Australians Able To Opt Out of Targeted Ads, Erase Their Data Under Proposed Privacy Reforms (theguardian.com) 37
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Australians would gain greater control of their personal information, including the ability to opt out of targeted ads, erase their data and sue for serious breaches of privacy, under a proposal to the Albanese government. On Thursday the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, will release a review conducted by his department into modernization of the Privacy Act which calls to expand its remit to small businesses and add new safeguards for use of data by political parties. Although the document is not government policy, in January Dreyfus told Guardian Australia the right to sue for privacy breaches and European-style reforms such as the right to be forgotten would be considered for the next tranche of legislation.
In 2022 the Albanese government passed a bill increasing penalties for companies that fail to protect customer data in the wake of major data breaches at telco Optus and health insurer Medibank. A summary section of the review, seen in advance by Guardian Australia, called for the exemption from the Privacy Act for small businesses to be abolished, citing community expectations that if small businesses are provided personal information "they will keep it safe." But first the government should conduct an "impact analysis" and give support to ensure small businesses can comply with their obligations, it said. Despite calls to abolish the privacy exemptions for political parties, the review proposed only increased safeguards, such as for parties to publish a privacy policy and not target voters "based on sensitive information or traits" except for political opinions, membership of a political association, or a trade union. "There was very strong support for increasing the protections for personal information under the Act," the review said.
The review called for new limits on targeted advertising, including to prohibit targeting to a child except where it is in their "best interests," and to provide others with an "an unqualified right to opt-out" of targeted ads and their information being disclosed for direct marketing purposes. The Privacy Act should include a new overarching requirement that "the collection, use and disclosure of personal information must be fair and reasonable in the circumstances," it said. The review also proposes individual rights modeled on the European Union's general data protection regulation including to: object to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information; request erasure of personal information; and to de-index online search results containing sensitive information, excessive detail or "inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading" information. The review suggested that consent should be required for collection and use of precise geolocation tracking data. The government should "consult on introducing a criminal offense for malicious re-identification of de-identified information where there is an intention to harm another or obtain an illegitimate benefit," it said. The report said that individuals wanted "more agency to seek redress for interferences with their privacy," proposing the creation of a right to sue for "serious invasions of privacy," which was also a recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2014.
In 2022 the Albanese government passed a bill increasing penalties for companies that fail to protect customer data in the wake of major data breaches at telco Optus and health insurer Medibank. A summary section of the review, seen in advance by Guardian Australia, called for the exemption from the Privacy Act for small businesses to be abolished, citing community expectations that if small businesses are provided personal information "they will keep it safe." But first the government should conduct an "impact analysis" and give support to ensure small businesses can comply with their obligations, it said. Despite calls to abolish the privacy exemptions for political parties, the review proposed only increased safeguards, such as for parties to publish a privacy policy and not target voters "based on sensitive information or traits" except for political opinions, membership of a political association, or a trade union. "There was very strong support for increasing the protections for personal information under the Act," the review said.
The review called for new limits on targeted advertising, including to prohibit targeting to a child except where it is in their "best interests," and to provide others with an "an unqualified right to opt-out" of targeted ads and their information being disclosed for direct marketing purposes. The Privacy Act should include a new overarching requirement that "the collection, use and disclosure of personal information must be fair and reasonable in the circumstances," it said. The review also proposes individual rights modeled on the European Union's general data protection regulation including to: object to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information; request erasure of personal information; and to de-index online search results containing sensitive information, excessive detail or "inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading" information. The review suggested that consent should be required for collection and use of precise geolocation tracking data. The government should "consult on introducing a criminal offense for malicious re-identification of de-identified information where there is an intention to harm another or obtain an illegitimate benefit," it said. The report said that individuals wanted "more agency to seek redress for interferences with their privacy," proposing the creation of a right to sue for "serious invasions of privacy," which was also a recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2014.
