Because it would be impossible for Google to do any kind of serious server side analysis of the data, which is why these companies use analytics, if Google don't have the data unencrypted.
I worked on apps where the data collected was completely empty of user-identifying information. Management seemed content with merely logging clicks from within the UI, seeing how (and how many) people used the app.
Sadly I think there is a trend in our industry to gather everything, decide what you actually want/need later.
I think Google (and related) are to blame for enabling this kind of "data hoovering". Giving the customer what they want at the expense of us the users is getting kinda evil.
The terms of service of Google Analytics specifically prohibit storing PII in it. "You will not and will not assist or permit any third party to pass information, hashed or otherwise, to Google that Google could use or recognize as personally identifiable information"
And that level of insight only works for small companies - at a certain point you want to combine analytics from your UI with things like “is this a high value customer” or “did this customer stop using the app after experiencing this frustrating UX”
I think you can say it's "anonymous" data in that it doesn't have name/phone/email but still be relatively fingerprint-able given additional analytics data.
I'm still not convinced how this is "bad" per se. Yet we're all here discussing this as if it's already decided that this data shouldn't be shared and I'm sitting here thinking "Wtf? Who asked me?". Ok, so the Tax firm I gave my personal info to put it on Google, okay. Will google see it? Sure. Is it on some DB on google? Sure.
Do I care? No.
We're watching the world burn right now with more pressing issues, and this whole thing seems so ridiculously academic and contrived.
Same here, this type of outrage bait doesn’t work on me either. Some income info on me is in Intuit’s database somewhere, it hypothetically maybe being in a database at Meta does not affect me at all, other than I might get ads for more luxury goods. I don’t care, I also click “allow” instead of “Ask App Not To Track” in every iOS pop-up scare message.
Precisely part of the problem is that most instances are in Europe, which means that much of the speech you can find online is illegal, and if you aren't Facebook you don't have the muscle to fight a politician or a judge who wants to make an example out of you.
> Mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu fünf Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe wird bestraft, wer eine unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus begangene Handlung [...] öffentlich oder in einer Versammlung billigt, leugnet oder verharmlost.
October, 2018: "In Europe, Speech Is an Alienable Right: [the European Court of Human Rights] upheld an Austrian woman’s conviction for disparaging the Prophet Muhammad."
Without the need to agree or disagree with the ruling itself (which I cannot read about, as the article is behind a paywall, and I expect that the ruling is more nuanced than what the clickbait title suggests), the fact that a person was condemned for saying something for some reason (provocation to hate I would assume) does not mean that a mastodon server would be liable for relaying the information. Actually, politicians get condemned on a regular basis for diffamation or hate speech, but I never heard of any TV channel or newspaper being sued for having reported on the discourse of said politicians.
I have to say that I expected a bit more, as you mentioned "most content on the internet".
Which isn’t an argument against forced treatment because nominally, more people get treatment. To illustrate using made-up numbers:
Policy A: No forced treatment: 10% of addicts attempt treatment with a 10% success rate = 1% overall success rate.
Policy B: Forced treatment: 10% of addicts attempt treatment with a 10% success rate = 1% + 20% of addicts forced into treatment with a 5% success rate = 1% = 2% overall success rate.
That’s a lot of resources for a low success rate though. The obvious question is could you get a better result using those resources elsewhere? Like education?
The other day a woman passed gas on a crowded public light rail car and it personally offended me. What's more, an approximately six-year-old boy heard her and repeated the infraction, in other words it's indisputable her action influenced others to follow in her footsteps. I also happen to know that neither she nor the six-year-old are gainfully employed, thus they are a drain on society. And in breaking wind it's conceivable or perhaps certain they spread pathogens to countless other innocent people.
Should she have been arrested and jailed for committing what I and many others would regard as depraved behavior? And if not, why the street addict and not the railcar ripper?
I don’t think the reason that public drug use is prosecuted is because it offends people prima facie. It’s because it’s associated with and indicative of a more serious problem: addiction. Addiction fuels all kinds of crime. The same cannot be said of passing gas.
I agree with you that addiction can be a serious issue, but I have some responses to that.
1) If someone's addiction leads to crime, then punish the crime when they commit it. Don't make the pre-crine a crime. Instead of preventing crimes, now you've multiplied them.
2) If drugs weren't ruinously expensive due to their illegality, there would be much less need for addicts to turn to crime. You don't normally hear about alcohol, cigarette or coffee addicts going on crime sprees to support their habits.
3) There's evidence that responding with properly funded support and treatment is cheaper and leads to better outcomes than a massive carceral complex.
4) We can discourage a practice with lighter punitive measures than prison. Running a red light is a rampant traffic infraction, and potentially deadly to boot, yet we don't typically punish it with jail time. It would be massively unproductive to do so. We typically fine people and/or give them "points" on their license. Similarly if needed, we could discourage drugs with fines, taxes, restricting privileges, mandated treatment or social shaming instead of incarceration.
You have a frighteningly low bar for what a behaviors you think should result in a person being denied every basically freedom and likey having their life ruined. Do you feel the same about "using" alcohol and other drugs in public?
The website is incredible. I spent a few minutes and I could not get to the end of it. I wonder how many copies of the software did that website sell - I'm thinking of buying one and I don't even own a Mac.
