World Privacy Forum's Top Ten Opt-Outs 162
Ant writes in to mention the World Privacy Forum's top ten information collector/user list, which shows opt-out instructions (or at least a starting point): "As privacy experts, we are frequently asked about 'opting out,' and which opt outs we think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that the World Privacy Forum has developed over the years from responding to those questions. ... Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We agree. Opting out can range from the not-too-difficult (the FTC's Do Not Call list is a fairly simple opt out) to the challenging (the National Advertising Initiative (NAI) opt out can be tricky). Our hope is that this list will clarify which opt out does what, and how to go about opting out. In this list, some opt outs can be done by phone, some have to be sent in a letter via postal mail, and some can be accomplished online. Some opt outs last forever, some have time limits, and others can be changed at will. If an opt out is on this list, it is because we thought it might be important enough to be worth whatever annoyance it may pose. "
The Wrong Approach (Score:5, Insightful)
How about making everything in the world an opt-in by default?
For example, I don't recall announcing that I want telemarketers to call me, so why should I have to opt-out?
Re:The Wrong Approach (Score:5, Insightful)
well that's simple, it's because the telemarketers automatically opt-in'd you into their call 24/7 list.
Re:The Wrong Approach (Score:4, Insightful)
For an email address I give them a disposable address. It's good to have a few of these. That way if one of your retailers is selling info to Spammers you can probably narrow it down.
More importantly you can just not read that inbox since you never gave the address to anyone you want to hear from.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
why bother making a fake address? just give them somegobbledygook@mailinator.com ...
Re:The Wrong Approach (Score:5, Funny)
somegobbledygook@mailinator.com fucking HATES you, and the server admins aren't too happy either.
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Actually, that's the whole idea of the mailinator.com site. I realize you were trying to be funny, but the joke falls pretty flat.
In other words, somegobbledygook doesn't hate Drantin (and arguably is Drantin), and the server admins could care less (or are amused that someone is using their free service).
Be proactive (Score:2)
Why not write to your local member of parliament? Or better still, let the marketeers write to your local member of parliament.
Re:The Wrong Approach (Score:4, Informative)
from 47cfr64.1200 (Score:4, Informative)
"(c) No person or entity shall initiate any telephone solicitation,
as defined in paragraph (f)(12) of this section, to:
(1) Any residential telephone subscriber before the hour of 8 a.m.
or after 9 p.m. (local time at the called party's location), or
"
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=47&PART=64&SECTION=1200&TYPE=TEXT [gpo.gov]
chapter and verse for you (assuming a US location) or as formally titled
TITLE 47--TELECOMMUNICATION CHAPTER I--FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED)
PART 64_MISCELLANEOUS RULES RELATING TO COMMON CARRIERS-- Subpart L_Restrictions on Telemarketing, Telephone Solicitation, and Facsimile Advertising Sec. 64.1200 Delivery restrictions.
Re:The Wrong Approach (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, the list is located in Alpha Centauri and requires showing up in person to be added.
Opt-in actually makes more business sense. (Score:5, Interesting)
Using opt-in saves you the cost of marketing to people who don't want your stuff, saves you the cost of storing data about them, and saves you from the negative word-of-mouth opt-out causes.
I've run opt-in marketing campaigns, and have converted multiple employers from opt-out to opt-in. Before the switch, every mailout would result in an inbox full of complaints and threats. After the switch to opt-in, people would actually mail us asking where the ads were, if we were late.
I'll take opt-in over opt-out any day.
Re:Opt-in actually makes more business sense. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. As both a list manager for e-mail and phone lists we have the opinion that we don't want to waste time with the people who don't want to hear from us.
On the calling side; we love the FDNC list. It means we don't have to spend man hours dialing people who will just scream and holler (when all it takes is a simple 'take us off your list'). As far as e-mail goes; we sent out opt-in emails to 20,000 folks in our market area and 95% of them opt'ed in. People respect that you asked first and if you tell them there might be interesting content coming their way they watch for it.
