It looks like Meta’s strategy of charging European Facebook and Instagram users, for the privilege of not being tracked for ad-targeting purposes, ain’t gonna fly.
I’m in the US and also don’t care about Facebook and Instagram, but if I could pay a privacy fee to Alphabet and not be logged and data-mined, I’d do that.
I don’t know if there’s enough people who would for that to be a viable market, but I’d be there.
if I could pay a privacy fee to Alphabet and not be logged and data-mined, I’d do that.
It's called Google Workspace and it's decently nice. You can get a basic business starter account for something like ~$7 per month/per user + whatever you want to pay to register a domain each year. Takes a little bit of know how and you need to do some lifting for yourself that Google would otherwise shoulder for you, but it's pretty nice and has more benefits beyond just the privacy implications, like 30GB of account storage and Google Meet conferencing for up to 100 people without time limits. On the downside, some stuff that needs to track your usage to function properly (Like YouTube video recommendations) just do not work with a Workspace account because they don't track your preferences so they don't have a way to build a recommendation profile for you.
I've been doing it for years now and I appreciate it a lot. In the rare instances when I need to go do something on my old Gmail account it's shocking every time how bad the unpaid versions of Google products have gotten.
It sounds like that covers Gmail and stuff like that, but at least in this 2022 article, it doesn’t sound like it covers Web searches on Google, or YouTube, or Google Maps. That sounds like it’s fair game for data-mining.
Regarding the promise to not use data from “Workspace core services,” Google’s statement doesn’t cover Google Search (it’s not a core Workspace app), which is the primary vector for Google ads and data for Google ads. That’s right—the “Search History” setting from Google doesn’t cover Google Search history.
Google’s reasoning for this change is that, because Workspace apps are paid for, “Google never uses your data in Google Workspace core services for advertising,” the company said. So basically the new “Search History” setting could be called “save data that won’t be used for ads.”
The terms “Google Workspace products” and “additional Google services” are the key to understanding that description. Basically, Google is splitting the data that was previously captured by “Web & App Activity” into two settings. “Search History” will only cover apps that are part of the “Google Workspace” product lineup. There is a full list of those services here, but it’s basically Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Contacts, Drive, Google Chat, and Keep—the business apps—and not Google Maps, Google Search, YouTube, and other products that lack a strong business use case. So for paying Workspace users, Search History will now cover usage data for Workspace stuff, while Web & App Activity will cover every other Google product that isn’t specifically listed in the Workspace terms.
I actually consider the tracking of my browsing/watching history to be integral to the search experience. It's why when I search for Python, I get results about the programming language and not snakes both in Search and YouTube. Or why Commodore gets me the computer and not naval crap. Or any number of other things that steer their search results towards things in my interests and away from junk I don't care about.
An ad blocker in my browser keeps anything else they're targeting at me through their scraping out of my hair while also blocking a load of what they might learn about me from third party sites, so I'm not terribly bothered what they think they know about me, they're not getting access to the bulk of the stuff I'd consider personal, and the junk they do track is kept so that they can get me results that will matter to me instead of generic crap.
I think there's a general misunderstanding that Google tracks stuff so that they can sell it, when the reality is that they keep it so they know where to target ads (that I never see) and so that they can provide results relevant to my interests so I'll keep coming back to (not) see ads. They don't sell the info they collect, they sell people the ability to run ads against that info. If they were selling the info itself, they'd be killing the golden goose. So long as they're contractually not allowed to look at my mail and files, I'm good with the rest of what they take because it 100% goes into making a better experience for me using their services so long as I'm running Firefox/uBlock.
That said, if you don't want tracking being used to improve your search experience, a Workspace account indeed won't get you 100% away from it. I tried using DDG for a while and I just couldn't hang with it. Its lacking the little dossier that Google has on me made it so that I constantly had to work harder to find what I wanted vs a quick search on Google, and that's what you'd get without the tracking and info collection. It wasn't worth the tradeoff for me, maybe it is for you though?
