Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
Very interesting discussions.
Re: psychopathic CEO and founders, Brianna and Amy were saying that this is good for the companies involved and their share price, yet glossed over the fact that they do this at the expense of their employees and society in general.
It is as if the share price is more important than society in general and the company’s employees. I think this is one of the problems with the extreme capitalism we have now, everything comes down to share price and the more obnoxious your company is and the more damage it does, the better its share price and the more successful it is. Whilst profit is important, I feel it is given far too much weight, when it comes to share prices.
We should be rewarding companies for their social and environmental engagement and not for squashing employees, robbing customers blind and killing the planet in the process. Some companies are at least starting to wake up to the latter, although the “green” data centre from Apple in the middle of the desert that uses water evaporation for cooling is criminal, to me. “Look, our data centre is green, it uses renewable energy, it doesn’t use greenhouse gases for cooling, aren’t we great?” Erm, yes, but you are taking the most valuable and scarcest resource in the region, water, and wasting it by running it off into the air, instead of putting it to good use, like making arrable land or providing enough water to local communities.
They want to be green, yet they don’t think things through in some cases.
Re: hyper micro advertising: As a European, I was absolutely horrified when Brianna stated they were taking the electoral data and buying up medical information and comparing it to provide targeted advertising.
For a start, over here, that would be illegal. No medical information can be sold on and it can only be used for medical research purposes, when the patient gives their permission - in fact, when I get a referral from my GP to a specialist, the first thing I have to do, when I get to the specialists office is to sign a data protection waiver to allow them to access my medical information*.
This totally flies in the face of privacy and my gast was flabbered, that Brianna would actually use something like that. If I was a voter and I started getting political advertising targeted at my medical conditions, that would be the last person I would vote for. The same with adverts for medicine that were directly targeted at a medical condition, I would find that creepy and would look for an alternative product that wasn’t doing that sort of targeted advertising.
Luckily, such targeting is illegal here.
Edit: I re-listened to that segment, it was also location data. Again, selling location data, without the explicit written permission of the person being tracked, is illegal here. Telephone and mobile carriers are forbidden to sell PII to third parties, without getting explicit permission to do so from the individual.
Edit 2: When asked, whether it would be better, if all parties were banned from using such information for hyper micro advertising, she said, she didn’t know whether that would be possible, to legally stop people from cross-referencing different databases with each other. Erm, yes, it is. That is how GDPR works. You don’t get access to such databases, and when you collect information, you have to explicitly state what it will be used for and it has to be deleted after the shortest possible time** and it cannot be sold on without permission, and you can’t suddenly start using it for a new purpose, without getting each identifiable person to agree to the new use of that data - any that don’t agree have to have their data excluded from the new use.
(*) This will change, going forward, we will have an electronic medical folder, which we (the patients) hold the keys to and we can release that information to relevant (medical practioner) parties ourselves, but that is still in development.
(**) a report his week by heise’s c’t magazine shows that many COVID testing and test booking platforms had many security problems, but one of the biggest critiscisms was, that they were retaining the data after its use had finished. For example, if you are booking an appointment, as soon as the date and time of the appointment has been passed, that appointment information should be deleted, as it is no longer relevant. Likewise, test results are only valid for 24 hours, so after those 24 hours, the test results should be deleted.
3 Likes
You could move to Sat nights permanently. Sat seems dead.
Except for the radio show, Friday and Saturday are Leo’s weekend, I think.
3 Likes
@Leo gets Thursday, Friday and Monday off under the current schedule. But I suspect he keeps abreast of the technology news day in and day out, much as we all do.
2 Likes
To revitalize Saturdays, I hope for the return of The New Screensavers, now that there’s Club TWiT.
2 Likes
I couldn’t agree more. This whole “future meat” thing is very interesting to me. If we’re not breading animals, e.g. cows and pigs, for their meat then why go to the trouble of keeping them and dealing with all the problems and potential stree they cause? Are you really going to keep, and look after, animals that can hurt you if you’re not careful, just for the sheer fun of it?
If we’re not keeping animals for what they provide, (and let’s not forget that, if you can do it with meat, then someone will find a way of synthesizing milk, butter, and eggs), and we get rid of them then what does that do to the environment?
The problem is that most of the data Brianna Wu made reference to is public information, collected and released by the government. The only thing that isn’t is location data. And surely Facebook should have the right to use the location data that they themselves collected, right?
