[a008t]

Somehow, I feel like the old, unregulated internet was better. I wonder if that is just nostalgia or there is something to it.

With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Barriers for entry for new websites and services are very low. Data breaches and abuses of data can lead to users being concerned about giving their data to tech monopolies, which can enable competition.

Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard, as well as strengthens the tech monopolies by adding to their moats. Would Facebook have been able to displace Myspace in the current environment? Or Google displace Yahoo?

The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things?

[NeedMoreTea]

The internet of old was something better. Of course it was, it was full of techies, scientists and hobbyists having absurdly involved discussions on Usenet and IRC. That was before Eternal September and the rampant commercialisation, tracking and grabbing all the data possible as often as possible.

The earliest years of commercialisation were pretty good too - hundreds of small sites, all trying really hard, but all with terrible site design. :) The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block.

"Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard"

What guard? How does a non IT expert envisage the ways that harvested data impacts their lives? Or the countless ways it can be connected up with other sources until it becomes pervasive? How are they meant to know that the news article they read has 15 different trackers on it along with the ads, or the reason some creepy retargeting ad turns up later in the day as though it knew what they were thinking?

Sometimes I wonder if _I_ know enough to take care adequately, and I've been online since before the www.

Now add the dark patterns and misinformation to completely misrepresent what most of these sites are doing with that data. Some of the big names excel at this.

"why change things?"

Facebook, Google, Microsoft and a hundred others got so greedy about data and tracking that the overreach was impossible to ignore. If GDPR wasn't already in progress, Cambridge Analytica and similar stories would have ensured it would get a reaction soon. Probably a worse reaction.

[strictnein]

> "The worst that adtech could yet come up with was an ugly animated gif and a little flash - which was super easy to block."

Yeah, people use to complain, loudly, about sites that allowed animated gif banner ads.

[apexalpha]

> Somehow, I feel like the old, unregulated internet was better. I wonder if that is just nostalgia or there is something to it.

>With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity. Barriers for entry for new websites and services are very low. Data breaches and abuses of data can lead to users being concerned about giving their data to tech monopolies, which can enable competition.

How is this the 'old internet' and not still the current internet. With exeption maybe to the EU with GDPR now, this is what the internet is: everyone has to take care of their own privacy and anonimity.

Barriers for entry for new website and services are lower than they've ever been. You don't even need your own hardware, just rent it.

>Regulations like GDPR arguably make users complacent and lowers their guard,

So according to this theory, people living outside GDPR territory, like the US, are less complacent regarding their data?

Do you really think the _average_ American is less complacent than the average European? I hardly think so.

>The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things?

The internet was literally built by government(s).

Why Change things? Because we are now finding out people are building massive databases with personal information, bought from small, medium and bigger websites who happily sold it without telling users they did.

GDPR prevents this.

How can I be 'less complacent' and 'have my guard up' if I don't even know that companies sell my data behind my back?

[beaconstudios]

> How can I be 'less complacent' and 'have my guard up' if I don't even know that companies sell my data behind my back?

By assuming they will, and taking steps to not provide your data to all and sundry. At the end of the day, companies can sell your data because they have it.

[apexalpha]

>By assuming they will, and taking steps to not provide your data to all and sundry. At the end of the day, companies can sell your data because they have it.

Okay I now assume that all companies will harvest as much data as they can. I will now take steps to prevent this.

I am now offline and there is no way to know if they do.

[jasonlotito]

> Okay I now assume that all companies will harvest as much data as they can.

You say harvest, as if they are taking something. The reality is, people always gave the data. The companies just kept what it was freely given. It's a bit hypocritical if I get upset that you keep something I gave you. The reality is, the problem wasn't with the users who gave the data, or the companies who kept what was given, but rather the people who made it possible to do it so easily in the first place. Browser makers share the majority of this responsibility. We look to them to create secure browsers that can't be hacked, but completely ignore the fact that they created browsers that are easily tracked. And then we adopt Chrome, a browser made by a company built on tracking.

And I find it funny that Brendan Eich's creation is probably the biggest reason we are in this situation in the first place.

[apexalpha]

People - not the ones here on HN - have no clue what they 'give' away. They also have no clue how often small companies, indie game devs etc make a living by selling said information that was 'given' to them.

These data aggregators can build profiles on people by buying data from as many sources as possible.

How is the average user supposed to know this happens on the background when they load www.nytimes.com? How are they supposed to know that those flashy banners contain entire programs designed to track them?

How should the average user now that the ad banners on acb.com are the same as on xyz.com?

How should the average user know that a FB button on every website also tracks you. As does G+ button, as does Twiter etc...

How are regular users supposed to know how much data they produce online.

Honestly it even scares me to see how many JS is loaded on average websites. Just for tracking, just for profile building.

This isn't given. It's taken.

[BrendanEich]

The cookie was and is still more critical than JS. Cross-site elements starting with IMG in 1993, ditto.

[NeedMoreTea]

Right, and the logical conclusion of this is to stop interacting with companies. Any companies. All companies. Always. Because they are all doing it to an offensive degree. GM want to know where your car has been, and what radio stations you listen to. Facebook want everything, Google have everything. The pretty light bulb you bought is both a privacy risk and an attack vector.

Phone apps want to know your location all the time, Google maps constantly nags you to enable constant location tracking. Every other app has dark patterns to accidentally get the land grab on every mis-click, like Facebook's "Accept", "not yet" and no is buried many clicks deep in a new set of check boxes in some 8th level settings page.