Re:Opt-in actually makes more business sense. (Score:4, Interesting)
And before you reply saying that asking to be taken off a calling list doesn't work - realize you've dealt with fly-by-nights or otherwise shady ventures before. We are quick to blacklist anyone who is nasty or otherwise shows no interest, it just doesn't pay to keep calling.
Spam is spam, but believe it or not... most people WANT to be marketed to. Don't believe me? Purchase some Experian demo data and look at the 'multi-company mail responders'. In our geographical market most of the households do in fact reply to junk mail and so forth.
(And you'll never beat junk mail - it makes the USPS too much money. You can opt-out of 'junk mail', but you have to wait in line to do it. It's just too much postage for the USPS to turn down.)
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As far as I'm concerned, the moment you call my private number to try and sell me something, you ARE a fly-by-night or otherwise shady venture.
"most people WANT to be marketed to. Don't believe me? Purchase some Experian demo data"
Nice try, now I know who you work for... lol. But no, I don't believe you, I believe a lot of people miss that little box in the small print marked "no, I don't want your junk for ever more".
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You must have some funny rules in the postal system over there, here in Australia, we get catalogs and junk (from everyone from supermarkets to pizza shops to to real estate agents) in our mailboxes delivered by people directly without going through the post office at all.
We also get various free weekly local papers in the same way.
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and saves you from the negative word-of-mouth opt-out causes.
If everyone else does it as well, there is no negative fallout like that. Any opt-in thing gets a huge bonus, though, just by virtue of being different.
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The problem (from the advertiser's point of view) with opt-in is that people have to know about your product and be interested in it before they ask for those ads. Most marketing is trying to make you buy shit you don't need and didn't know you even wanted.
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The difference between opt-out and opt-in is product quality. Opt-in works fine when you are a reasonable company with reasonable products, however when you are a crap corporation with crap products and a bad reputation, nobody wants to opt-in, which is why they pay lobbyist to allow opt-out to remain legal rather than politicians banning all unsolicited communications.
Simple legislation, if you receive unsolicited communications and you complain to an legislated department they fine the advertiser and y
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For some media (e-mail especially), the cost of implementing a legitimate opt-in campaign is probably higher than the cost of blasting anyone and everyone with advertising materials. The cost of implementing an opt-out option is probably negated by the additional profit you get from the small percentage of people who wouldn't hav
what I learned working for a marketing company (Score:2)
Using opt-in saves you the cost of marketing to people who don't want your stuff
Those are EXACTLY the people marketers want to reach. The others already want your stuff, there is no point in harassing them, what marketers want is to change your mind, they want those who have no interest in the product to BECOME interested.
Those already interested will expend their own energy to find the product.
That's how my old boss explained it to me.
Those are opt-in lists! (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Unscrupulous individual obtains opt-out list with your contact info and sells it to Nigerian spammers or other foreign group.
3. You wind up getting more BS than your friend who didn't sign up for that opt-out list.
Precisely this happened with Canada's do not call registry. I didn't have my name added to it, thankfully. However, in today's information market, opt-out lists would have to be highly secure to have even a remote c
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be way too easy, now wouldn't it?
On the other hand, the question might arise where to draw the line.
In Switzerland, as an example, you can put a sticker on your mailbox that you do not want to receive ads. Technically, people are required by law to honour that wish. Of course, depending where you are, they couldn't care less.
Now political propaganda, on the other hand, has been deemed important enough to warrant exemption from that rule. The post office is required to deliver those to ALL mailbox
sidewalks (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of me wants to agree with you.
But another part of me tells me making opt-in the defualt by laws with teeth in them is not going to be a good thing.
Think about your sidewalk. It's there for a purpose.
Block off your sidewalk with a 3 meter wall and a moat full of crocodiles and you get no solicitors. But the firemen and the EMTs also have a problem getting in when you're home alone, passed out, with the house burning down around you.