Opting out of targeted ads isn't global? (Score:2)
Serious question: As a citizen of EU member state, pretty much every service with targeted ads offers me an option to turn off targeted ads. This always comes with scary warning of "you'll still get shown same amount of ads, they'll just be less interesting to you", as if they're making me a favor by allowing marketing professionals to exploit my personal interests and weaknesses to get me to buy things I otherwise wouldn't buy.
But I never thought that this option wasn't offered elsewhere? Isn't the option
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Re:Opting out of targeted ads isn't global? (Score:4, Informative)
So you don't have this option when you log into accounts.google.com, scroll down to "personalized ads" and turn personalized ads off?
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To correct my previous post, the correct path for me is to log into accounts.google.com, then click "privacy and personalization", scroll down to "personalized ads" and then them off.
I can also turn off personalized results in search and delete account and all data related to it.
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The whole opt-in vs opt-out discussion is a red herring. The option is a placebo. You are still being targeted, just via a different dataset that looks remarkably similar to what they would otherwise yank out of cookies and primary database.
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I know for a fact that I'm not meaningfully targeted for ads, because I get generic shit tier ads in mobile youtube where my vanced no longer blocks all advertisements due to lack of updates.
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You can also disable the advertising ID in Android via the settings menu.
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Actually, I was trying to work out how it affects News Corp. They always seem to be the ones that politicians will roll over for.
Now I see it, whatever hurts Googlbet, benefits News Corp.
Re: Opting out of targeted ads isn't global? (Score:4, Informative)
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Labor are finally starting to realise what everyone else worked out a while , that NewsCorp only has influence in australia via living rent free in politicians heads.
Nobody reads newspapers anymore, and because Australia doesnt really *do* Cable, Sky News has viewership numbers somewhat akin to the american loopy evangalist shows that rent out the 3am spots on the commercial tv channels. Its still "The Sattelite TV channel they have at the Pub to show horse races that gets muted or turned off once the shou
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I marvel at their flexibility!
Of course, we all know that executives at lots of companies are proficient at fellating themselves. So maybe this wouldn't be much harder.
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Businesses rely on making it hard to opt out, hard to find where the opt out option is, or simply give no option.
So go for it Australia, and make sure the fines are a percentage of global turn-over
Re: Opting out of targeted ads isn't global? (Score:2)
Things should ALWAYS be you have to opt-in.
Yes. How is that not enforced anywhere? That would solve so many issues.
Same with the cookie law here in EU: "I agree" is bold on first visit to any website, but "No thanks" or "Only essential" is often hidden couple clicks away. WTF. They got it backwards.
Gotta give that to /., it's one of the rare sites that has the "no thanks" on first visit in plain sight. I like.
Also, without reading the details, and considering the missed opportunity to make targeting opt-in,
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Oh it's even worse. Most major sites now claim "legitimate interest" to continue tracking you, that will not be disabled with "I reject" button.
You actually need to open details and decline "legitimate interest" tracking on each subject and then click "save".
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But I never thought that this option wasn't offered elsewhere?
It's not mandated (yet) in the USA, but some sites/platforms do offer the option to disable targeted advertising. IMHO, if I have to see ads, my preference leans slightly towards the targeted kind. At the very least, give me ads that take my income into account so I'm not constantly being reminded of all the things I can't afford.
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IMHO, if I have to see ads, my preference leans slightly towards the targeted kind.
I continue to be amazed at the number of people here who, on a site targeted at tech professionals, put up with ads as though they don't have a choice in the matter. With a script blocker and an ad blocker, pretty much the only ads I ever see are in Google searches. Heck, even on YouTube the only advertising I see is what's baked into the video itself.
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From what I understand, the main problem is mobile. It's genuinely technically difficult to block ads within apps. Sure, basic ads can be blocked with likes of blokada. Which you need to know where to get, allow "oh my god so dangerous" sideloading and configure it so it doesn't accidentally block things you actually need.
But then there are first party apps like youtube, instagram, etc, where blokada can do very little.
