Notes on the Viacom ruling [LWN.net]

Notes on the Viacom ruling

Posted Jul 7, 2008 19:18 UTC (Mon) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
In reply to: Notes on the Viacom ruling by kleptog
Parent article: Notes on the Viacom ruling

  So, if you punch me in the face I shouldn't be allowed to tell my friends about it?
Personal data retention is not evil and it is here to stay no matter how hard you or any
government tries to prevent it.  Get over it and adapt your behavior accordingly or forever be
sulking in your misguided (but probably well meaning) view of how things should be.  Once you
do, you will be much happier and you might eventually realize that you are better off because
of it too.

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Notes on the Viacom ruling

Posted Jul 7, 2008 19:51 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

I'm afraid you'll have to explain this a bit more. Since an action (in this case punching) is
by definition not personally identifying information it has nothing to do with this at all.
Attributes might be, actions never.

Also, the point is not that the data is retained, ofcourse it is, by those who need it. The
point is that it should not be sold or distributed to companies for whom it is not relevant.
In this case there is nothing wrong since a judge apparently decided it's relevent information
to Viacom. You might disapprove that Google kept the data, but they broke no laws.

Notes on the Viacom ruling

Posted Jul 7, 2008 21:22 UTC (Mon) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

"I'm afraid you'll have to explain this a bit more. Since an action (in this case punching) is by definition not personally identifying information it has nothing to do with this at all. Attributes might be, actions never."

What would be the point of saving actions if I cannot relate them to a person? For every action that I log I need to log personal information. Why else would you be worried about your personal information being logged, because it will be associated with your actions right?

"Also, the point is not that the data is retained, of course it is, by those who need it. The point is that it should not be sold or distributed to companies for whom it is not relevant."

Well, your opinion of relevance is not related to mine if I am the one keeping the data. You may decide that it is not relevant that you "punched me in the face" and feel that I should expunge such data, but my friends (or business associates) may appreciate me keeping AND sharing that data, both the action and the personal identifying data. Surely you should see that in these cases my right to share (your personal) data (which does not directly affect you) is more important to and less imposing on society than your desired right to privacy (which if it could be enforced, would unjustly directly affect me).

Notes on the Viacom ruling

Posted Jul 8, 2008 9:33 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

I think you're making this unnecessarily complicated. Names are personal but not private and
the accepted means of referring to a person, so if you feel like telling all your friends, go
right ahead. You just don't have a reason to tell them his tax file number, bank account
details or credit card number. There may be restrictions on publishing his name in the
newspaper also.

I think you're referring to the idea that personal data should never be shared (which I never
said), which is obviously absurd... It's just not a free-for-all either. Like most of the real
world it's a nice shade of grey.

Love Big Brother

Posted Jul 10, 2008 16:58 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

> Someday everyone will know what it is to love Big Brother.

Agreed. George Orwell was a visionary and a prophet. :-\

Back to the topic, I'm genuinely curious about privacy (or lack thereof) in a historical context: When the telephone became commonplace and the phone companies started publishing directories with subscribers' phone numbers, was there an uproar over privacy concerns?

Love Big Brother

Posted Jul 11, 2008 0:45 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

When the telephone became commonplace and the phone companies started publishing directories with subscribers' phone numbers, was there an uproar over privacy concerns?

No. It was so normal that phone companies sold the "unlisted number" as a product. Today, most people would consider that blackmail. And before telephones, there was a practice that people today would find even more shocking: cities published directories with everyone's home address.

Even in my lifetime, driver licensing information was considered public and anyone could get my address, birth date, and driving record. I can also remember when everyone in a doctor's office could easily overhear other patients' health problems. When reverse-charge telephone service was invented (1970's?) no one questioned for a minute that the company you called got to know your phone number. By the 1990s, that was a huge issue with Caller ID.

Information privacy per se (as opposed to keeping certain things secret because of specific threats) is a recent phenomenon. Part of the reason may be that there is more power available now to process and exploit that information. But I think a lot of it just might be social evolution, like you see attitudes toward sex change with the times.