• transigence
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    11 year ago

    The thing is, if someone makes observations about you, and save that in the form of data, that’s not your data. It’s their data. It might be about you, but people are allowed to observe and sell their observations.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      This is true. However, they need to inform you that they are collecting this data, what data they are collecting, and why, and give you the option to opt out of that data collection.

      Just because they can doesn’t give them the right to do so without your explicit permission.

      • transigence
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        11 year ago

        Why? I’m allowed to stand at a street corner and watch people walk by. I’m allowed to count them, and observe the direction they’re going. I don’t need any of their permission to do this. I’m allowed to know who they are, and I’m allowed to tell anyone I want what I saw. I’m allowed to charge money for it, and none of the people I observe are a party to this at all, so why should I need to either not do this, or tell them what I’m doing or ask for their permission to remember what I saw? How is internet tracking different?

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          Because they use personally identifying I for other than what you saw. In your comment does that mean you have a right to follow their personal life and invade it then sell it to others? No!

          Your problem is you like being a commodity rather than just a consumer. You don’t mind your life being intruded on which could include cc numbers or bank account info. You want to lose your money like that that’s fine. Me personally, they can get out of my life and quit following what I want to do just to make a quick buck. Fuck that, me and my personal information is not for sale! And if anyone seems to think it is, I will stop them as that is my right.

          Personally I think all tracking cookies should be banned on the internet worldwide! I am not a commodity.

          • transigence
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            11 year ago

            I think there’s a difference here where there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy, and where there is not. Out on the sidewalk, you don’t have one. Selling someone’s CC is a violation of contract law because you do have an expectation of privacy there. So, we have to be very clear, what kind of data are we talking about? “Sharon Thomas visited this site, looked at these items, spent 14.2 seconds looking at that item, then clicked on this link,” I think, is not something you can expect privacy from.
            However, there are some things I do think you have an expectation of privacy from, which is the collation and sale of personal information that the customer enters into the site for the purposes of business with that site, like the collation names with addresses, driver’s license numbers, social security numbers (or whatever local equivalents), etc. Another thing is that, and I don’t know if I’m 100% right here, but I believe that when you visit a site, even by typing an address into the address bar, the site you’re visiting is told, by your browser, what site you’re coming from. That doesn’t make sense to me, and that’s not a thing that should exist.

            Nonetheless, I don’t think the GDPR is a good fit for addressing any of these issues.