US Retailers Rush To Comply With California Privacy Law (reuters.com) 54
U.S. retailers including Walmart will add "Do Not Sell My Info" links to their websites and signage in stores starting Jan. 1, allowing California shoppers to understand for the first time what personal and other data the retailers collect, Reuters reported Tuesday citing sources. From the report: Others like Home Depot will allow shoppers not just in California but around the country to access such information online. At its California stores, Home Depot will add signs, offer QR codes so shoppers can look up information using their mobile devices and train store employees to answer questions. Large U.S retailers are rushing to comply with a new law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which becomes effective at the start of 2020 and is one of the most significant regulations overseeing the data collection practices of U.S. companies. It lets shoppers opt out of allowing retailers and other companies to sell personal data to third parties. In addition to retailers, the law affects a broad swath of firms including social media platforms such as Facebook and Alphabet's Google, advertisers, app developers, mobile service providers and streaming TV services, and is likely to overhaul the way companies benefit from the use of personal information.
Pay cash when and where you can... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pay cash when and where you can... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing. I just want to do my part to keep the cash economy going, so that people will continue to have the ability to cheat the system without being caught. People should be able to buy things like:
* Restaurant meals/events while cheating on one's spouse. Travel off the record so an abusive spouse doesn't know about it.
* Construction materials for projects done without a permit
* Kids being able to buy things without their parents micromanaging every move
* Drugs and other politically incorrect substances
A "cash-free" economy is a privacy-free economy and will allow meddling scum in banks and government agencies absolute control. Cash is the one form of payment that's anonymous and can't easily be "turned off."
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Re: Pay cash when and where you can... (Score:2)
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[not the original AC, but...]
I see it like this: if criminals have a hard time, then non-criminals will have an even harder time. You can't protect anyone's rights if you can't even protect a criminal. I guess I think of criminals as people who are willing to go out of their way and endure inconveniences to get what they want, whereas non-criminals are less patient. e.g. it's simpler and easier to get a job than to be a highwayman (though I suppose that's a matter of circumstance, but in the First World it
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Unfortunately, often times the people defining the word "crime" aren't the people living in the real world with everyone else. You are fortunate if you live in a place where every single thing that is defined as a crime is also something you would not do. There's a book titled "3 felonies a day" about how Americans unknowingly commit felony crimes all the time.
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Re:Pay cash when and where you can... (Score:5, Interesting)
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As far as rewards ...
(1) A lot of places give cash discounts
(2) Rewards aren't "free." They're basically a small form of compensation for your loss of privacy (aka sale of marketing data by the bankpigs running the credit card corepiration).
As someone who works in a field where I see credit card fees, those rewards can be greater than my fees. I know Discover's 5% cash back that they do on different types of purchases each quarter comes in significantly higher than (nearly double) what Discover charges my company. As such, I couldn't even dream of doing a cash discount that would be better than their cashback bonus when that's going on. But, for the most part, cash discounts are where it's at.
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What the fuck are you buying that you are afraid people will trace back to you? Jesus Christ dude, if you're into illegal shit, use BTC like everyone else. Otherwise, use your CC and enjoy those swwweeeet, sweet cash back rewards.
Translation:
What the fuck are you buying that you are afraid I, the cop, will trace back to you? Jesus Christ dude, if you're into illegal shit, use BTC like everyone else, so we can have a record of who you are in order to arrest you with. Otherwise, use your CC and enjoy that swwweeeet, sweet jail time.
If you suggest people use a payment medium in which literally every transaction ever is logged, in order to hide their identity, on Slashdot, you're probably either a cop or an idiot, and you should probably hand in your geek card.
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More likely they're a troll, whether paid or unpaid. Nobody really believes that shit.
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like a free human being ... keep your privacy. If you pay with a card, you're supporting the privacy-destruction machine. Cash is anonymous and private -- all other forms of payment are not.
This law is just going to give people the delusion that they will be safe giving away personal info. However, when some company is caught, what do they get -- a fine. So all this does is give them incentive to not get caught. Also, there is the "oooppppsss there was a(nother) leak" potential.
It was a pain to setup, but thanks to online payment processors, I have a few identities that I use to make purchases online. All my deliveries go to an anon mailbox service that I signed up for with a fake id made bac
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The War on Cash is exactly why free human beings should do their part and use cash as much as possible, for as long as possible -- push back, don't give them the excuse that "no one uses cash anymore, so we can phase it out."
Cash isn't as compromised as you think -- even if ATMs record serial numbers, all it takes is a few cash exchanges where you get change to make the task of tracing purchases a lot of work. Probably not impossible, but hours to days of work compared to spending a minute looking up credi
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Whatever, I get points with my cards. Free money is free money, I don't care if my credit card company sees who I do business with.
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Which is not so great unless you're in a country with a relatively low crime rate like Japan, in my opinion.
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I think your are better off paying with cards for the mundane things that everybody buys, and paying cash for things that you don't want to be targeted for.
If everybody pays with cash and the data market dries up, then the boffins will find some other way (harder to avoid) to track what you do. Keep em happy for now.
Let's hear the trolls yell about this... (Score:2)
... just like they were ranting against other California laws in the contractor law article earlier. After all, Libertarian fools think it's the company's data, they went to the trouble of collecting it, and they should be able to do what they want to with it, right?
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An individual's privacy is just as important as their right to choose what jobs they're allowed to take.
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Lolbertarians are fucking idiots. Want your Galt's Gulch? It exists, its called Somalia.
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Ugg, Slashdot mods and metamodders. Stop this bullshit. An AC post calling anyone "fucking idiots" should not be modded up as "Insightful" regardless of who they are insulting. This is an AC troll and should be modded as such if you are even going to waste points on it at all.
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Language aside the second point stands.
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After all, Libertarian fools think it's the company's data, they went to the trouble of collecting it, and they should be able to do what they want to with it, right?
Ahh, the libertarian strawman shows up again on Slashdot. Hardly an article goes by where someone doesn't post "...libertarian fools believe X..." then attack whey X is wrong without even knowing what the libertarian position is on the topic. Libertarians strong privacy advocates. The libertarian party has endorsed actions by organizations like epic.org.
But like you, I didn't know their position on *corporate* data collection, so I looked it up.
What I did not find is anything that corroborates your state
Put into law over a year ago (Score:3)
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If there's a "rush", it's because people weren't paying attention.
Or because, as is nearly always the case, Hofstadter's Law bit them on the butt. If you're not familiar with Hofstadter's Law, it says "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." This is particularly true of software projects, especially those intended to implement compliance to apparently-simple regulatory requirements.
I work in the "Big Data" industry (Score:1)
We have known this was coming for a long time. Established plans for how we'll address it. Created the solutions for it. Tested it. Had legal vet it. Rolled it out. Any CTO rushing to address it now should be investigated for negligence.
Re:Why not just force an accept click? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will this really work? (Score:2)
I doubt it. :(