they do any of that?

Google, Facebook, et. al. can willfully share your information with the US or any other government.

AT&T gets paid $10 million annually for access to your data, and as a publicly traded company, if they don't do that, they're not being fair to their shareholders, to whom they've promised to maximize profits.

"We track 'em, you whack 'em."

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-21/world/40713603...

It isn't an either/or. If you give data to Google, Facebook or other data-accumulating companies, you're giving it to the government.

The reverse is not true, so if only the government is surveilling you, you can still stay out of some of the corporate databases.

I think this is important to have emphasized. Especially because the opinion of business has a very loud voice in today's market-worshiping gov't. Even though there are technological remedies can be used by the most tech savvy to regain some ground, practically speaking any changes that protect the not-savvy have to be statutory. Companies will side with the consumers and howl like a dog when something more powerful than either of them surveils them, but spin on a dime and exploit their position of power over consumers.

I also agree that you could make a convincing case that aside from the legality and broad social unacceptability of the collection, the way data is currently used by the government is much much more in line with the surveilled's interests than many of the businesses gobbling up consumer data. Corporate surveillance isn't inherently any better than government surveillance. Pretending otherwise makes us enablers.

While not disagreeing that Facebook et al. pose a problem, the real problem is that you can't evade surveillance as you lay a digital trail of almost everything you do in your live. Your phone is location-tracked, every non-cash payment is tracked, the sites you surf onto are tracked (by your provider at least), your medical dossiers are electronic and pass eventually through public parts of the net, automatic face recognition is about to become ubiquitous,...

So no, leaving Facebook or Google solves only a tiny part of the problem.

NSA do spying for economic gain. Economic power is very much political.

They did it with boeing and airbus http://www.economist.com/node/1842124 and who knows how many other companies.

And who knows what boeing did in return to gain the favor of NSA...

The Internet does not require "Data on lots of people in one place" it would be just as happy with data on lots of people in lots of places, places that aren't always online too.

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