• al_borland 2 hours ago

    > The right to opt out of its sale, and

    Why the right to opt-out, instead of requiring sale of data to be opt-in?

    I’m not sure how this stuff happens on the backend, but if I sign up for something and there is an opt-out page buried somewhere, I assume they’ve already sold my data by the time I can get to the opt-out page. I still make a best effort, but once it’s sold, it’s really too late. There needs to be an option to never sell it in the first place.

    • trollbridge an hour ago

      Microsoft likes to do the "opt out for the next 30 days", including uploading all my spreadsheets to Copilot to be training data.

      • al_borland an hour ago

        That would be enough to get me to spend those 30 days migrating all my spreadsheets to a new format.

        • colejohnson66 an hour ago

          "Can we do X, Y, Z?" Yes? Or maybe later?

          It's so annoying. No means no, not "pester me later"!

        • noir_lord an hour ago

          This annoys me with Apple devices, iCloud and all it's related backups of..well everything are on by default and it doesn't ask at any point in the setup of the device.

          You have to then go into settings -> icloud and disable the main one and then like 30 individual ones.

          There should be a big toggle at the top that says "Disable All Cloud Backups" they can feel free to throw in a warning.

          • al_borland 13 minutes ago

            The phone backup is one toggle. The 30 individual ones are for syncing data for apps.

            If you aren’t using iCloud for any of this, why use it at all? I believe you can still use an iPhone without an iCloud account, can’t you? Without any cloud sync, I’m not sure what the value is, just sign out.

            I’m sure you’d lose the ability to download apps, but most of those are also using iCloud to sync data.

            For what it’s worth, Apple seems fairly decent about not opting users in to new stuff. When they released Messages syncing via iCloud, I had to explicitly turn it on for my various devices. The same was true for several other things.

        • nickslaughter02 an hour ago

          Pulled?

          > Bill sponsors Rep. Brad Paquette, R-Niles, and Sen. John Cherry, D-Flint, are now working with advocacy groups on potential replacement legislation, according to the MFEI.

          https://archive.is/hI3wJ

          • declan_roberts an hour ago

            What's with the bipartisan push for these bills all of a sudden?

            • lioeters 41 minutes ago

              It's an international coordinated effort to undermine every single citizen's privacy, an agenda being pushed for years, again and again in every country and state, by a coalition including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc., corporations that profit greatly from mandatory identity verification online. It's only a matter of time until they buy out enough politicians to push it through and force future generations to live under their panopticon. Same with digitization of money.

              • Arainach 10 minutes ago
                • xienze 8 minutes ago

                  It's not called a uniparty for nothing. Vote red, vote blue, we're all gonna end up in the same place eventually, the only difference is the timeline (pretty interesting that the first states pushing this stuff are California, Colorado, Illinois, etc. -- not exactly who you imagine being concerned with "think of the children", is it?). All the bickering between the two parties is pro wrestling kayfabe at the end of the day.

                • 2OEH8eoCRo0 2 hours ago

                  Of course. Suddenly we are concerned about privacy and the catch-all strikes again.

                  • jrm4 2 hours ago

                    For the record, I think it's important to highlight this as "hey, the system actually works" sometimes. All the fatalism and whatnot with government.

                    • whywhywhywhy 2 hours ago

                      This all feels coordinated towards another goal.

                      • fooqux 2 hours ago

                        Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard, but after reading the article I can't help but agree. They saw the light way too easily and the sponsors didn't push back at all. That's how it's supposed to work, yeah, but it's a far cry from anything I've experienced in my entire lifetime. Something's up.

                      • groby_b 2 hours ago

                        HTTP 451

                        "We recognise you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore cannot grant you access at this time. For any issues, e-mail us at info@franklinnews.org or call us at (847) 497-5230."

                        This is extremely funny given it's an article about privacy concerns :)

                        • plandis 2 hours ago

                          A US based non-profit news organization isn’t going to spend money to pay lawyers to ensure they meet a regulatory burden that doesn’t affect their core demographic.

                          • embedding-shape 2 hours ago

                            Neither are they gonna lose the potential of getting the data of any of their visitors, hence they're in this catch-22.

                          • embedding-shape 2 hours ago

                            I love seeing this, and love seeing regulations working exactly as wanted! What I see is basically "We're unable to serve this website without compromising your privacy, so instead of pretending or giving you a choice, we give you this message so you can turn around".

                            • troad 2 hours ago

                              > "We're unable to serve this website without compromising your privacy... "

                              More accurately, "we do not have the staff or funds to figure out what every single random law around the globe requires of us, and since foreign countries are not a realistic advertising market for a local Michigan newspaper, there's really no reason for us to try."

                              • embedding-shape 2 hours ago

                                Well, you don't have to do any of that stuff if you either are upfront about selling user data and ask if it's OK, or if you just don't do that stuff at all.

                                • master-lincoln 2 hours ago

                                  But to know that you would have to study the laws of other countries or in this case EU which costs money and in this case is not an obviously beneficial investment.

                                  • soopypoos an hour ago

                                    they blocked a continent without seeking any advice?

                                    • forgotaccount3 37 minutes ago

                                      Why not? That continent is not their target audience.

                                      It probably wasn't worth the effort to block foreign countries just from random unnecessary compute cost to serve a site to them, but when those countries start being serious about penalties you could face for serving their residents? Now it's justifiable to block non-US countries.

                                  • troad 2 hours ago

                                    European law imposes a great deal more obligations on a business than that. This claim is simplistic to the point of disingenuousness.

                                  • charcircuit an hour ago

                                    >since foreign countries are not a realistic advertising market for a local Michigan newspaper

                                    This may be true for in house ads, but there are ad networks that already are able to personalize ads and have ad inventory for such foreign countries.

                                  • ataru 2 hours ago

                                    It's illegal for us to steal from you, so we won't invite you inside.

                                    • hypeatei an hour ago

                                      What does GDPR get you that browser settings and an extension don't? I'm genuinely curious how random websites refusing to serve content / spamming cookie banners is a good thing?

                                      The data download and removal side of GDPR seems useful for more "entrenched" use cases where you have an account and a long history on a service but... fly-by website visits should not be this heavily regulated. Blocking cookies and scripts is trivial.

                                      • colejohnson66 an hour ago

                                        I should not need extensions for a business to respect my privacy. It's as simple as that.

                                        If you look at it through an equity angle, needing extensions relegates the negative effects to those that are already not "well off" — the technologically illiterate who don't know what to do or know someone who does.

                                        • hypeatei an hour ago

                                          So someone's refusal to make a couple clicks to install an extension necessitates: 1) millions of users having to click to get the annoying popup off their screen, 2) installing an extension to block those anyway, and 3) a more fractured internet where website operators outright refuse to serve content because of liability? I'd bet a very large sum of money that the technologically illiterate don't read anything on those popups and click "Accept all cookies"

                                      • ciupicri 2 hours ago

                                        Right... as if can trust some random American or other non-European website that it really respects the law. What are you gonna do if it breaks the GDPR law? GDPR ruined the Internet.

                                        • master-lincoln 2 hours ago

                                          I'd argue greedy capitalists ruined it. They were also the cause of GDPR

                                          • philipallstar 2 hours ago

                                            They also built it out.

                                    • undefined an hour ago
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