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Government Privacy Technology

'Delete Act' Seeks To Give Californians More Power To Block Data Tracking (kqed.org) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the power-to-the-people dept.
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee in Sacramento is expected to consider a new bill called "The Delete Act," or SB 362, which aims to give Californians the power to block data tracking. "The onus is on individuals to try to protect their data from an estimated 2,000-4,000 data brokers worldwide -- many of which have no other relationship with consumers beyond the trade in their data," reports KQED. "This lucrative trade is also known as surveillance advertising, or the 'ad tech' industry." From the report: EFF supports The Delete Act, or SB 362, by state Sen. Josh Becker, who represents the Peninsula. "I want to be able to hit that delete button and delete my personal information, delete the ability of these data brokers to collect and track me," said Becker, of his second attempt to pass such a bill. "These data brokers are out there analyzing, selling personal information. You know, this is a way to put a stop to it."

Tracy Rosenberg, a data privacy advocate with Media Alliance and Oakland Privacy, said she anticipates a lot of pushback from tech companies, because "making [the Delete Act] workable probably destroys their businesses as most of us, by now, don't really see the value in the aggregating and sale of our data on the open market by third parties... "It is a pretty basic-level philosophical battle about whether your personal information is, in fact, yours to share as you see appropriate and when it is personally beneficial to you, or whether it is property to be bought and sold," Rosenberg said.
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'Delete Act' Seeks To Give Californians More Power To Block Data Tracking More

'Delete Act' Seeks To Give Californians More Power To Block Data Tracking

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  • Fact (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Monday April 24, 2023 @11:06PM (#63474344) Homepage

    Simple fact: Most of that data was stolen under false pretenses and/or without the person's knowledge.

    Would we allow them to go around looking in people's windows? It's not much different.

    • Re:Fact (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Canberra1 ( 3475749 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @03:14AM (#63474578)
      Peeping Toms. An old expression of people sneaking around, looking through bedroom windows for jolly's. Data Collection or Ad tech is just as vile and offensive as a peeping tom, only that lobbyists have kept it legal - for now. Makes it wonder about the politicians who like 'behind your back' duplicity.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Peeping Toms. An old expression of people sneaking around, looking through bedroom windows for jolly's. Data Collection or Ad tech is just as vile and offensive as a peeping tom, only that lobbyists have kept it legal - for now. Makes it wonder about the politicians who like 'behind your back' duplicity.

        Posting anonymously because I've moderated. Your garden variety peeping tom is less vile and offensive than online data collection and advertising IMHO. If the peeping tom took photographs through bedroom windows, and then sold them to the highest bidder, that would be on par with online data collection and advertising.

        • What actual harm have you personally suffered because someone else has your data?

          I hear these arguments about privacy all the time, but having grown up in a small town, where everybody knows what everyone else is doing, have yet to find the problem. Generally speaking, privacy was necessary in oppressive regimes to prevent oppression of minorities, but when we live in a society which explicitly gives preference to minorities, it's hard to justify. Generally speaking, for most of human existence, privac

          • What actual harm have you personally suffered because someone else has your data?

            I hear these arguments about privacy all the time, but having grown up in a small town, where everybody knows what everyone else is doing, have yet to find the problem....Again, how have you been harmed by the people who have your data?

            The thing is that everyone-knowing-everyone in a one-horse town is a different sort of lack-of-privacy. First, there's a sort of mutually-assured-destruction, if you will. If Alice knows Bob and Carol are having marital issues, she's unlikely to exploit that due to the fact that Bob and Carol know that Alice is having an affair herself.

            On the upswing, Phil the shopkeep knowing I like tangelos means that he'll be on the lookout for them, possibly ordering them for me specifically, even if nobody else buys th

            • So, basically your objection is that your data would be misused against you by an unscrupulous corporation or government. It would seem the problem is the same as it has always been since the industrial revolution (union busting), the American Revolution (patriot busting), or even Sodom and Gomorrah (religion busting).

              The solution to this problem lies in the Bible, not in the data police. Even if they know everything about you, companies should behave in ethical and moral ways - and I understand that i

              • So, basically your objection is that your data would be misused against you by an unscrupulous corporation or government....It is already the case that an individual cannot access many markets (including the labor market and housing loan market) without companies already knowing a great deal about you. If you succeeded in scrubbing your name and information from every corporate and government database, you would not only be unqualified for a mortgage or lease, but you couldn't even be employed.

                I would submit that this is fairly close to a reductio ad absurdum argument. I very much understand that an employer is going to want to know that I did, in fact, work for the companies I listed on my resume, and that I don't have a criminal record. I very much understand that Bank of America is going to want to know that I have a track record of paying my bills before they loan me half a million dollars to buy a house.

                What you're suggesting is that becoming a ghost of a person by erasing all the database r

    • Totally true. Usually stolen in tiny tiny bits by your friend.

      When I give my phone number to my friends, I did NOT give them permission to upload it to Facebook. But they did.

      Am I going to dump them because of that tiny theft? No, of course not. I won't even complain.

      But when all of them do it, despite me never joining Facebook, facebook now has an immense amount of information about me. THe fact that I have a bunch of friends of the same age that went to X high school is captured. Same with college.