The problem is that no-call lists are not No-solicitors signs. They're more like attractive nuisances. Train wrecks in progress.
No-solicitors signs can't be enforced on people who are not from your country until the Internet starts having laws, and we don't want the Internet to have laws.
Which means the ultimate solution is a stratified (balkanized) Internet, and we don't want that, either.
At least, we don't want stratification until the ISPs get their hands out of the cookie jar so that every home, family, and/or user gets a full domain name and the ISPs either provide mail service to that domain or provide the hooks for the domain owner (not renter) to run his or her own server.
And before that, we need better standard OSses. (That means we have to get Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle out of the way. IBM, too, since getting the others out of the way would leave them with no real competitors. Sun being bought by Oracle worries me.)
And we need better standards for e-mail, file sharing, web-site publishing, etc., standards that transparently support simple forms of encryption. Not perfect encryption, but good enough to eliminate casual eavesdropping just by putting an pwn3d bot's interface in promiscuous mode.
That's a lot of work, and we're hiding from it.
Until then, RFC 5233 addresses can help a lot, if used wisely.
How to use the RFC 5233 addresses wisely?
First, assume that your base address will soon be harvested. Thus, your base address of user@isp.example is essentially an alias for user+spam@isp.example . Pre-filter it that way.
Second, set up a suffix for bulk purposes, such as user+bulk_nnnnn@isp.example . "bulk" is okay, but you might prefer something a little more original to yourself, like "klub", or "hanbai". The serial number could also come before or in the middle, like bunnnnnlk, and you might want to use pseudo-random serial numbers instead of just cycling through from bu00000lk to bu99999lk.
Hmm. bu23645lk would be harder to filter than bulk23645 with the simple non-RE filters that are most common.
Third, set up suffixes for mail lists. user+list_nnnnn@isp.example or user+listname@isp@example .
By setting up suffixes, I mean that you outline a system of filter rules.
Fourth through n-1-th, plan out the patterns you'll use for friends, family, church, school, club (hmm. klub. woops.), etc.
All these can be white-list controlled, because you have an idea who and where mail addressed that way should be coming from. Two or three sets of filters for each system, one that white-lists known senders, one that diverts unknown senders to a "probably-junk" folder, and maybe one that (temporarily or permanently) black-holes known offender senders who have latched onto that group of suffixes.
Finally, you have a set of doorbell or knock addresses that you give out at business meetings and other parties: ackr_nnnnn@isp.example . (At this point, I assume that the use of the knock address is obvious?)
Now, I'm going to polish that up a bit and publish it on my blog.
Of course, with a little time, you can actually set up a domain of your own for cheap with a little help from a place like google.com and a place like dyndns.org. (Google will run your mail server for you if you have a web server and a domain name pointed to it. Of course, there's that thing about letting Google spool your mail, but it is possible.)
Sure. Whitelists. (Score:2)
Sub addresses give you a little more control over how your whitelists work. That's the whole point, I think.
In the case of your mom, you give her something like stonewallred+mom7734@yourisp.example. Then you filter that To: address with your mom's sender address for your "mom" folder. And, if you care to talk with your mom's friends sometimes, dump the senders that don't match in a "friendsofmom" folder instead of the black hole.
A little more flexibility.
Your own personal domain, of course, is even more fle
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the thing with cell phones is one of the clauses of 47cfr64.1200 makes it illegal for somebody to telemarket to a cell phone (widely ignored by the scummier set but....)
oh and no there has not been any change in the law to allow this since 47cfr64.1200 has not been changed
(me i would just put my cell on the DNC list)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even if it is, who cares?
The point is, if they send you crap, the best way to deal with it is to not respond in any way visible to the spammer. An opt-out is usually seen as a confirmation that you have a valid address. An extra rule or two on your email filter, and/or an extra entry in your hosts file if you want to be thorough about never doing business with the spammer might help.
