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from the next-up-is-the-unicorns-pooping-skittles-act dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Search engine and consumer privacy advocate DuckDuckGo has announced the "Do-Not-Track Act of 2019," a piece of draft legislation that would legally require sites to honor users' tracking preferences.
[...]If the act picks up steam and passes into law, sites would be required to cease certain user tracking methods, which means less data available to inform marketing and advertising campaigns.
The impact could also cascade into platforms that leverage consumer data, possibly making them less effective. For example, one of the advantages of advertising on a platform like Google or Facebook is the ability to target audiences. If a user enables DNT, the ads displayed to them when on browsing[sic] those websites won't be informed by their external browsing history.
[Ed Note: By proposed they mean "That's why we're announcing draft legislation that can serve as a starting point for legislators in America and beyond. "]
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday May 08 2019, @11:58AM (13 children)
Where's there money to be made, there's temptation - and dataraping is where the money is. BIG money.
DDG might have started out with the best of intentions, and probably does still have mostly good intentions in 2019. But at the end of the day, they're a for-profit with investors who want to maximize their profits, and a board of director whose sole official job is to maximize the investors' return. They'll eventually relent and turn evil, like the other formerly "do no evil" players. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @12:49PM (6 children)
The problem is capitalism, this can be easily proved:
A. Employees get their money from wages, so the employer pays through wages.
B. Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
Under capitalism the first term of (B) in the brackets is negligible and can be rounded to zero. This can only be solved by increasing taxes.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:36PM (5 children)
Disposable income = (wages + universalBasicIncome) - (taxes + costOfLiving + sjwExpensesDuesFees)
As wages approach zero, universalBasicIncome can rise to more than cover the 2nd bracketed term.
What the government gets in taxes pays for an expansive government plus universalBasicIncome.
Therefore: taxes > universalBasicIncome
At the same time, to keep Disposable income positive (and not negative), . . .
Therefore: taxes < universalBasicIncome
Some people say the math cannot possibly work. They simply have not experimented with UBI at a large enough scale. What could go wrong?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:42PM (3 children)
I stopped reading when I saw "sjwExpensesDuesFees"
Were you trying to make a point?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:56PM (2 children)
I don't think he was trying to make a point. He made a point.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @03:45PM
Thank you.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday May 09 2019, @08:03AM
He is using 'taxes' in a deceptive way.
In the the second bracketed term in the first equation it refers to personal income tax, as this is for an individual only.
In the second equation he uses the term 'taxes' to refer to all government revenue, as this is summed across the population.
Places like Norway and Alaska show that governments can in fact invest money and pay a UBI from dividends.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:23PM
There is nothing wrong with negative disposable income in general. As long as it is less negative than other investments people will still get loans. Government just needs to make sure interest rates on savings are negative enough to stimulate lending.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday May 08 2019, @01:57PM (1 child)
It didn't happen until it does happen, though.
As such, mudslinging them now for a future that may not come** is just that: mudslinging.
** "a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing."
Rings a bell? [wikibooks.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by patrick on Thursday May 09 2019, @03:36AM
The CEO & founder of DuckDuckGo is Gabriel Weinberg [wikipedia.org], who created the Names Database [wikipedia.org], where registrants put in their personal information and then gave the website their friends' emails to refer them to the site. He then sold all of that personal information to Classmates.com for $10 million.
I use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine. But there is past precedent to give us pause.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:25PM (1 child)
Maybe DuckDuckGo can make their work easier by developing a new dataraping drug?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:38PM
. . . for web browsers.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:57PM
So it would have been more correct if you had said that they might - in the future - toe a fine line.... etc. There is nothing to indicate that they a doing so at present unless you have more information than we currently have. If you have, then please share...
If we follow your logic, SN could be toeing a fine line between exploiting personal data and not looking as if we do. Now in the case of SN, I have rather more information to convince me that we are NOT doing that, nor are we intending to do so in the future. And if we did I would expect the current staff, including myself, to walk away. Not everyone is out to exploit his/her fellow man.
DDG appear to be making sufficient profit to do what they are doing and not exploiting anyone in the process. As for the future, my crystal ball needs new batteries so I'll wait and see what they do.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:04PM
All people are evuuuuul, but your original post is a paranoid fever dream filled with unprovable and incorrect statements.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]