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[smjjames]

Would be funny if Congresspeople started getting wierd ads like that due to the new legislation.

[nenjin]

Someone needs to explain this to Trump in terms he'd understand. Would he allow anyone to profit off of the Trump name and his personal information without his express consent? No, he wouldn't. Completely setting aside the  privacy issue, why should anyone, Americans or otherwise, have to allow someone to sell their information? Corporate trade secrets are protected, business intelligence is secrets and are protected, but your information, which is worth a ton of money to advertisers? Not protected. Everyone should effectively have copyright on their own personal information and should be able to sell it and license it how they want, or it should be in the books that it's illegal to sell it without your consent. Except people are too stupid and lazy to think of it that way. When what you do on the internet became valuable to advertisers was the time to assert people's right to control and profit from their own personal information. But no one was thinking that far ahead. And now the advertising world essentially thinks they're entitled to this data. If I'm going to be shit spammed with ads that an algorithm thinks I would fall for because of my actual traffic data, and some jerk is going to make money off it whether I buy anything or not, then I want a fucking cut of that.

Oh well. Guess it's time to start digging in to the next level of identity protection on the web.

[Frumple]

And it only helps so much, when you're dealing with ISP level data gathering. Stuff still gets picked up going out. For what little it's worth, the regulation itself wasn't particularly in effect and had only been in place a few months ago regardless. Things are back to being more or less no different than it was around November or thereabouts.

[Draignean]

OK, they sell targeting.

How much does Comcast and pals want, for access to serve my "advertisements" to congress preferentially?

You see, once I start getting my code executed on their computers, with the absurd tracking cookie rules we have, I can tag and track the congress critters myself. And yes, that is exactly how a JavaScript in a targeted advert can and does work today.  Cross site tracking is already a thing.

What's that Mr congressman? You think I tracked you specifically? Dont be silly Mr congressman, I tracked all of the senators, not just you! The US senate is my target demographic! Your data is fully anonymized, I assure you!

Would you be interested in meeting other senators who have the same "special interests" as you? Also, this week only, 50% off rubber nun suit rentals!

How much of my money do you need to take to make Mike Pence see nothing but gay dating services?

[Playergamer]

I don't want to say "oh it doesn't matter that we're losing our privacy," but did anyone actually think they had any privacy left at all? This is America folks, not a free country.

[Egan_BW]

I'd much rather it was a free country, so please point me to the tyrant so I can dethrone them.

[Rolepgeek]

I don't want to say "oh it doesn't matter that we're losing our privacy," but did anyone actually think they had any privacy left at all? This is America folks, not a free country.

I'm torn between uproarious laughter, facepalming, and just sort of sighing slowly.

Please, direct me to a similarly wealthy and unified country with more freedom that isn't in Scandinavia.

America's pretty great. Definitely needs improvement, but I'm glad I was born here. I mean, if I'd been raised in Japan and knew two languages fluently, that'd be cool too, but still.

[Frumple]

Though yeah, privacy issues have been a problem for a while now. Which is why the regulation that was there was a step in the right direction and all those shits that voted to ditch it can go bugger themselves with a broadcasting antenna.

[misko27]

Well, I've been reading into it a bit and there's an interesting, if concerning theme. The repealed regulations were new, hadn't really had time to do anything yet and on a practical level their repeal isn't overly consequential; but at the same time, this is also the prelude to a much nastier fight over Net Neutrality, which Trump's FCC is likely to target.

[Frumple]

If by likely you mean expressly and repeatedly stated it was going to happen, heh. The new FCC head fellow is a bucket of bought and paid for dicks. Though whether that turns out to be a lie or the current administration gives up shortly on encountering resistance remains to be seen, I guess.

[nenjin]

And it only helps so much, when you're dealing with ISP level data gathering. Stuff still gets picked up going out. For what little it's worth, the regulation itself wasn't particularly in effect and had only been in place a few months ago regardless. Things are back to being more or less no different than it was around November or thereabouts.

Yeah and I know Do Not Track got about as much support and implementation from most websites as a dead rat in the gutter. They live off ad revenue and allowing anyone to opt out of tracking cookies is deliberately costing them money. On the other hand, it was nice to actually have the government in support of a basic right to data privacy. Extending us a fragment of the protection granted to businesses. By revoking the rule, it's not only returning things to the way they could have possibly been/who really knows....it's basically approving the behavior as far as "the government' is concerned.

[Flying Dice]

Useful tool.

[wierd]

Look, the Council of Elders just wants to be sure that K'Breel's wikipedia page properly describes the full size of his gellsack, ok?

[Playergamer]

I don't want to say "oh it doesn't matter that we're losing our privacy," but did anyone actually think they had any privacy left at all? This is America folks, not a free country.

I'm torn between uproarious laughter, facepalming, and just sort of sighing slowly.

Please, direct me to a similarly wealthy and unified country with more freedom that isn't in Scandinavia.

America's pretty great. Definitely needs improvement, but I'm glad I was born here. I mean, if I'd been raised in Japan and knew two languages fluently, that'd be cool too, but still.

I'm not saying America isn't awesome, but it's got serious privacy/human rights issues. Plus, the looming shadow of mega-corps that politicians seem mysteriously uninterested in. The free country thing was a joke obviously, but both sides of the aisle seem to love chipping away at the right to be left alone.

[Frumple]

... you say, when we've been talking about a democrat implemented bit of regulation specifically intended to unchip that right, that was gleefully cut down by GOP congressfolk. Like, yeah, congress in general is more than a bit more cavalier on the subject than anyone reasonable would like, but let's not ignore that improving privacy rights and whatnot is actually part of the democrat party platform, and part they've demonstrated before they're willing to legislate towards. And then you have the GOP, party of removing "undue regulatory burdens" and "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about". Among all the shit related to the police state and national security, on top of whatever other mess I've forgotten or missed.

Both sides of the aisle may love to chip, but one has been trying to go at it with a jackhammer on top of that and the other at least tries to glue bits back together occasionally. Let's maybe not make an equivalence on the subject when the distribution of jackassery is not actually equivalent.