I actually consider the tracking of my browsing/watching history to be integral to the search experience.
I don’t have a problem with people who are okay with it getting it. I’m not saying that Google shouldn’t be allowed to do that, just that it’s not what I want.
It wasn’t worth the tradeoff for me, maybe it is for you though?
I use DDG now, as well as some other things like dropping cookies at browser exit. But they aren’t really an alternative to, say, YouTube. And…I mean, I’ve got no problem with Google’s services. I just would prefer to pay for them with money rather than with data.
I don’t have a problem with people who are okay with it getting it.
My apologies if I implied that you did, that was not my intent.
But they aren’t really an alternative to, say, YouTube. [...] I just would prefer to pay for them with money rather than with data.
Sorry, that was my point though, without the tracking, you're not getting YouTube, or most of Google's services as we know them. The Google secret sauce is that they know enough about their users to curate an experience per user. That's largely why competitors to Google services rarely take off, the competitors lack enough individual user knowledge to make an experience that is better than what Google can offer for most users.
The services more or less are what they are because of the breadth of what and how Google knows to shape the experience for an individual, and that's why Workspace accounts still track what they do. Google would be providing their paying customers with a lesser experience if they genericized everything you're interacting with in those content related services due to a lack of learned data and behaviors per user. Which is probably not what the average user wants if I had to guess?
Heck, even paid YouTube Premium still needs your tracking data or it's just going to show you whatever popular rage bait is trending day to day with the general public? Or maybe just an unfiltered firehose of all the hours of nonsense that is uploaded every minute to the platform? I guess you could treat it as a whitebox video hosting site, but where does the money come from if YouTube can't make guarantees to advertisers that their ads will be seen by people who might care about the ad, and how do the content creators make money if YouTube can't get advertisers on board, and who is making interesting content if they have to pay to host it themselves because advertisers aren't paying that cost for them? I think my point is that if you pull the tracking and user knowledge out of the Jenga tower, the whole thing just crashes down.
Well yeah but you guys are already used to paying data collection agencies for protection just so you can have some basic quality of privacy (like not getting sales calls or having your identity stolen).
I imagine that paying a tech giant for it is just the logical next step.
If Apple came out with a paid service that said “I’ll make sure those other companies don’t have your data” it would sell like hotcakes and nobody would think twice about the irony.
I mean, it’s a service. You can pay for it with your money, or pay with your data. I’d prefer the former, myself. But either way, it’s not going to be free.
I would imagine it as lemmy. It would be a free, ethical software which is indirectly funded by the government. Everybody uses facebook so that’s a good reason to turn it into a public property. We could make it without anti-features. Made for people, not for profit.
The service isn’t going to be provided for free – it’s a business, not a charity. One way or another, it gets paid for. You have two options:
Pay with your data. That’s what happens today. If someone’s okay with that, it remains an option.
Pay with money. This would be an option to the above.
Personally, while I don’t use or care about Facebook, I’d like to have the option to pay with money rather than data for services that I do use. Some of those don’t have that option today.
I’d also add that this doesn’t just apply to online services. For example, we’ve been talking about car tracking using cell radios to send data back a bit on the Threadiverse. If someone doesn’t care about their car transmitting data back, okay, fine. I’ve got no problem with that being an option available to them, if it can reduce the purchase price and someone is okay with that. But I’d prefer to have the option to just pay a higher purchase price and not have that happen. I don’t really want to screw around with trying to game the system and disabling cell radios and trying to let other customers bear the price of my subsidized car (nor is that really fair to those customers, frankly). I just want to have the option to pay for my car the way I historically did – I give money to the automaker up front, deal is done.
