[HN Gopher] Media companies that also sell personal data ___________________________________________________________________ Media companies that also sell personal data Author : kjhughes Score : 99 points Date : 2022-11-12 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.wired.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com) | seydor wrote: | based on their academic services, I wouldn't be too worried | because those services are crap. Their academic analytics stuff | barely passes the test and is mostly used because nobody wants to | make a competitor. Most academic metadata is openly available to | anyone who wants to use it, but people know that academia is more | about networking, PR, politics etc rather than the exactness of | academic analytics. Then elsevier's own websites were pretty crap | for the (pre-SciHub) times i used them , sometimes being offline, | other times with stupid web design etc. They don't have a | technical moat other than being so entrenched in academic | politics. | | I assume something similar is going on in the other spaces. They | live in a legacy world that will be replaced with AI overnight. | chiefalchemist wrote: | I'm not so sure quiet captues the moment. The invasion has been | effective due to pointless distraction after pointless | distraction - and algorithms tuned to surface those distractions. | A monopoly of the collective mind. | | Few can hear this coming, not because it's quite but because of | the excessive volume from excessive noise. | c7b wrote: | Oh wow. Elsevier alone has much more grip on global academia than | any one company should have (what the article didn't mention, | they also own Overleaf, so they have access to a non-negligible | fraction of all STEM research before it is available to anyone | but the authors). But I didn't know that it is part of an even | larger conglomerate l (LexisNexis alone would make for a | formidable Elsevier competitor). | elashri wrote: | I couldn't find this link between Elsevier and overleaf. What I | did find is that overleaf is owned by digital science UK which | is owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. The later owns a lot | of publication companies and group. They own Nature and more | than 50 share in Springer. Am I missing something? | c7b wrote: | Hmm, I remember hearing that they purchased Overleaf several | years ago - maybe I misremembered, or things have changed | again since then. | caconym_ wrote: | "Big Tech" is a distraction. They barely even "sell" data; | rather, they use it to power platforms where advertisers can | target users without learning who they are. At such a large scale | there are obviously exceptions (see: Cambridge Analytica), but | directly selling user data is generally not how they make their | money. | | The abuses of the companies you never hear about are orders of | magnitude worse. They are plugged into every institution of | society you interact with in your daily life, so you essentially | can't opt out, and their primary business model is siphoning off | sensitive de-anonymized personal data and selling it to anybody | willing to pay. It ought to be criminal, and the fact that it | isn't just goes to show how captured and neutered our government | has become. | | I assume our legislators' PR focus on "Big Tech" wrt. data | privacy is by design. If the American people really understood | the true shape of things, there'd be blood in the streets. | | (I'm not saying "Big Tech" doesn't cause substantial harm, but in | my view it's harm of a different sort.) | [deleted] | drdec wrote: | > The abuses of the companies you never hear about are orders | of magnitude worse. > They are plugged into every institution | of society you interact with in your daily life, so you | essentially can't opt out, and their primary business model is | siphoning off sensitive de-anonymized personal data and selling | it to anybody willing to pay. | | This would be much more impactful if you named one of these | companies and gave some concrete examples of what they are | doing. | caconym_ wrote: | For a start, you should probably read OP's article. I know | often HN commenters don't read the article before commenting, | and I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, but in this case the | linked article offers fairly important context for my comment | in the sense that it explicitly names at least one such | company and gives concrete examples of what they are doing | with your data. | | For another salient example, check out this article^[1] about | cell carriers selling their customers' real-time location | data without consent. | | ^[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/fcc-issues- | wrist... | trap_goes_hot wrote: | Very much like a soldier refusing to execute immoral orders, we | need the smartest engineers working at these companies to stop | implementing such features. As it stands, engineers working in | big tech are often celebrated on platforms like HN. Especially | the companies that are just creating spying machines, and | addictive time-wasters. | | We outlaw addictive chemical substances, and maybe such tech | should also be looked at in similar light. | | At our company, the use of cell phones is not permitted inside | certain manufacturing zones. It's a bit sad to see some of the | younger employees being very restless when they can't check | their phone every 30 seconds. | ajb wrote: | Once you have more than 100 people - and there are obviously | more than 100 "smartest engineers" - solutions of the form | "everyone should be ethical enough not to do this, without | further incentives" are impractical. | Jensson wrote: | > We outlaw addictive chemical substances, and maybe such | tech should also be looked at in similar light. | | Yeah, so the solution is not to convince engineers, but to | convince politicians to get laws like GDPR. Trying to | convince workers or companies to stop earning money has never | worked well. | [deleted] | webmobdev wrote: | No, BigTech are the biggest data-miners in the industry as they | have _daily_ regular and "unrestricted" access to our lives | through the devices we use everyday. Thanks to our mobile | phones, computers and the internet, they even have insights and | personal data from all the other services we use. BigTech also | purchases and partners with data brokers. And all of them do | sell their data to the _government_ (as the new government data | center in Utah highlight, the PRISM program is thriving). | BigTech is the most successful privatisation of intelligence | gathering in the history of our world, and I 'd say even a | monument to capitalism. | | While a triumph for capitalism, this is unfortunately also | really bad for us ordinary citizens in a democracy as it upsets | the balance of power between the rich and our elected | representatives. The last time this happened, and a government | fought to correct this balance with them (the British vs the | East india