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I continue to be amazed at the number of people here who, on a site targeted at tech professionals, put up with ads as though they don't have a choice in the matter.
Mobile apps and streaming services with an ad-supported subscription tier make it rather difficult to completely avoid ads. Yeah, sometimes I'll just snag what I want to watch from the high seas and watch it through Kodi just to avoid the ads, but also sometimes I'm just lazy.
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So I went around looking now that I'm not being an insomniac, and it's been available for everyone for a while. In fact, google is pushing more options to opt out of specific things rather than entire personalization, as well as enabling you to keep personalized searches while opting out of personalized ads:
https://blog.google/technology... [blog.google]
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Serious question: Isn't the option to opt out of targeted advertising global?
Nope. It's just Europe.
(and soon to be Australia by the sound of things)
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Nope, it's global. I went and read on this topic today.
https://blog.google/technology... [blog.google]
Not only has it been global for a while, but google has been rolling out global changes to allow users to keep personalized search even with personalized ads disabled.
DO IT!! (Score:2)
You got one shot. Will you take it, or choke?
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They'll choke, of course. The alleged legislation hasn't even been presented yet, let alone voted on by the Senate or the House of Representatives. By the time it even gets to that point it will have been watered down by corporate interests and be a do-nothing bill.
And all of this "concern" is over data that the Federal government required all of the banks, insurance and telcos to collect and report to them. The whole program was a complete screwup from the beginning, having no controls over lifetime of dat
Nice idea, but .. (Score:3)
There's no point creating laws you don't enforce them and our history with laws like this is that our conservative/pro-corporate "liberal" party strips funding from any department whose job it is to hold businesses accountable. It also doesn't help that consumer law is a mixed state and federal responsibility. Our consumer affairs and small claims courts are so hopelessly understaffed and backlogged that they are essentially paralyzed when it comes to holding big business accountable for anything (so working as intended basically).
On top of that the penalties are pitiful - so low as to be meaningless to multinationals. The largest fine ever handed out for a consumer law violation was about $125M which is a couple of weeks of profit for the entity involved (Volkswagen for the "Dieselgate" emissions scandal). The second-largest was $50M for our largest Telco (Telstra). These are not the kinds of penalties that are going to discourage (re)offenders.
What happens is Australia stays in Australia.... (Score:2)
Anthony Albanese government... (Score:2)
I seriously had to check what the heck the "Albanese" govenment had to do with australia... It seems it is like saying "Regan government" or "Clinton government", as in the surname of the Prime minister.
"Albanes" in my language means Albanian and Albanese is also a common misspelled/mistranslation in English.
Welll, now I now.
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I seriously had to check what the heck the "Albanese" govenment had to do with australia... It seems it is like saying "Regan government" or "Clinton government", as in the surname of the Prime minister. "Albanes" in my language means Albanian and Albanese is also a common misspelled/mistranslation in English. Welll, now I now.
That puzzled me for a few seconds too, and I'm Canadian and have Aussie friends. Just an odd coincidence.
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Newspapers and other media have been doing shit like this for decades.
They want politics to be about personalities, not about policies so that the idiot masses vote for the person they think is more "likeable" (or "stronger" or more charismatic or whatever) rather than vote for the party with policies that benefit the people rather than corporations.
They never want people thinking about government policy or laws or regulations, they want people thinking only about celebrity bullshit. They want people thinki
Privacy (Score:2)
A better step would be to prevent any organization that collects personal information from passing that on to any other organization.
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A better step would be to prevent any organization that collects personal information from passing that on to any other organization.
Better still would be to prevent any organization from collecting any information that isn't strictly required for purposes of personal health or personal finance.
It's a pity the data will have been skimmed.. (Score:1)
By ASIO and probably the NSA, like they did to the traffic of Google between their data centers.
All this will mean is that commercial entities will remove THEIR COPY of the data they collected.
We need to stop this collection happening in the first place.