Or you could get creative: A few years ago, I was getting a load o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Amusing, but antiquated.
In todays world of botnets and forged SMTP headers, the spammers won't care . You'll just cause a whole bunch of extra junk to be sent to both the truly innocent and they quasi innocent. (You'd be surprised how many servers don't implement SPF, and that's only a decent minimum.)
Telemarketing is a good opt-out but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, the types of emails that you want to opt out from are exactly the ones that do not honor opt-out lists.
Remember when you first tried to ride a bike and your dad pushed you so hard that you fell over and skinned your knees and bloodied your nose? This is like taking that swing at him that you always wanted to. Unfortunately at that age, no matter what you do, he wasn't ever affected by your little attacks and rants.
Re:Telemarketing is a good opt-out but... (Score:5, Informative)
No, I don't. Mainly because my dad wasn't an asshole.
Re:Telemarketing is a good opt-out but... (Score:5, Funny)
Remember when you first tried to ride a bike and your dad pushed you so hard that you fell over and skinned your knees and bloodied your nose?
At least you live up to your name...
Re: (Score:2)
Same goes for the Australian "Do Not Call" list. Religious groups, charities and politicians are exempt. At least a telemarketer might have usefull information on a new product.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"a telemarketer might have usefull information on a new product."
Huh? Telemarketers never have good products. Telemarketers only ever sell products that need to be sold via "the numbers game" (ie. You throw enough mud at a wall and some of it will stick).
The simple answer is to get yourself a domain, then when "bigcorp" asks you for an email address you tell them "bigcorp@yourdomain.com". That makes it real easy to see who's abusing and who to block.
As for a phone...get caller ID. If it's not a number you r
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What if they hide their number from caller id?
Also it's not as simple as simply not answering because they have still disturbed me.
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Same thing - no number, no answer.
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Ignoring the problem doesn't fix it. Just as filtering spam even at 100% does not fix the problem. Also many legitimate phone calls are made with out an ID, so those would also be ignored.
The point is these calls should not be allowed in the first place.
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What legitimate calls are made without an ID?
It's not as if the mystery person wouldn't be revealed if you picked up the handset...
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I find your lack of caller ID disturbing.
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then you read off the anti telemarketer script and add the "no caller id felony" to the list of crimes you submit to the feds fun fact did you know that they are required to give you
1 their name
2 the business they are calling on behalf of
3 a contact number (can't be out of country or a special charges line)
and if you tell them to put you on their do not call list they must honor that request
(and if you get the wording right that DNC "request" goes for any campaign that company runs)
oh and you can record any
Re: (Score:2)
I can't say that I've had that particular experience.
Are you sure you didn't want to hit your Dad for sleeping with your Mum?
Call your congressman and tell them (Score:2)
Advertisers do not respect their targets (Score:5, Insightful)
The disrespect that advertisers pay to their targets works well for them as it is believed that it boosts their viewership and of course the viewers who are most likely to buy and spend are unaware of or don't care that they are being disrespected.
I have little doubt that if people could get sales by knocking on your door and punching you in the face to make a sale, they would do exactly that. They don't care about the harm they cause.
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If consumers where smart individuals marketers would not exist.
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If human beings weren't human ... wait. Nevermind.
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If consumers where smart individuals marketers would not exist.
So because many consumers are idiots, that makes it okay for marketers to annoy us all? As a matter of fact, what does intelligence have to do with any of it? Marketers work half by the power of suggestion, smart people are influenced just like us morons.
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So because many consumers are idiots, that makes it okay for marketers to annoy us all?
I never said that.
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Don't give the MAFIAA any more ideas! They already sue their customers; punching their customers in the face would be less harsh.
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I have little doubt that if people could get sales by knocking on your door and punching you in the face to make a sale, they would do exactly that. They don't care about the harm they cause.