Company), the British empire itself crumbled. If | left unchecked, I fear history will repeat itself again with | our current and sole superpower too. | nonrandomstring wrote: | I think the main harm identified here is summed up in the line; | | "The truth is pay-walled, but lies are for free" | | It's not _what_ information is or isn 't collected. It can be | valuable, and great social good can come out of so-called "big | data". And we can, as a society, sensibly decide what is | allowable in terms of prediction and prejudice (which are | essentially the same thing in this context). | | The problem is utility asymmetry. Having a few for-profit | corporations own and trade our data is a societal catastrophe in | the making, and can only tend toward fascism. | zeta0134 wrote: | It's somewhat ironic that I cannot view the full article; it's | paywalled, and I am not a Wired subscriber. | nonrandomstring wrote: | Using wget pretending to be something else will probably see | you right. Text based without JavaScript pulls Wired articles | nicely. | nouryqt wrote: | https://archive.ph/pQQV1 | hammock wrote: | The truth has always been paywalled. Good information comes at | a cost, information asymmetry is power. What is different now | is that information of all types is being shadowbanned | nonrandomstring wrote: | > information of all types is being shadowbanned | | That sounds interesting, please say more. | gadflyinyoureye wrote: | If we did, that too would shadowbanned. For example, look | at how people were pointing to early studies that the mRNA | jabs caused heart issues in males 40 and under about 1.5 | years ago. Raising such concerns was enough to get account | here shadowbanned even when they posted to papers. | switchbak wrote: | The interesting thing is the truth there was not behind a | paywall. It was in the anarchic corners of the internet | that allowed such heresy. What was behind the paywalls | was pure state serving propaganda. | | The last few years have been a real lesson to those who | are paying attention. Unfortunately I've been really | disappointed with how few of my friends have kept an open | mind despite the poisoned information landscape. | bombcar wrote: | The only reason the Internet was a "bastion of truth" for | awhile was that the whole thing was outside the walls. | | The walls have moved and the truth has been confirmed, | everything that is outside the walls is heresy, don't | even _think_ of going to look at it, as it is bad. | DenisM wrote: | > The problem is utility asymmetry. Having a few for-profit | corporations own and trade our data is a societal catastrophe | in the making, and can only tend toward fascism. | | It occurred to me that a few centuries ago every knight had his | own little army that was loyal to him, and lent out to the king | in the time of need. The idea that the army would belong to the | people was alien at the time, however today few question the | wisdom (even dictators pay lip service to it). | | Could it be that the idea of big information belonging to the | people will one day also seem entirely commonplace? | lifeisstillgood wrote: | I read recently about the concept of "civic databases" - | someone pointed out the absurdity of the worlds scientific | papers being "catalogued by one post grad on the run, but used | by everyone". | | Yeah. But even if you gave me access to every data set | worldwide I still would have trouble making head or tail of it. | but it's a start | turtleyacht wrote: | It stuck with me too. Who's going to write the stored procs | and views? Unless it's all going to be tables only. | | "Software Diffusion, infer relationships about these tables | and create an explorer for me." | | jancsika's comment [1] in a thread on _The Cypherpunk | Manifesto_ : | | > There should be a sustainable solution to bootstrapping | civic databases to archive and make available/discoverable | all the shits citizens care about without waiting 70+ years | for it to enter the public domain. | | > It's absurd as it is now. We've got a scientific database | duct-taped together by a fucking grad student in hiding, and | AFAICT nearly every researcher uses it. | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33555419 | lifeisstillgood wrote: | Yes that one. | | Glad it reverberated a little across this corner of the | internet. | | It's a great term - conveys what we mean. Maybe "Civic | DataSets" | tootie wrote: | Counterpoint: Public media. While I don't think there's any | statutory obligation, you will likely never find paywalls or | brokered data. And the content is very reliable. | andsoitis wrote: | > "The truth is pay-walled, but lies are for free" | | Verified, researched information is more costly to build than | lies, which anyone can just make up out of thin air. | nonrandomstring wrote: | It's not so simple. Good lies, the kind of disinformation | that swings elections, wins wars, and controls populations, | can be extraordinarily difficult to build. Think Operation | Mincemeat. The backstories, legends, covers and dissemination | costs can rival research in pursuit of truth. And by the same | token, deep truths are sometimes there in the open for anyone | with eyes and the wits to observe and write-up. | | What I think you're talking about is "bullshit", which is | really a kind of ephemeral non-data, like spam, advertising | and opinions. | | Flooding the public sphere with that, especially now using | ever more plausible generative "AI" tools, devalues public | truth and makes private intelligence stores seem more | attractive and valuable. | | In the limit this can even become a justification for | cloistered data, as the Church understood so well with Latin | scriptures. We'll be told "The people can't be _trusted_ with | the truth ". | factsarelolz wrote: | But a vast majority of research is publicly funded (by tax | payers). So if it's paid for by said individuals should they | have to pay again to see the results? | lazyeye wrote: | This is not remotely true. Lies can be very much pay-walled | too. | bombcar wrote: | _facts_ can be found everywhere, for free or for pay. | | But what is harder to find is what people really want, which | is to be told how to _feel_ about something, and that 's more | and more behind a paywall. | | (Which can still be completely _wrong_ mind you!) | lazyeye wrote: | Being told how to feel is more behind a paywall? This is | also not remotely true. | kornhole wrote: | Because it is unlikely this data will ever become a common good | available to all, we can use creative ways to poison it. For | example, I buy things for me under the kids names and have my | partner use my card to buy things for herself. I only have one | real ID social media account which is intentionally enigmatic | and stale. Of course my networks obfuscate a lot. Unfortunately | this is a systemic problem, and the one percent like me are a | drop in the bucket. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-12 23:00 UTC)