Presumably if I had made my career in a different field like medicine or plumbing you would expect me to "educate" myself enough about IT to understand the real implications too, and the ways the tables can be joined. The genius who tunes your classic car should be learning advanced Wireshark to understand the complete fucking liberties and data mugging the weather app his friend recommended is taking multiple times daily.

It doesn't occur to you that this is ever so slightly asymmetric? Each individual should "take steps" whilst single-handedly going up against the combined might of regulation-free corporate America, where we learn everything can be sold and probably already has been. So what steps if it's not "go live in a cave and buy nothing made since 1999"?

Next week how Vatican City can successfully invade Russia and USA at the same time.

[beaconstudios]

I was thinking more along the lines of don't post stuff online you don't want anyone to know, but sure you could make a whole big deal arguing against a straw man too if that's your bag. There's also some fundamental industry practices that want changing but if you want to do anything more practical than stomping your feet, avoiding posting personal info is a good start.

[oblio]

> The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things?

Things change on their own. The internet used to be accessed by highly sophisticated and technical users. Now it's mainstream.

And all mainstream things follow two basic rules:

1. Everything move at the speed of the slowest person.

2. The weakest members of the community need to be protected.

[shady-lady]

> The internet used to be accessed by highly sophisticated and technical users.

Quaint but that's simply not true unless you're talking pre 90's. No point in kidding ourselves.

The internet was accessed by people who accessed the internet. They popped a floppy/cd in a drive and followed instructions. They then opened a browser and typed a url.

Nothing sophisticated about it.

Nobody was creating electrical signals by hand and sending them down a home made wire.

[oblio]

> Nobody was creating electrical signals by hand and sending them down a home made wire.

I think we're talking about completely different levels of sophistication.

You're talking about electrical engineers vs regular users, I'm talking about levels of functional literacy... Don't forget that the average Joe/Jane has a level of functional literacy of somewhere around mid to late secondary school.

The earliest internet adopters were universities (so a entirely different level of education) and after that it was middle or upper class people who could afford a PC and an internet connection plus had the interest in doing so, considering that PCs until Windows 95 were either too expensive or not very user friendly.

The current internet, thanks to mobile devices and cheap, ubiquitous internet access, is truly accessible universally.

[shady-lady]

> highly sophisticated and technical users

I'm pointing out that referring to those users as the above is simply not true.

As you then point out, wealth(direct or by proxy) was the determinant in whether somebody had internet access, not high technical sophistication.

And wealth in and of itself is not a signal of high technical sophistication.

[TeMPOraL]

It wasn't wealth, it was interest. There was a period where the Internet (or PCs in general) were more of a curiosity than anything else, and you had to have some motivation to jump over the complexities of operating a computer and going on-line (not to mention some motivation to buy a PC/get your parents to do it). It served as a natural quality filter for a while.

[buboard]

> Nothing sophisticated about it.

Hmm no. You wouldn't even talk about it to avoid sounding like a weirdo.

[TeMPOraL]

3. Everything is dominated by people trying to make money, pushing out all other values.

[bad_user]

I grew up with the Internet. I've been on the Internet since 1995.

The old, unregulated Internet was not made of companies milking users of data and violating their privacy.

Of course it was better.

[bunderbunder]

> The internet was doing fine for decades

Right, but then Eternal September happened.

Nowadays, the vast, vast, vast majority of Internet users don't have the necessary background knowledge to understand how to protect their privacy online, and the people who do have that knowledge tend to concentrate into organizations that have a lot of financial incentive not to respect others' privacy.

[psergeant]

> The internet was doing fine for decades with minimal involvement from governments - why change things?

Because the threat landscape — both malware and privacy-related — have seen a sea-change.

[BonesJustice]

> With an unregulated internet, any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity.

Not really, because much of the information data brokers have about you comes from other people. Oh, your mom gave LinkedIn access to her contact list? Now they’ve got your phone number, mailing address, email address, a contact photo for facial recognition, and lord knows what else.

Oh, your friend and confidant gave an app access to their text messages and email? Great, some data broker now has a copy of every email and text message sent between you. Hope there wasn’t anything private in there.

The argument that you can somehow protect your own privacy on the internet rings hollow when it’s invaded without any action on your part.

[Cthulhu_]

> any internet user has to take care of their own privacy and anonymity.

Easy to say, hard in practice when there's some really dodgy shit going on and given that most people don't actually (want to) dive into the subject, this isn't something that can apply to the modern age.

I mean while I agree, you postulate some libertarian ideal - freedom for all on the internet. And while I agree, there's some scummy companies that take liberties with that - and when they have a data leak, it's your information that's out there, despite your own protection.

I mean you could advise people to use an adblocker, but when said adblockers are exploited (so that advertisers can be unblocked if they pay a fee, mafia like schemes), or when the creator takes the money and hands over the code and effectively silently-auto-updating backdoor into the user's machine, they're fucked - not because of your best intentions, not because of their ignorance, but because something outside of their control.

When there's a big government with the power to shut down companies looming over there telling people to not allow said breaches in the first place, you'll be better off.

[a008t]

My main concern is that the big government will be used by big corporations with massive compliance and legal departments to shut down any emerging competition that refuses to be bought out.

[prablenha]

The internet was fine before adtech and data hoarders. I don't know why you think this is the fault of the government. New things pop up and we need regulations to protect citizens.