I'd ask a doctor how I can punch people in the face in a way that limits the expected damages as much as possible.
See, I'm an ethical douchebag ;-)
World? (Score:5, Insightful)
For something from the World Privacy Forum it didn't really give much info for people that don't live in the US.
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...as paved the way by the World Series , I believe.
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For something from the World Privacy Forum it didn't really give much info for people that don't live in the US.
My thoughts exactly. In all fairness, their menu has an item "About US" though.
Come to think of it, now I understand how Bush talked about himself as the leader of the free world
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There are people who don't live in the U.S.???
Clearly these people have no privacy concerns; the fact no-one's heard of them provides plenty of privacy.
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Here are a couple of good opt-outs for the UK:
Telephone Preference Service - no more junk phone calls.
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/ [tpsonline.org.uk]
Mail preference service - no more junk mail (snailmail).
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/ [mpsonline.org.uk]
Anyone got any more?
UK TPS doesn't always work - can you help? (Score:2)
(ok non-UK readers should probably stop here though in the spirit of slashdot I should assume everybody in the world lives in my country ;-) )
I've signed up for the Telephone Preference Service - but still get junk calls from overseas telemarketing: anybody know how to get rid of them?
Also I've noticed that telephone numbers get handed on by BT to other people. Not sure how to get round that one. I moved into a house a year ago and the number I was given was changed from the previous owners number to a new
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When I recently moved locally, I took my (BT) number with me - to my new house, which only has cable. I'm also now ex-directory.
I still get phone calls from telemarketers who think I live at my old address, who try to sell me stuff. I also get calls from people who try to get me to move from BT to a cheaper service. They seem nonplussed when I tell them I'm not with BT.
Yes, I'm registered with the TPS, it seems to make little difference.
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There's only one opt-out (Score:5, Informative)
There's only one true opt-out... and it's at the receiver's end.
This is really possible only if I created a unique, unguessable email address each time I gave my email out.
This is not as impossible as you think. For instance, Gmail supports the "+arbitrary_tag" convention. So email sent to:
example+listserv1@gmail.com
example+bank1@gmail.com
example+dad@gmail.com
-- all shows up in the Gmail inbox of 'example@gmail.com'.
If you started getting spam at one of the 'example+...@gmail.com', you can guess who gave your address out.
See: http://alblue.blogspot.com/2007/05/multiple-addresses-with-gmail.html [blogspot.com]
Note, Gmail's convention leaves out the 'unguessable' bit of this idea out - so spammers can easily build rules to harvest real addresses from gmail addresses containing a '+' sign.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I always append the name of the domain to which I am submitting information. For example, an email address submitted to slashdot.org would be of the form:
myname.slashdot.org@mydomain.com
I then set up an alias on my mail server to accept such emails. Interestingly, I have never received SPAM from any address submitted. All my SPAM comes from people who scrape the whois database entry associated with my domain name.
The whois thing is backed up by my wife who used to never receive spam. Then she bought a d
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So what good does it do you to know who sold your address? The horse is out of the barn by the time you start getting spam. They've already sold your address. You were planning to call them up and have them un-ring the bell?
Plus addressing is trivial to evade (as you correctly pointed out). You still get all the spam.
Besides, I find Gmail pretty good at filtering spam without all that plus addressing nonsense.
What is needed is "one-time addresses", or addresses that cease to exist after n messages arrive
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You were planning to call them up
Very likely. They sold my address, so it's quite possible they owe me something for that. I'm also likely to avoid doing business with them in the future.
You still get all the spam.
That's only with Gmail, and only if they've specifically targeted Gmail.
What is needed is "one-time addresses", or addresses that cease to exist after n messages arrive, where n is some low number suitable for you verification email to be mailed and maybe a couple more.
This should be trivial to write, if you really want it.
