Tag: consumer privacy

Auto Makers Are Selling Data On Your Driving Habits To Your Insurer Without Properly Informing You

Ms. Cat2 Comments
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from the I-can’t-drive-55 dept

Last September, Mozilla came out with a privacy study indicating that the auto industry was the worst tech industry the organization tracked. Mozilla found that not only does the industry hoover up a ton of data from your use of vehicles, it collects and monetizes most of the data on your phone. Often without transparency or adequate safeguards:

“All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label — making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.“

Auto Makers Are Selling Data On Your Driving Habits To Your Insurer Without Properly Informing You

Someone tell Rep. Mike Gallagher that China is buying our data! /s

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Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies

Nikki Haley Reinvigorates The GOP’s Breathless TikTok Hysteria… For The Children

Ms. Cat

We’ve noted many times how the GOP’s obsession with TikTok is stupid, performative, and utterly hollow. For example, the party desperately wants to ban TikTok for “privacy reasons,” yet consistently opposes passing privacy laws, or regulating data brokers that traffic in far more data — at a far greater international scale — than TikTok executives could ever dream of.

Nikki Haley Reinvigorates The GOP’s Breathless TikTok Hysteria… For The Children

Related:

Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ goes viral

Report: Unregulated Data Brokers Sell Military Family Info For Pennies

Ms. Cat

Report: Unregulated Data Brokers Sell Military Family Info For Pennies

“It is not difficult to obtain sensitive data about active-duty members of the military, their families, and veterans, including non-public, individually identified, and sensitive data, such as health data, financial data, and information about religious practices. The team bought this and other data from U.S. data brokers via a .org and a .asia domain for as low as $0.12 per record. Location data is also available, though the team did not purchase it.”

Apple Now Supports A Federal Right To Repair Law (Its Lawyers Will Help Write)

Ms. Cat

Apple Now Supports A Federal Right To Repair Law (Its Lawyers Will Help Write)

Here’s the thing: most of these companies haven’t genuinely changed their stripes. They just know that the bipartisan popularity of these reforms make it impossible for them to continue actively opposing them. So what they’re doing is lending their support for state laws, provided said laws exempt most of the key industries engaged in the dumbest behaviors.

Hype on iPhone ‘ban’ shows US has a guilty conscience

Ms. Cat

The biggest destroyer of the global economic and trade order is being paranoid. This is perhaps the most incisive and vivid explanation of why the US government and media outlets have seen a rumored ban on iPhones as China’s retaliation against the US.

Hype on iPhone ‘ban’ shows US has a guilty conscience

Related:

US spokesman behind on the news pours gas on seemingly settled China iPhone ban

In what appears to be a statement generated before news of the Chinese government refuting ban rumors, the White House chimed in on the matter, as reported by Bloomberg. The National Security Council shared that it is watching the issue with concern.

Josh Hawley Wants In On The TikTok Moral Panic Attention, Proposes Nationwide Ban

Ms. Cat

Insurrectionist sprinter Josh Hawley has joined the growing chorus of GOP politicians who’ve spent years doing jack shit about U.S. consumer privacy abuses, and now want to pretend that banning a single app — TikTok — will protect American consumers from a problem they themselves created.

Josh Hawley Wants In On The TikTok Moral Panic Attention, Proposes Nationwide Ban

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

Ms. Cat

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

One, the bans are generally designed to agitate a xenophobic base and give the impression the GOP is “doing something about China.” But the party that couldn’t care less about rampant corruption or privacy violations isn’t doing much of anything meaningful to thwart China. In fact, letting adtech, telecom, and app companies run rampant with little oversight runs contrary to any such goal.

Two, the bans distract the public and press from our ongoing failure on consumer privacy and security issues. Banning TikTok, but doing nothing about the accountability optional free for all that is the adtech and data-hoovering space, doesn’t actually fix anything. China can just obtain the same data from a universe of other international companies facing little real oversight on data collection.

Three, the ban is really just about money. Trump gave the game away with his proposal that TikTok be chopped up and sold to Oracle and Walmart. That cronyistic deal fell through, but it’s pretty clear that this moral panic is designed to either help TikTok’s competitors (Facebook lobbyists are very active on this front), or force the sale of the most popular app in modern history to GOP-allies. At which point they’ll engage in all the surveillance and influence efforts they pretend to be mad about.

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Rubio’s Bill To Ban TikTok Is A Dumb Performance That Ignores The Real Problem

Ms. Cat1 Comment

For several years we’ve noted how most of the calls to ban TikTok are bad faith bullshit made by a rotating crop of characters that not only couldn’t care less about consumer privacy, but are directly responsible for the privacy oversight vacuum TikTok (and everybody else) exploits.

Rubio’s Bill To Ban TikTok Is A Dumb Performance That Ignores The Real Problem

Related:

Senate passes bill banning TikTok from government devices

California’s Age Appropriate Design Code Is Radical Anti-Internet Policy

Ms. Cat

from the well,-there-goes-the-neighborhood dept

Thu, Sep 15th 2022 12:55pm – Mike Masnick

This isn’t a surprise, but it’s still frustrating. Gavin Newsom, who wants to be President some day, and thus couldn’t risk misleading headlines that he didn’t “protect the children,” has now signed AB 2273 into law (this follows on yesterday’s decision to sign the bad, but slightly less destructive, AB 587 into law). At this point there’s not much more I can say about why AB 2273 is so bad. I’ve explained why it’s literally impossible to comply with (and why many sites will just ignore it). I’ve explained how it’s pretty clearly unconstitutional. I’ve explained how the whole idea was pushed for and literally sponsored by a Hollywood director / British baroness who wants to destroy the internet. I’ve explained how it won’t do much, if anything, to protect children, but will likely put them at much greater risk. I’ve explained how the company it will likely benefit most is the world’s largest porn company — not to mention COVID disinfo peddlers and privacy lawyers. I’ve explained how the companies supporting the law insist that we shouldn’t worry because websites will just start scanning your face when you visit.

Gavin Newsom Fucks Over The Open Internet, Signs Disastrously Stupid Age Appropriate Design Code

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California’s Age Appropriate Design Code Is Radical Anti-Internet Policy