I do not agree with the practice of having voter files. In a recent local election, a politician running under the Republican banner was attacked by his opponent for voting while being registered as a Democrat in the 1980s and 1990s. I think that information should not be public record - partisan registration history and election participation for any individual should private. It’s nobody’s business whether any individual voted in a particular year or not.
Except the part about it being illegal to use the databases for things other than for what the data was collected, so the electoral data can’t be used for advertising purposes (in the UK, several companies have faced heavy fines for using things like the electoral register for cold-calling) and Facebook cannot use the location data indefinitely, they have to delete it after a fairly short period of time.
As I stopped using Facebook, before it became necessary to have location services turned on on a smartphone, I don’t know what the exact wording is, but unless it specifically states in the terms and conditions that they are gathering location information for advertising purposes, they would be breaking the law if the location information was available in their advertising portal - whether they give it to a third party or use it themselves.
The voter file data exists mostly for the benefit of the Democratic and Republican parties to be able to advertise to their voters - back when these laws creating them were passed, it was direct mail or door-to-door, but calling this “not an advertising database” is in no way accurate.
Facebook and similar apps would have to be pretty dumb to not put into their terms in EU countries that any data collected may be used for advertising.
Also, I’m doubtful about the “delet[ion] after a fairly short period of time.” If the data is for advertising purposes, it can remain relevant for a long time. For example, I was at The Home Depot over the weekend. Suppose they moved their store in February 2022. Should it be possible for Home Depot to place advertising on Facebook targeting me, more than 6 months after my most recent visit to their store? I see no reason why it should be acceptable after 7 days and not after 7 months.
I am talking about how the laws already are in the EU. That the US laws are different is clear, it was pointing out that Brianna’s argument was based on a false premise, they could change the law to protect the data, it is possible - although with Republicans and Democrats in power, extremely unlikely.
In Germany, the electoral register is there purely to send out voting registration and to control that 1 person, 1 vote at the poling station.
As to Facebook keeping data, I’m not sure what the current requirement is, but I think it was decided that 6 months was more than long enough for keeping things like location data - I think there were also discussions that 6 weeks would be enough, unless a specific user’s data was being held for a legal investigation.
Certainly, things like IP addresses have to be cleansed (log files) within 24 hours (log rotation), where the last 2 octets should be removed, again, unless there is an active investigation into an incident.
1 Like
The simplest answer for advertisers is to make the formula absolutely clear for the customer. Just spitballing here, but something like: You give us your email, we will send you advertising 4 times a month which you must engage with to claim a discount on any of our products worth $1 per month you allow us to stay in touch with you (up to some maximum.) When you claim that discount, we will end our use of your data unless you engage with us again for a new discount. If something like this was done, it would be clear the customer is getting some benefit and also clear how to end the “contract.” It would allow the advertiser to know that their advertising is working (because customers are redeeming discounts for products.) It could also allow for partnering where one party provides an offer on behalf of another that you could opt into, increasing the benefits of the first (maybe they give you a boost in the discount) and introducing a new relationship.
The issue is would have a cost, and somehow advertisers don’t factor the negative aspects of misusing customer data into their advertising budgets.
1 Like
The real question for me about synthetic biology is exactly where to place stock bets.
1 Like
To me this underscores how easy it is for seemingly honest and well-intentioned people to get into politics and get dragged down with the sleaze. Not saying that makes her sleaze, but that to effectively fight the sleaze of politics you either remain an unimportant sideline yeller or you compromise what you believed in when you started. I suppose we can all debate and decide for ourselves at what point the compromise is too great.
2 Likes
but what about the Untitled Linux Show?
a.k.a. Penguin Pipers
When you were discussing the future and bio-tech I immediately wanted to re-read Daniel Suarez’s book “Change Agent”.
1 Like
Asimov’s Foundation was a big source of inspiration for Star Wars. Foundation doesn’t look like Star Wars, Star Wars looks like Foundation.
Can’t wait to see Jared Harris as Seldon, I think it’s perfect casting, and he’s been great in everything I’ve seen him in, The Expanse, Carnical Row, Mad Men, Fringe, Lost in Space, and so much more.
1 Like
I agree - Harris is one of my favorite actors. Perfect casting.