But I don't think that's a good solution. Why not just tag email sent to that address, and wait until it starts getting spammed? That way, you know who's likely to sell your address, and you have a bunch more spam to train a statis
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Until we can get the ISPs to give each user a domain name for something reasonable (like, free, within the ISP's domain(s), per places like dyndns.com), this helps.
Besides, the horse is already out of the barn. This gives you a little more fine-grained control in your white-list filters.
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So what good does it do you to know who sold your address? The horse is out of the barn by the time you start getting spam. They've already sold your address. You were planning to call them up and have them un-ring the bell?
Good point. I use a similar method when subscribing to some websites. I have an address I know for a fact I only provided to a single website, run by a well-known international company. It has never been used for any other reason, yet now I get pharmacy spam and phishing on it. I don't believe spam found it by accident, it would be too much of a coincidence.
But short of taking said international company to court, what am I gonna do?
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You could name it ... here! ;-)
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> So what good does it do you to know who sold your address?
Yes, you can have a chat with them
More usefully, you can automatically redirect all email from them (and the people they sold the compromised address to) to trash.
> Plus addressing is trivial to evade (as you correctly pointed out). You still get all the spam.
I thought so too, but see excellent idea by user reiisi -- http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1212423&cid=27727057 [slashdot.org]
Essentially, redirect all non-tagged emails (sent to 'example@gmail
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If you disable plus addressing in Gmail if falls into your regular email box. How is that an improvement.
http://www.googletutor.com/2005/06/11/gmail-plus-aliases/ [googletutor.com]
Best you can do is filter it direct to trash, but as stated above, spammers then just drop the plus.
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Of course spammers will just drop the sub address.
That's why you filtering all mail without a sub-address to a folder labeled "probable_spam", or "people_I_havenot_met_and_probably_donot_want_to", or "stinky".
If you didn't start that way, after the filters that already catch all the people who should be sending to that address and sort them out to other folders, filter everything else to the stinky folder. (Ergo, use a white list before the black list.)
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That's why you filtering all mail without a sub-address to a folder labeled "probable_spam"
Excellent idea!!!
So just make sure you never give our untagged addresses, redirect untagged mail to trash, and you've got unguessable, unique-per-partner addresses in Gmail!!!
If this practise picks up, spammers will wisen up and start automatically use random tags with gmail ('example+random_tag@gmail.com' - hopefully whitelisting services can kick in by then to counteract it (e.g., my Iphone autogenerates an ad
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Because no spammer would ever know this trick!
dbuzzard+slashdot@gmail.com can you guess my gmail address?
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I was actually pointing out a flaw in the system. It seems to me the only real solution is to just have good filtering systems in place.
Another way is to have a catch-all domain and when you register use addresses like slashdot@catch-all.com, youtube@catch-all.com which you can then block as needed. However this quickly becomes a nightmare when somebody runs a dictionary attack on your domain, so you disable catch-all then you can't remember what addresses are actually in use ect and it turns to shit.
Spam f
Think of it as a little more to filter with. (Score:2)
Tags that are part of the address they're sending to you at are one more tool in your toolbox of filters.
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You assume the spammers know the trick.
And arrange your filters on your address appropriately.
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Have a look at spamgourmet.com [spamgourmet.com]. That page explains it better than I can, but I'll try to give a quick summary.
In 'simple' mode, you have a username at spamgourmet which is assigned to a particular external address. Each time you sign up for a new thing, you create a custom address which indicates how many emails you wish to receive, e.g. keyword.7.user@spamgourmet.com. You will never see any more email sent to that address beyond that limit (an advanced customisation is available to reset the counter).
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Works for me with spamgourmet.com. Every address I give out has a maximum of 5 mails to be handled by senders not white-listed.
I've given my address, in this way, to porn sites and to this day I receive one spam mail per half a year on average.
Which reminds me: Don't open an account on brandibelle.com. They sell addresses ;).
