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Comment by hackuser | Hacker News Reader

I think the argument that people accept it is disingenuous. If it was broadly acceptable, why would businesses and governments often hide what they are doing? Why wouldn't they clearly inform consumers up front?

In fact, if consumers like it so much then why not advertise it, to attract more customers? Why haven't I seen this ad on TV?

At Acme, we collect your personal information and build an intimate profile of you -- everything you do, from your emails and web usage, to who your friends and family are, to your income, wealth and debts, to your medical and driving histories, to your interests in culture, religion and politics. You'd be amazed by what we've learned about you! The more we know about you, the better we can serve you!

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Because people are irrational, and will give wildly different answers to fundamentally the same question, depending on the phrasing.

Because the reality is, people's lives have been continuously improving as more personal data has been collected and aggregated about them by various services and that now, more then ever, the transparency and accountability of governments has increased in response to many of those exact same services (Twitter/YouTube/Facebook/Google).

The metadata question gets asked contextlessly, which utterly changes its meaning. Google Now is pretty upfront (and obvious) of the type of data it's going to need to work. Given the value proposition, people are okay with that and why should they not be?

> Because people are irrational

So they shouldn't be empowered to make decisions for themselves? What 'rational' person will decide what is best for these people, as well as altruistically understand and protect their interests?

I like how Microsoft made a point with Cortana to put what it knows about the user in a "notebook" that you can browse and edit. Whenever it does something smart, like suggest that it track a flight, it lets you ask "How do you know this?"

This doesn't make anything harder to use, just more transparent.

> people's lives have been continuously improving as more personal data has been collected and aggregated about them by various services

prove it.

It's just one of those things you say about any privileges of corporations that are endangered due to emerging public comprehension and opinion. You're not supposed to challenge it, just to feel like a sadly misguided Luddite on a Sisyphean quest to hold back the inevitable march of technology.

>now, more then ever, the transparency and accountability of governments has increased in response to many of those exact same services (Twitter/YouTube/Facebook/Google).

I'm skeptical. Sure, advocates for transparency have used these platforms, but that seems unrelated to these companies' mass collection of data.

Not to mention that one of the biggest whistleblowers recently (Edward Snowden) revealed that these companies were complicit in NSA's not-at-all transparent surveillence.

This post perfectly illustrates the "people are irrational" assertion. Snowden's documents (re-)revealed that these companies were involved in targeted surveillance for the FBI by way of NSLs, something that the companies had warned about for years. http://www.wired.com/2013/04/google-fights-nsl/

The new bit of information from Snowden was that the NSA could access data from the FBI, which none of the companies knew about, let alone were "complicit" in.

So let me get this straight:

  1. Corporation collects user data.
  2. Government wants access to that data, in secret.
  3. Corporation lets people know when the government accesses data about them.
  4. Hurrah, the government is more transparent.

If the corporation didn't collect the data in the first place, there would be nothing for the government to request access to, transparently or not.

Here is a perfect example of irrationality. These companies process data that the user wants them to process (emails and other conversations that the user can search from any of their devices). Not collecting that data would obviously (to everybody except irrational people like scribu) make those products impossible to implement. That same data that is so useful to the users is also useful to the FBI and anybody else investigating a person.

I don't understand how your claim (that users want the products that data collection enables) refutes my claim (that data collection has not helped with government transparency).

If your point is merely that "data collection has not helped with government transparency," I do not refute it (and I know of nobody who would -- there is no reason that Gmail nor banking nor even the price of tea in China would help with government transparency). That is, however, a rather inane point to make.

> I know of nobody who would

Then you're forgetting about the guy up-thread:

> accountability of governments has increased in response to many of those exact same services (Twitter/YouTube/Facebook/Google).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9672999

But reading your first comment again, I realize that you were making a different point. Sorry.

> to everybody except irrational people like scribu

please.

It's not just an issue of rationality. IIRC, a recent survey concluded that most Americans didn't know who Edward Snowden is.

I think it is unrelated to their mass collection of data. But I also think this is an argument for why people put up with these services. It's not that they accept privacy infringement, it's that they are willing to put up with it to have an open communications platform.

> why should they not be?

Because some percentage of the population is made up of psychopaths lacking empathy who are willing to do things that the majority of the population cannot fathom.

...and some of them are very intelligent and very clever, and are able to rise to positions of power, wherein they get to make decisions about what's OK and what's not from a morality standpoint.

We all get to decide for ourselves what is and isn't okay from a morality standpoint. Just because someone is in a position of influence it doesn't mean you need to to take their word for it.

Exactly. And that is the answer to the question "Why should they not be?"

I'd love to use Google Now on my Nexus but I cannot accept the trade off. Constantly following me around and analysing my search history is somehow like peeping under my clothes to see all the warts and all. I'm a nobody so the invasiveness isn't really that important but somehow I just can't accept it. However the product itself looks awesome.

Someone needs to come up with anonymous profiles rather than linked to a name and then people like me might be more inclined to use such services.

The thing is, that's all well and good, but advertisers want more personal info, and they're the ones paying the bills. If users paid the bills, they'd probably have more choice. As of right now, that's not the way most internet things work (sadly).

Totally agreed.

Google have great services but the price paid for them in terms of the immense amount of data collected on me is one I am not willing to accept.

A fantastic example of the impact of phrasing and positioning is Yes Minister on National Service - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

>Because people are irrational, and will give wildly different answers to fundamentally the same question, depending on the phrasing.

That doesn't make it ok to do terrible things using the phrasing people will react best to. These companies need to grow some ethics.

> the transparency and accountability of governments has increased in response to many of those exact same services

please don't pretend the problem is solved because small parts of it came out in the open two years ago.

very little has changed, and the battle is still ahead.

Google might have publicly stood up against government spying in particular (hey, who wouldn't be pissed off if the gov hacked and tapped into your private internal networks), but they are not at all innocent in the War on Privacy, when it comes to their own goals (whether that be advertising, stakeholder value or even their current good-guys motto like "organizing the world's information") they are willing to do exactly the same things.

we're heading towards a future where mega-corporations like Google, Apple, Unilever (etc etc) will be entities operating on the same level and scale as nation-states. indeed cyberpunk professed.

so it doesn't make sense to me at all to trust Google any more with my private data than I would trust the US, or the Dutch government / secret service.

or let's put it another way, because I just happen to have not been born a US citizen, it means that according the USA, I have no right to privacy at all (I've seen people argue this even on HN). the USA is in a unique position because almost all Internet traffic passes through a US network at some point, and my data is completely fair game for the NSA to slurp up, process and store in any way they see fit.

now, my smartphone happens to be Android. so in this future, similar to a US citizen, my data would be protected by whatever little rights Google's privacy policy provides me. but not Apple's privacy policy. so any time I'd message an iPhone user ... get it? but it gets even crazier, because I sent my message with WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, of course the network is US territory, and so my bits spread around the world like glitter lipstick.

and all the while, just like today, everybody keeps arguing that it's okay to slurp the other's data, because their parent-entity needs that data to protect them. that idea, that very US-vs-THEM reasoning, is why mega-corporations and branding (as we've seen since the early 80s, described by Naomi Klein) are pretty much the same phenomenon. it wasn't quite as obvious back then, but it's the new nationalism for the new nation-states. "Google can have my data, because I'm a Googlian", "it's okay that Apple steals their data to protect us, because they are not iPeople, like us"

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