HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

philp

191 karma · joined February 5, 2011

submissionscomments
philp··on Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine
I'm not sure if you were addressing me but I'll go ahead and respond anyways.

I don't think privacy should be an 'all-or-nothing' proposition; waving away your right to privacy should not be a decision an individual has to make. Ever.

I believe that what the majority of users want when interacting with internet platforms like Google, Facebook, etc. is a responsible use of their data; a reasonable balance between giving up information and receiving benefits in exchange.

From that perspective I would argue that Facebook collecting data from you simply by 'browsing-by' a like button is unacceptable. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that everything is fair after you've given alleged, implicit permission by clicking a button either. It's about a reasonable expectation the user has about what kind of terms he's entering into by 'like-ing' something. Is it okay for Facebook to have a look at what site your coming form? Associate your account with this like? Maybe. Would it be acceptable for Facebook to go through your history and look at the most recent porn sites you showed interest in? Probably not. That goes at the notion of contextual integrity you mentioned. The line is blurry but it certainly exists.

Another important consideration for me is who has access to the data that is collected. Larry Page famously answered to Paul Buchheit that there 'are no privacy issues' when faced with thousands of complaints concerning Gmail. I don't really mind machines going over the contents of my email in an effort to target ads at me. It's creppy to some but if you understand the underlying technology I would side with Larry and say that, really, there are no privacy violations. It's about the trust you have in a corporation when it comes to handling your data. Transparency goes a long way.

Give me your thoughts.

P.S: I don't think an individual or a corporation could successfully operate on the internet while strictly adhering to the three standards you mention. Getting explicit consent for every data transaction that occurs when using the internet would make that medium virtually unusable. We have to make certain, maybe gullible, assumptions about the companies and individuals we interact with to navigate everyday life; you do it every time you enter into a contract without studying the fine print.

A custom Facebook Share button sounds like a terrific idea, open-source it! :)

philp··on Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine
I wouldn't really know since I grew up speaking German, but I think this only works one way ( written to spoken). The other way ( hearing a word and being able to spell it ) has to be next to impossible for a non-native speaker. How did you learn to speak German?
philp··on Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine
I wasn't super serious when I said that but comparing German to English ( not that I am fluent ) I have to say that I think English has a simplistic beauty to it that German can't live up to. Whenever someone asks me to translate even the simplest sentence / idiom into German I end up answering, 'you can't really say it that way in German'. German happens to be very particular about the correct choice of words and won't let just mix a bunch of words together like English does. I'll admit that there is some world-class literature / poetry that benefits tremendously from the depths of the German language but I'm neither a poet nor an author, I'm just in it for the practicality. Horribly off-topic btw.
philp··on Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine
Being German I have to say I really appreciate my countries concern with privacy. ( Despite this rather ridiculous attempt to protect it ) The mega-corporations that are hoarding our data have a habit of being as in-transparent about privacy as possible ( Google excluded, maybe ). Government entities are in a unique position to enact legislation that levels the playing field and puts consumers back in charge of their data. I'm hopeful that future generations will demand unrestricted control over their personal data as a basic human right.
philp··on Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine
I'm German btw. Don't want anybody to think I learned that gruesome language for the fun of it...
philp··on Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine
The situation is actually quite a bit different from what was presented in the siliconfilter article. I looked into a couple of more established local media outlets and it turns out that this fine does not apply to all of Germany. Mr. Weichert strictly targets sites from Schleswig-Holstein ( Population: 2,8M ). This is the only state where he has 'some' legislative power and it remains to be seen how we would be able to target sites from his specific district. I'm sure you can appreciate the technical difficulty. This is also not a new law but a highly controversial interpretation of existing privacy law. There is a tremendous backlash and open opposition coming from high-ranking German politicians regarding this fine. All in all the whole thing looks more like a PR-stunt, it's highly unlikely that website-owners will ever be fined in the near future for Facebook buttons.
philp··on Groupon is Effectively Insolvent
Are there any decent alternatives to w3schools? I have to introduce somebody to very basic web-development and would hate to have to point them to a resource as bad as w3schools.

Edit: I just found this excellent SO link on the topic: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4662304/online-html-css-j...

← PreviousPage 2 of 2