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from the you-mean-sombody-hadn't-realised? dept.
The New York Times published an article on Sunday confirming what we've all assumed — that internet privacy policies are so full of loopholes as to be meaningless. They found that of the 100 top alexa-ranked english-language websites, 85 had privacy policies that permitted them to disclose users' personal information in cases of mergers, bankruptcy, asset sales and other business transactions.
When sites and apps get acquired or go bankrupt, the consumer data they have amassed may be among the companies' most valuable assets. And that has created an incentive for some online services to collect vast databases on people without giving them the power to decide which companies, or industries, may end up with their information.
"In effect, there's a race to the bottom as companies make representations that are weak and provide little actual privacy protection to consumers," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research center in Washington.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by No Respect on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:53PM
In a not-the-same but close-enough case, when Radio Shack was filing for bankruptcy last February they revealed that their famous customer phone number list was one of their most valuable remaining assets. They were going to sell it. This came after decades of Radio Shack employees routinely asking for your phone number every time you bought something at a RS store. Even if you paid cash. Of course, you were never obligated to tell them - I never did - but they never failed to ask for it. When questioned they always cheerfully answered that Radio Shack doesn't sell your information. Until they did.
If anyone was really surprised by anything in the NYT article, well, you're a moron.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:49PM
Once again, company assets in the 21st century:
- cash and short-term investments
- patents and licensing agreements
- Customer databases
Everything else is a liability.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:55PM
Actually I was surprised to find this in the article:
No, I was not surprised that these terms are there. I was surprised that the article — which, after all, is published in the New York Times — contains that information.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:55PM
> I was surprised that the article — which, after all, is published in the New York Times — contains that information.
I would have been surprised if it was not mentioned in the article. Real journalism has rules about disclosing conflicts of interest and writing an article about industry practices when you are in the industry is an obvious conflict of interest. That's the kind of things you won't see from bloggers - except in very narrow cases where the FTC has made it illegal not to disclose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:58PM
> If anyone was really surprised by anything in the NYT article, well, you're a moron.
No, you are the moron for expecting everybody to be as focused on the same shit as you are. Seriously moronic. Real people are busying living their lives, articles like this in the ny times are about informing normal people not smug privacy freaks. This is the kind of article you send your relatives who think you are a paranoid kook every time you try to warn them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:26AM
Then those "real people" aren't doing their jobs as citizens and are part of the problem.
This is the kind of article you send your relatives who think you are a paranoid kook every time you try to warn them.
Paranoid people are focused on themselves and what others could do to them personally. A smart person looks at evidence and cares about more than just themselves, even if there is a slim chance they could be personally impacted.
It's not paranoia. Mass surveillance is a fact; both corporations and the government are doing it. There's nothing kooky about this; most people are just profoundly ignorant and dismiss those who pay attention as "kooks".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:36PM
> Then those "real people" aren't doing their jobs as citizens and are part of the problem.
Kind of like how you didn't your job as a citizen and actually read the line of my post you quoted and went off on a strawman?