[TaylorAlexander]

Not defending the article (I’ve not read it), but I suppose I probably would be horrified with the status quo. I really wish we had a more consent based data culture. I suppose I don’t know how that would be designed. But lots of real things are horrifying and it’s not necessarily fine just that something is normal.

[dredmorbius]

My view is that consent is oversold. If I "consent" to a boilerplate agreement handed me moments before an action is taken, have I really?

Boundaries and distributions should be clearly, specifically specified, with any non-essential distributions requiring specific assent, defaulting to none. If there are consequences to sharing, those can be made known. We've been drawn into a circumstance which has long been untenable.

[dragonwriter]

> If I "consent" to a boilerplate agreement handed me moments before an action is taken, have I really?

A not uncommon practice with HIPAA “disclosures” is to sign an electronic device that records the signature (and provides no evidence that the document your signature is associated with is anything like the one you were given) prior to being provided with documents. So, yeah, the practices around consent with PHI suck pretty hard.

[dredmorbius]

I would flat out refuse.

[jobigoud]

This why there is the concept of informed consent.

[dredmorbius]

Actually, that's not accurate in this case.

If you inform me, then hand me a pre-printed document with a huge set of conditions on it, or worse as another response notes, simply collect my signature, it's not that I'm not enformed. It's that I'm not empowered to act on the basis of that information in any meaningful way.

It's a sham.

I'm a fan of the power of etymologies to reveal if not necessarily the present meanings of words, the paths by which they've arrived to the present. In the case of consent:

c. 1300, "agree, give assent; yield when one has the right, power, or will to oppose," from Old French consentir "agree; comply" (12c.) and directly from Latin consentire "agree, accord," literally "feel together," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + sentire "to feel" (see sense (n.)).

https://www.etymonline.com/word/consent

(A true gem of the Internet.)

[mindslight]

> If I "consent" to a boilerplate agreement handed me moments before an action is taken, have I really?

Obviously you have not.

I wouldn't say this is consent being "oversold", but rather yet another way that the concept of consent is being actively undermined into a legal fiction.

This is also why the GDPR has the provision for revoking permission to your data at any time - to counter its rights being otherwise nullified through contracts of adhesion.

[dredmorbius]

"Legal fiction" is an entirely apt description, yes.