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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday November 05 2016, @09:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the license-to-snoop dept.

News from the USA's State of Washington via komonews.com!

The friendly government folks in King County, Washington, have been caught buying data on local shoppers and mining it to find the home addresses of freeloading scallywags who are likely to own a pet without also having purchased a matching permission slip.

This is one small example of how the big nose of government can end up in unpleasant, uncomfortable places when it is let off its leash. It is also an illustration of how any entity can target and locate people of specific demographics via purchase and exploitation of "private" bulk data derived from common customers' commerce.

I have a strong preference to use only cash for in-person transactions and refuse the use of so-called loyalty or discount cards, which should make such data mining much more difficult, particularly as the numbers of like-minded folks increase.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @05:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @05:45AM (#423030)

    There was no forced search, so there are no 4th Amendment issues.

    Wrong; that's merely what our ignorant courts have ruled. In a society where you must, in practice, surrender much of your information over to corporations, this logic is 100% unworkable and enables the government to bypass the 4th amendment in a startling number of cases. The courts need to recognize that information corporations hand over about normal people is not admissible in court unless the government obtained a warrant, regardless of the corporation's consent; what matters is the consent of the person to whom the data pertains to. Otherwise, you are effectively advocating for a society where there are very few practical limits on the government's power. That might be fine to you if you're an authoritarian, but it's not fine to me.

    but I think what the government is actually doing here is clever and not ethically wrong.

    It's obvious and unethical.

    They're not bad people, but they are doing something wrong, and they deserve to get caught.

    Terrorists also deserve to get caught, but not at the expense of our liberties.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday November 06 2016, @06:40AM

    by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Sunday November 06 2016, @06:40AM (#423043) Journal

    In a society where you must, in practice, surrender much of your information over to corporations

    I wasn't aware Walmart no longer accepted cash for pet food.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @12:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @12:05PM (#423082)

      You're missing the point. Even if that's true in this specific instance, my larger point stands. We give up lots of information to corporations, and oftentimes there's practically no choice. And even if there is a choice, it doesn't stand to reason that the government should be able to get that information, so whatever point you had is meaningless to begin with. Quit being disingenuous.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @04:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @04:53PM (#423157)

        We give up lots of information to corporations, and oftentimes there's practically no choice.

        True; law and/or underlying system architecture will need to change in some areas to prevent wild abuses [kieranhealy.org]. However, we as individuals still have a lot of choice in regards to how much information we release to sticky-fingered corporations. Cellular phones can have the battery blocked with a paper shim until needed; we can refuse to use odious products like Facebook (and now Gmail) and work to convince others to find alternatives; we can use cash as often as possible, and even use cash to pay for pre-paid credit cards nowadays (no personal information needed beyond the purchase ZIP code for MC/VISA et al branded cards - avoid GreenDot, etc.). Businesses that provide non-PO BOX alternate mailing addreses exist, and usually charge very reasonable rates.

        It might be nice to imagine a world where the information that pertains to an individual belongs to that individual, but the world has plenty of scheming jerks with little regard for law and morality. The best practice regardless is to control your own information to the greatest practical extent precisely due to the existence of evil organizations such as Google/Alphabet, Facebook, the NSA, etc.