A vendor should be agnostic as to whether someone pays with data or money, as long as they are able to charge enough to cover whatever they lose via not being able to sell data and whatever overhead exists from maintaining two payment models. The only argument I can think of against it is that it requires them to expose some data as to how valuable they assess the data to be. That might be considered a trade secret, but given that the consumer really needs that data to assess whether-or-not they want the company to have that data and that price information is required to be available to the consumer for an efficient market to work, I’m okay with imposing that limitation on the vendor.
You are being blackmailed. This is no different than having the boys show up at your front door demanding protection money. Pay us and nobody (read: us) will break your legs. Pay us and nobody will steal your data.
Max Schrems, the Austrian activist lawyer whose 13-year legal crusade against Meta is what gradually removed those options
I wonder, does anyone know how would one go about acomplishing something like this? One of major websites here in Czech, and a major search engine, has started doing exactly the same thing - pay or agree. And I really don’t like that. Are there organizations you can contact, or do you have to have the resources to just sue them?
They even have a “Chief Privacy Officer”. They have brainwashed entire departments into believing that Meta actually cares about privacy, it’s so terrifying. I wonder if people working there realize that, or they have simply fell for the gaslighting.
Prior to joining Meta, she was a partner working on technology issues and co-chair of Covington & Burling’s global data practice. Erin collaborates with policymakers and experts on Meta’s products and features and is deeply involved in legislative and regulatory efforts around data protection, data portability, advertising, and Al.
E.g. ex lawyer working for a firm that ensured companies could sell and use as much data as possible and defended them if they got sued or fined. Now in charge of “Privacy,” e.g. making sure Meta can sell and use as much private data as possible. It’s literal doublespeak
IDK, there are lots of other jobs than at Facebook. They pay really well though.
I have a personal rule to never work at a company I morally disagree with, and it has worked well so far. I don’t like any of the companies I’ve worked for, but they solve real problems and don’t abuse users too much.
okay but is it really surviving if you can’t afford a yacht though? you should be able to purge a few ethnic minorities for a yacht, right? at least if you dont really mean it, about the killing?
and if you do something horrible, you still deserve to swing, because morality (the smart kind at least) doesn’t come from magical Fucking fairy dust, it is survival.
Facebook has caused genocides. a comparison to an as camp guard who’s drunk to within an ounce of blackout for every shift isnt so uunreasonable, and he still deserves to swing, unless he’s helping people escape.
Yeah that’s often the problem. They hire people who care and are good at the stuff so they can point to them and say “we really do care as a company” and then they aren’t given the leverage they need inside the company to implement real changes
Sounds to me that Meta defines privacy in a very particular way. You’re still going to give all of your data to Meta, but anything outside this transaction is in the realm of privacy where you can have rights and settings.
Bob, Stephanie, and Amir go to get ice cream. Their options are chocolate and vanilla. Bob orders chocolate, and gets the last of the chocolate. Stephanie can only order vanilla, and gets the last of the vanilla ice cream. Amir gets no ice cream, because he is fasting for Ramadan.
I forgot to mention that Bob hates vanilla because it reminds him of his abusive aunt who would force him to eat vanilla ice cream while she watched, because she was on a diet and wanted to enjoy it vicariously.
Did Bob really have a choice? Or was his preference for chocolate an inextricable eventuality predetermined by a repeating cycle of abuse and trauma?
Yes, he has chosen within available options according to the reasons you have described. Just because there is an explanation about the choice, it does not invalidate the existence of the choice. Acting according to your will is making choice.
It is the opposite that would indicate the absence of choice - if you out of free will wanted chocolate, but forced to take vanilla (by vanilla vigilante) - THEN you did not have a choice. But as long as you acting according to your preferences, it is your choice.
Well Amir had a fully diversified portfolio while Stephanie had a 401(k) and Roth IRA with some penny stocks for fun, but Bob mortgaged his house to buy the latest crypto because he was assured it was only going up and he was getting in on the ground floor and this wasn’t like the other 67 times he bought crypto and… Oh.
I’m a big fan of TOSDR and recommend everyone check it out. It’s a site dedicated to translating TOS and EULA into English by attorneys working pro-bono. It’s amazing what you’ll find in some of those agreements.