  • Digitally speaking I would say that your data is an extension of your person. You should decide IF you want to share data and what your compensation should be in a competitive market.
    I use Brave browser because of the ideal it represents. I have my qualms but do make money on it and can not opt in to ads in the first place. Takes care of most trackers.
    There is also the ownership issue. My computer is my domain. If you are not invited, then don't pull a breaking and entering to steal from me. Such bro

    • Careful, in this climate, this may well mean that no, you can't do with your data any more what you want to do with it than you can do with your person.

    • This is not true.

      A person has no right to control information about them, only the control over whether they disclose information about them, to hold otherwise it so contradict several hundreds of years of 1st Amendment guarantees.

    • Yeah, well, if people knew that the price of cutting off data was the disappearance of free google and other such things someday, I don't think they would be so enthusiastic.

      • Yeah, well, if people knew that the price of cutting off data was the disappearance of free google and other such things someday, I don't think they would be so enthusiastic.

        Google would get along just fine with non-targeted ads.

        • Maybe. I'm all for them trying another business model, but I don't see myself ponying up to pay for search and email anytime soon. I'll just switch providers until I run out of them. As would everyone else. Then finally, if we all ran out of the free ones, accepting crappier and crappier alternatives along the way, we'd pay for it too. Eventually.
  • Time to pay for services with money again, instead of with our privacy. "Free" services like email and search engines would go extinct without getting that pay from somewhere, but I'd happily pay some coins for that privacy.

    • I'd happily pay some coins for that privacy.

      Not me. I actually like seeing ads for power tools instead of tampons.

      The way I see it, the more advertisers know about me, the better.

      It surprises me how many people object to having services automatically tuned to their preferences.

      • Not me. I actually like seeing ads for power tools instead of tampons.

        Fine, but:
        a) Don't try to speak for everybody
        b) Campaign for "opt-in" if that's what you want.

      • To each their own. Perhaps an accomodation to the law that allows "free tiers" of a service that allows ad-supported services, as long as they offer a reasonably priced paid-tier. That's practically impossible to legally define, but an ideal compromise, I believe.

      • Re:Good idea, but huge economic impact (Score:4, Funny)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @03:11AM (#63474572)

        Tampons are very useful when you ever go hiking. You have perfect tinder in a waterproof wrapping and in a compact form, and to boot, it's fairly cheap.

        • LOL, true enough, I pack 'feminine hygiene products' with me when I go backpacking. In the first aid kit - I guess they are good at absorbing blood.

          • I would not recommend using them for that purpose, doctors HATE removing that material from the wound. No matter how sterile it is at packing, putting it into a dirty wound is an invitation for an infection. There are way, way better ways to dress a wound.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's when your wife notices that you keep getting ads for Grinder and Ashly Maddison that it becomes a problem.

        Regardless of your preferences, people should have a choice. I prefer generic ads, and block most of them anyway.

      • Re:Good idea, but huge economic impact (Score:4, Insightful)

        by IDemand2HaveSumBooze ( 9493913 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @07:51AM (#63474932)

        Not me. I actually like seeing ads for power tools instead of tampons.

        I can't really say I 'enjoy' seeing any ads, tolerate is the most positive word I'd use. These things are at the very best a price you pay for not having to pay for stuff. Except if youtube is trying to put more ads in a video than the actual length of the video, or a site tries to push an embedded video ad for something scummy into my field of view when I'm trying to read stuff, that's when I start using adblockers.

        From what I've seen though, it doesn't look like all that tracking data is making the ads any smarter. I still see ads of the type 'so you've recently bought a washing machine, do you want to buy another one? You know, for your washing machine collection?' Generally, if I need to buy something, I'll do some research of what's available, find the product that seems to suit my needs the most, then search for that product and buy it. I know it's just personal experience, but I don't know anyone else who bought stuff after clicking on an ad for it on a random website. It doesn't feel like the people selling products benefit from all that tracking data all that much, it seems to be mostly for the benefit of the companies collecting that data.

        All of these are relatively minor annoyances though. The real danger of having all that personal information in the hands of the advertisers is security. We've seen time and time again that companies colleting data have very bad security and are often hacked. This is unsurprising, the worst thing for them from a breach is a slap on the wrist fine, which may cost less than implementing even the most basic security. I'm assuming that your personal information ending up in the hands of hackers is not something you want.

  • "Evil data brokers" make it possible for a lot of other services to exist. Perhaps we don't really 'need' these services, but I'd put dollars to donuts that the same kind of people who can't sleep at night thinking about how the data brokers are selling bits of their future to the highest bidder are the same ones that will bitch when you can't use a search engine without paying for it someday.

    • "Evil data brokers" make it possible for a lot of other services to exist...are the same ones that will bitch when you can't use a search engine without paying for it someday.

      See, I disagree with this. Targeted ads are nothing new, it's individually targeted ads that are new. Before pervasive data collection, it was possible to target ads based on content. Home remodeling shows are a layup for Home Depot ads, teen soaps are solid contenders for trendy clothing companies and mobile apps, children's shows get toys and apps, sports broadcasts gets trucks and beer, and Fox News gets sketchy gold and Medicare ads.

      Now, will that get *everyone*, of course not...but it's reasonably safe

  • "I want to be able to hit that delete button and delete my personal information, delete the ability of these data brokers to collect and track me," said Becker, of his second attempt to pass such a bill. "These data brokers are out there analyzing, selling personal information. You know, this is a way to put a stop to it."

    Once the collected data has been passed on to the "data brokers", it will be deleted on demand? Don't be silly.

    The only solution is permission based collection, and look how carefully Ire

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