zucan · HackerTrans

zucan

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7 years agodiscuss

I don't see how the examples are any different to gender-neutral sexual comments.

8 years agodiscuss

It appears to be an issue with expectations for some people (including me). "Burger" is associated with a certain flavor, texture and appearance, so when I eat a veggie burger my subconsciousness is disappointed because it's too different. The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish. This is the main reason why I dislike so many "vegetarian alternative" dishes on our kitchen's menu like chili sin carne, while some "standalone" vegetarian dishes are among my favorites like pasta with spinach, tomato and feta in cream sauce.

I hope artificial meat will be introduced as a 'luxury' product and replace mass-produced fast food ground beef after it is well established as a genuine alternative and not some inferior knock-off like artificial cheese.

8 years agodiscuss

Society cares about working products, not the tech behind it - I don't see calls specifically for making critical software open source any time sooner than the year of the Linux desktop.

Regulations and fines are proven tools, and even if it doesn't make autonomous cars significantly safer, it will make them expensive enough to reduce fatalities.

8 years agodiscuss

>With the GDPR in place, you theoretically now need to get consent every time

This is false. There are multiple ways to justify processing of personal data, and your example would fall under data processing necessary to perform a contract at the customer's request. Depending on your location, there might also be legal requirements to record and keep user data, which is also a valid reason that doesn't require consent of the user.

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/

8 years agodiscuss

> Enforcing your moral values inside the company and even worse, using the company's power to force them to the world - only to abandon them when it hurts profits - is perverse IMO.

The same could be said about executives and their lack of moral values. Except the C-level actually wields the power to control the company.

8 years agodiscuss

Not analyzing IP addresses to deliver more relevant results seems pretty aligned with that whole "respecting your privacy is our main selling point". I gladly add another word to my queries if that keeps DDG from taking a step towards where google is today.

8 years agodiscuss

If I install an extension that sends agrees to a website then yes, it's the same as using a cat as a proxy, because objectively the request for consent has been fulfilled without irregularities. It's even mentioned in sentence 2 of Recital 32, using technical measures to auto-consent is valid as long as it is done clearly.

However uMatrix does not send agrees; in fact, it shreds most 'requests to consent' to pieces before relaying the page to the user as a side-effect of blocking third-party cookies+scripts. So unlike the cat proxy, uMatrix will never send a (deceitful) agreement back and the website owner never gets a reply for his inquiry.

All a website owner gets from a uMatrix user is the wrench they threw into the consent acquiring procedure, and I doubt that's enough to signify consent as defined in GDPR.

GDPR Art. 4 (11) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/

  ‘consent’ of the data subject means any freely given,
  specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data
  subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a
  clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the
  processing of personal data relating to him or her;

8 years agodiscuss

If the customer does not respond to your requests to accept your house rules you deny them service. GDPR is quite clear that "silent agreement" does not apply.

GDPR Recital 32, sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/

8 years agodiscuss

The digital single market for online content services is effective since April: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/cross-border-p...

8 years agodiscuss

The important difference is that the only "license terms" for paperback copies are laws designed to protect publishers, whereas digital licenses can be as arbitrary as a publisher chooses to as long as they don't conflict with laws designed to protect consumers.

8 years agodiscuss

Same thing as WhatsApp. VC pay most of the bills until the network effect has cultivated the userbase to a size attractive for a buy out by a bigger fish.

8 years agodiscuss

Is it really a problem with the specific implementation (GDPR) or rather with the general idea that a person should be in control about their data?

8 years agodiscuss

"opt-out as default" in the context of GDPR means that all EU citizens have to be considered as not having given consent to usage of their personal data until they explicitly do so. See Recital 32, Sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." [0] in the context of consent of the data subject to make processing of personal data lawful (Article 6 [1])

I'd be glad if you could point out a regulation on the content website owners must offer to people who do not wish their personal data to be processed.

[0] https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/

[1] https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/

8 years agodiscuss

If compliance is impossible, it's probably because your business model is incompatible even with the spirit of GDPR - the notion that a person should have control over their data and other entities should handle it with care.

If compliance is expensive, it's probably because your business profitted somehow from handling personal data (or you let someone else reap the profits, e.g. tracking ad networks).

I find your situation similar to the one of an engineer in a chemical plant who got the task to make the whole place completely ecofriendly due to new regulations. The solution to just block the EU and resume business elsewhere is the best course of action if complying is indeed impossible or infeasible for your business. If your organization decides to gamble because there is still profit to be made in the EU, it's on them when enforcement comes around someday.

In any case, competitors will find a way to offer GDPR-compliant services and there might be enough demand for data protection laws in the US, changing how businesses have to deal with personal data. Time will tell.

8 years agodiscuss

Is it that unappealing for US citizens to get a STEM PhD? Especially in the US the private sector ought to offer enough jobs at the PhD level and pay to make the PhD worthwile.

8 years agodiscuss

The toxicity comes from the focus on competition and the lack of repercussion when misbehaving. A guild kicks you out if your negativity annoys too many or the wrong members, whereas matchmaking has an infinite supply of teammates to abuse.

I agree with you that adding cheating to the cocktail of toxicity would probably not be significant enough to lose a large group of players. However cheating may yield a competitive advantage too large to be overlooked by the players.

8 years agodiscuss

Vendors don't put the 50% off sticker on it to make those happy who would have bought the item anyway. They put it on to trick people who would not pay 50$ for the article into doing so.

8 years agodiscuss

You can fool many users into thinking they gave consent when they haven't. At least these won't resist further.

8 years agodiscuss

I can't find a section of GDPR requiring these individual toggles for each "partner". From my understanding a website owner could just as well list all partners and give the user the option to consent to processing by all partners (or none) - the agreement is between the website user and the website owner ("controller"), the controller and their partners have a completely separate agreement.

As far as pre-ticked boxes are concerned, they do not signify consent [0], effectively taking the legal base [1] for processing PII in many cases. It's a bit more ambiguous in the actual law: "It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent." [2] If consenting can be as easy as clicking the "I agree, have my soul" button, withdrawing consent must not require clicking through dozens of checkboxes and should be just as easy.

[0] Recital 31, Sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/

[1] Article 6 (1) "Processing shall be lawful only if [...]" https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/

[2] Article 7 (3) Sentence 4 https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/

8 years agodiscuss

> Collecting PII is NOT illegal, as far as I can see. Nor can it be illegal.

Article 6 [0] is phrased negatively, making collecting PII illegal unless x or y. These points cover all the use cases the lawmakers deemed valid; a real-estate agent may collect PII because of 6.1b (taking steps to enter a contract at the request of the data subject). Should a new, possibly valid reason to collect PII come up it would first need to be checked and then added to the list.

Since most websites and online services do not aim to form a contract nor fit points c-f, they have to obtain consent by the data subject (6.1a) to make collecting PII legal.

[0] https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/