[neiman]

> Privacy LARPers are a tiny segment of the market, the average person doesn’t really care if their ‘usage of the highlighter function is tracked’

If so, why don't they loudly advertise the data collection and do it only with opt-in?

It's not that the average user doesn't care if they're tracked, it's that they're not aware that they're being tracked.

[jjcon]

You think companies should loudly advertise something people don’t care about? That doesn’t make sense.

Plenty of companies are quite transparent about their data collection practices (set up an Apple device recently?)

Most people are aware of data collection, they care more about functionality though.

[shadowprofile77]

>Plenty of companies are quite transparent about their data collection practices (set up an Apple device recently?)

I have not, not recently, but what you say is simply bullshit. They're "transparent" in that they give you a ToS loaded with legalese that they know you couldn't easily read through to find just how much and where they're squeezing your life for information to store. In cases where they simplify this with some less legalistic declarations of data use, what you often see there are numerous weasel words and phrases to very ambiguously describe what's being done. You know, things like "We MAY collect some information for the sake of improving user experience" and blah blah....

Then of course, there's the outright lying, which also happens, in which big tech companies simply fail to mention some types of data collection anywhere (the Amazon Alexa voice recordings being listened to by humans is a good example iof this)

[jjcon]

This isn’t buried in a tos or legalese

https://www.groundctl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/csm_IMG...

Apple prompts you for each piece of data collection during the setup of an iOS device (and lets you choose if you want to share).

[t-writescode]

You're presenting the shining example in the corporate world of responsibility with customer data, Apple, with every other company and saying that everyone does it this way?

Most companies hide it in legalese. Some companies claim they're not sending any data and then send it anyway. Looking at you Philips Hue lights.

[neiman]

> You think companies should loudly advertise something people don’t care about?

It's not what I said.

[jjcon]

> why don't they loudly advertise the data collection

[neiman]

This I wrote. I didn't write "companies should loudly advertise something people don’t care about" -> you added something to my sentence, taking it out of context.

I wrote my opinion already, but I'll repeat it anyway in case it was not clear. I think you can't know if people care about it or not, as long as they're not informed about it.

[rumanator]

> If so, why don't they loudly advertise the data collection and do it only with opt-in?

But they do.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yg70ojfWXnk

[neiman]

The video is about synch, while the conversation is about "collection does lead to better products" -> i.e, analytics.

[rumanator]

What do you believe syncing means? This discussion talks about whispersync reporting last page read and most recent page read events. What do you think that's supposed to do?

[neiman]

Syncing and analytics are not identical, sorry.

[rumanator]

You're the only one fabricating accusations about "analysing" in a discussion about how Kindles send data with whispersync, a system widely known to be used to sync data across devices.

More importantly, the only usecase mentioned in the discussion that resembles anything like analysis is synching page reads across devices, and tracking reading progress to compensate authors who make their books available through subscription services.

Either you know stuff about "analysing" that for some reason you're keeping a secret, or you're talking nonsense about stuff you have no grasp over.

[neiman]

Please read the message beginning this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24271258

It's written there:

> "most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country."

Besides, I don't appreciate phrases like "fabricating accusations" or "you're talking nonsense about stuff you have no grasp over". I'm may be wrong, it happens often, but even if I am this aggressive tone is not in place. You can point out my mistakes politely if they exist, same way as I do with yours.