Except to the extent that any such waiver is prohibited by law, you hereby waive the benefit of any provision of law known as “moral rights” or “droit moral” or any similar law in any country of the world.
Wow, I didn’t even know it was possible to waive our moral rights, some heavy shit right there.
And I had to lol when I saw it was coming from Blizzard of all places.
Edit: It’s actually a different kind of morals, not in the general public sense (Right vs Wrong) definition that we all know.
Still seems immoral though, controlling someone else’s work, as if it is your own, so thoroughly.
In context it means all user content submitted in the games is effectively fully owned by Blizzard, a copyright assignment clause (this differs from the typical “we get a perpetual license to what you submit to us”)
In context it means all user content submitted in the games is effectively fully owned by Blizzard, a copyright assignment clause (this differs from the typical “we get a perpetual license to what you submit to us”)
I understand what you mean now by them saying you wave your moral rights as a matter of giving up your rights to any product you create.
Still seems immoral of them to just grab your creations and claim it as their own, but “viva capitalism!” I guess.
I’m guessing that’s not enforceable per much anywhere, hence the “unless prohibited by law” part. But they stick it in there so they can scare you into giving up a legal fight. Most terms of service are throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.
I’m guessing that’s not enforceable per much anywhere, hence the “unless prohibited by law” part.
My understanding is it actually is enforceable, as other companies also use that clause. Having said that, IANAL.
But they stick it in there so they can scare you into giving up a legal fight. Most terms of service are throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Just because everyone does it doesn’t make it legal, it just means there aren’t penalties for putting it in. That’s why everyone goes 5-10mph over the speed limit, lack of enforcement doesn’t make something legal.
Second this. I stumbled across this thread, and the arguments are solid, could absolutely bring greater benefit to the community as its own post in my opinion.
Curious how they expect this to work for people who aren’t even “paying” [with money or data] Meta users. Those people who never signed up for any of their services yet are still being tracked across websites via those social sharing buttons and the like. Are they supposed to pay Meta to not hoard their data from all the other websites, despite never setting foot on a Meta site?
They are, but 95% of them have no clue what Facebook is using their site to do. They just handwave it away as “add this button and users can like your posts” without any actual effort to inform the site owner how invasive they are.
I wish they’d do that in the US for the stupid TOS nonsense they pull. I’m guessing a lot of it wouldn’t hold up in court, but it’s unlikely to get challenged because an individual just doesn’t have the resources to do so, so it chills people into going along with it.
For example:
forced arbitration is on all the things now
Motorola’s sketchy forfeiture of rights if you flash your phone’s bootloader
"warranty stickers" - the FTC has actually cracked down a bit, but companies still try to do it
A lot of this is hidden behind dozens of pages of TOS that pretty much nobody reads. A general, “massive TOS isn’t real consent” law could do wonders to improve consumer protections. Specifically, this is what I’d like to see:
any contract must be reasonably understood by an individual with an 8th grade education
contracts stay in force unless both parties agree to a change, and service may not be interrupted just because of a failure to agree to new terms
no forced arbitration, though private arbitration may be used if both parties consent
anything more than an average person can read in 5 minutes requires a formal contract, not a TOS
Or something along those lines. Consumer protections suck here, and I think this could solve a lot of the problems. Airing dirty laundry can solve a lot of problems.
To be fair, tech companies can do whatever they want in the EU, No party would ever want to be responsible for WhatsApp, Windows, or ChatGPT not being available anymore.
Until the EU don’t use the same tactic: follow the law or get out.
And what Meta is not understanding is that if the EU will arrive at this point, the “follow the law” will be as pedantic as it can be. And maybe even a little more.
Meta should learn from what happened during the Brexit’s negotiations.
Well, the micro-USB and USB-C or the GDPR examples are here. Maybe is a little more difficult with services since it is way faster to change a service then a law.
