Thread

Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries

395 points · 229 comments · ortusdux

jsrozner · 1790181848 · focus · HN ↗
The best solution is a constitutional amendment that actually enshrines a right to privacy. Among other things, the retention, aggregation, correlation of any personal data should be illegal (including for commercial purposes). (Storage on behalf of users in encrypted form could be made OK. Could also be refined to support retention of data of the medical, legal, etc kind with the attendant non-admissibility protections.)
This would fix this issue, it would destroy the surveillance models of Google/Facebook, and it would fix the Flock issue, etc. It would also fix the Roe v Wade issue: women would be able to get abortions in the first couple months of pregnancy without the possibility of harassment, since law enforcement would have no capacity to detect pregnancy until then.
Also, tech won't save us had a podcast on the dynamic pricing topic: <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-data-is-changing-air-travel-w-amanda-mull/id1507621076?i=1000680112948" rel="nofollow">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-data-is-changing-a...
1. WarmWash · 1790187556 · focus · HN ↗
  It would also return tech to something only the wealthy can afford, and the poor get scraps.
  The advertising model is socialist utopian business model, where everyone gets the same service, for the same cost, with money being no barrier to entry. Kids in Indian slums are watching the same Youtube as Moms watching 105" OLED TVs in the Hampton's. Hell that mom might even be watching that kids video, which Google happily hosts and promotes for them. All for the cost of being shown detergent and car ads.
  People take the internet for granted, and treat ads as some invasive species commandeered by mega corps to extract money from the communal nature of the modern web.
  The alternative though is not the current internet sans ads, the alternative is paywalls on everything, and only the rich kid having a Google, Meta, Discord, and Reddit account.
  Ads suck, but at least make an effort to see the whole picture.
  1. flufluflufluffy · 1790187911 · focus · HN ↗
    Nothing that person said was about removing ads.
    WarmWash · 1790192192 · focus · HN ↗
    The value of non-targeted ads isn't high enough to support what people are accustomed to getting for free.
    tancop · 1790230967 · focus · HN ↗
    The only thing we want to ban is ads based on individual peoples data. Content targeted ads would still be legal, like betting sites on a football highlight reel or HyperX gear on a gaming stream. They can be even more profitable because people are more likely to check out something if it's related to what they're doing right now and not some stupid classifiers idea of their personality.
    And if targeted ads are banned advertising budgets still have to go somewhere. Demand for the only option left will go up and keep ad revenue high. It also lowers the barrier for entry because you don't need advanced behavioral models to compete with Google and Meta, just some basic tagging or even a static profile if your site is single topic.

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