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For instance, Gmail supports the "+arbitrary_tag" convention. So email sent to:
example+listserv1@gmail.com
example+bank1@gmail.com
example+dad@gmail.com
-- all shows up in the Gmail inbox of 'example@gmail.com'.
That, also, only works for companies that accept a + sign in the local part. Amex, for example, don't. As do(n't) a wide variety of regex's that people swipe off the net to use in their websites.
Good reason not to use those, then. (Score:2)
It's not just google's idea, it's a full-fledged RFC since a year and several months back.
Until ISPs at least start giving their users domains at a reasonable cost, it's a very useful tool. So any ISP stripping the sub-address is just being a pig and contributing to the mess.
Old fashioned opt out (Score:4, Interesting)
I would get at least 2 catalogs a week from these people despite letters and phone calls asking them to stop. Well, After that didn't work, I collected all the catalogs over a 3 month period, stuffed them in a large envelope and sent them back to the company postage due. I never received another catalog from them.
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Oblig. [bash.org]
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Another way is to register a company that performs "Marketing Quality Control Services". Send them a letter thanking them for using your service and informing them that by sending marketing material to your address they agreeing to your terms of service and rates.
Next time the catalog comes in, send them an honest opinion of the marketing material along with a bill for $1,000. Repeat for each catalog, adding a $500 late fee for everytime a bill is not paid before the 1st of the month billing cycle.
They will
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In the UK you can sign up for the Mail Preference Service (http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/) which actually does seem to work. It won't prevent all spam coming through your letter box but it definitely cuts it down a lot.
Another trick I found to avoid marketing phone calls is to ask the caller to prove their identity. My bank used to call me at least once a week but stopped pretty quickly once I started asking them to prove their identity before I was willing to talk to them. The callers seemed quite surpr
Easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
An easy solution for me is to change my phone number often. Problem solved.
By 'World Privacy' you mean 'American Privacy'? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Shhhh, don't tell them there's more to the world. They might want to visit us.
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What annoys me (Score:3, Interesting)
...are websites when you register have the "subscribe me to your stupid newsletter" option checked by default. Get something wrong on the reg form? We'll re-populate all the info, but we'll re-check the subscribe option, despite you unchecking it. Assholes.
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Of course, the "accept" button IS visible already on the page.
FERPA and multiple levels of opt-out (Score:3, Insightful)
Most schools interpret/implement FERPA-related opt-outs in such a way that if a student's information is restricted, teachers are not allowed to post that student's photo on the web, or in the yearbook, or in the school newspaper, etc.
In the school district I work for, we are not allowed to take a child's picture if they have opted out. That means that, at every event I go take photos at, I have to find 'homeroom' teachers for each student and verify whether any students have opted out, then take photos around them. Before I post pictures, I have to verify again. Before I give those photos to the teachers and students for their own use and enjoyment, I have to remove photos of those students.
Privacy is good, privacy is important. I think FERPA-type rules are very important because I've seen various employers do some horrible things with employee and customer data without realizing the problem. Implementations at the school level definitely need to be improved -- I'm tired of seeing how bad kids feel about being the only person in their class not in pictures.
The solution is easy: allow parents to opt-out of sharing textual directory information with anyone outside the district, but still allow student participation in district activities, teacher web postings on official sites, and district photography.
If your school or your child's school only provides all or nothing opt-out, you need to spend 30 minutes one night and go voice your opinion to the school board at a school board meeting. The board should appreciate your input and it's the only way to really be heard -- contacting anyone else and your question will just get buried by someone who doesn't want to do the extra work to make it happen. (read: my boss)
Reality Check (Score:5, Interesting)
Let us break this down in a way that I suspect all "geeks" and whatnot can understand. Do you spend much time investigating the events/items that meet your expectations of "normal"? Or are you more interested in the "odd" result? How much time do you really dedicate to fixing a Windows glitch vs how many time you just write it off to "Yeah, typical Windows behavior". Compare that to how many times you investigate into a *nix type glitch where the norm is to behave in exactly the same fashion every time unless some odd and relatively easily discoverable condition occurs...
The very act of struggling so hard to make yourself completely anonymous and "off the radar" makes you a high visibility target. I often see people go on about how they refuse to use discount cards and so on... WHY?! Seriously...is your hot dog and milk buying patterns so fucking important to your privacy? If you are really buying something "suspect" or "interesting" then don't use the card. Fuck, I actively check costs and ingredients in shit because I am concerned about what I am paying and what I am eating. What better way to "vote with your dollar" then to send a nice "I am not buying this fucking garbage" message every time you check out? I don't buy shit with aspertame, I don't buy shit with partially hydroginated bullshit (did you know they can legally claim 0 trans fat by making it less than
Put yourself in "their" shoes. Who stands out more...the guy trying to mind his own business in the large crowd of other people who are generally just trying to mind their own business or the guy who is sneaking with sticks strapped on all over trying to look like a shrub. "They" employ a great number of very intelligent people more interested in solving puzzles than being "bad guys" to weed out those strange responses. It is an interesting challenge in human behavior.
Seriously...hiding every aspect of your life makes you more suspect. I think the notion of making every aspect of your life public voluntarily through myspace/facebook/twitter/whatever is absolutely moronic in the extreme, but trying to hide every aspect is the same thing. Unless you are looking for pedophilia, necrophilia, beastiality, or some other pretty universally questionable porn...you probably stand out more as "I don't ever look at porn" rather than "I like *XYZ* kind of porn".
The biggest violators of "privacy" are in it to make money, not to be evil dictators. They are going to dig into your information whether you like it or not. Provide them information that sends a clear message of what you want and they will most certainly meet your demands to continue making money! Every time some telemarketer calls me with some survey I am HAPPY to spend 5-10 minutes of my day answering their questions. You cannot even begin to imagine my amusement when they start asking about how much TV I
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I want them to leave me the fuck alone and respect my privacy, regardless of a "prior business relationship". There's no marketing info they can be given that shows that to them better than nothing at all.
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I often see people go on about how they refuse to use discount cards and so on... WHY?!
I used to have club cards for the main supermarkets in the UK, but all the vouchers I got from them were trying to get me to try stuff I didn't buy. Why bother with a discount card if you don't get discounts out of it?
What better way to "vote with your dollar" then to send a nice "I am not buying this fucking garbage" message every time you check out?
What on Earth makes you think that using a club card sends a stronger message than simply not buying the stuff in the first place?
I'm rather puzzled by your suggestion that not using club cards makes you stand out, too. If I don't use a club card they don't know who I am, so what does it matte
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2. Feel free to stop buying food. You need to buy quite a bit of stuff for day to day use and it isn't really an option of buy it/don't buy it. Now, you could not shop at that store, but why not save a few cents and tell the retailer what products you want on the shelf.
3. I don't think not using a card m
_World's_ Privacy Forum??? (Score:2)
The rest of the world doesn't want to have your privacy issues, U.S. - can you keep it national please? After all, the list is National List this, and National Register that...
KTHXBAI
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The rest of the world has opted out of the World Privacy Forum already.
quit buying stuff (Score:2)
If we all just stop buying things maybe they will leave us alone. Aggressive advertisers isn't a problem in a communist society, we should dump this capitalism stuff for that reason alone.
world privacy forum? (Score:2, Insightful)
For a supposedly worldwide organisation they're suspiciously specific to a single "country".
That should be the way it works. (Score:3, Interesting)
It really should be the way the internet works, but too many people during the boom days thought that setting up your own server was too hard. And too many ISPs were willing to make money catering to that attitude.
The ISPs don't want to help people get their own domains now because they think they'll lose a revenue stream.
That's the reason RFC 5233 addressing can be useful, if you do it right.
But running your own domain does work best, and would work even better if everyone did.