[some_random]

I cannot push back against the idea that ordinary people consent to collection when they use free services enough. This is an utterly transparent myth that data collectors, aggregators, and consumers tell themselves and others to justify their actions.

People do not understand what is being collected. I and probably everyone here has heard speculation that phones are constantly monitoring for keywords which are used in ads. It's an incredibly common idea that (afaik) isn't true, but shows just how little people understand how data collection works and again, what is actually being collected.

People do not understand how this data is used. The best example I can think of is with pregnant women. Every ad on every platform suddenly revolving around pregnancy and caring for a newborn is not the expected outcome of just googling for some mayoclinic articles. And of course if they're trying to conceal their pregnancy or worse, have a miscarriage, this has resulted in real world harm.

Finally, people cannot possibly consent to how this data will be used in the future. This should be pretty self explanatory.

Those who work for organizations that sell data or information gained from data such as Google or Facebook have to convince themselves the above is not true. In which case, it makes complete sense to insist that the US military needs to have a warrant in order to collect, since obviously a warrant is needed if the target for collection doesn't consent.

[eue6e6ey]

Just because people don't understand all the technical details doesn't mean they are sufficiently ignorant to cash in on power words like consent. While I realize it's shortsighted reasoning, it's incredibly common to hear some variant of "x already knows everything about me so who cares" or "my stuff's already in the cloud, I bet x could get to it if it mattered". People in the mainstream are /already/ assuming the worst case scenario, they just don't care as much as we think they should and the only reason the Europeans do is because they're not the ones running the services so the power balance is different.

[some_random]

I don't really want to go through a whole sex analogy for consent, but suffice to say that "they consented once at the very beginning without an actual understanding of what was going to happen but it's fine because they're already assuming the worst case scenario" would get one thrown in jail.

[AnthonyMouse]

> People in the mainstream are /already/ assuming the worst case scenario

People in the mainstream don't understand what the worse case scenario is.

They give up their information and don't see any obvious consequences because they don't understand what the consequences actually are. The data gets used for things like price discrimination, which you're not even aware is happening, but then that "free" service ends up costing you $250/month.

Partisans spend all day calling one another fascists and communists, never thinking what would happen with the data in these companies if a government at the level of totalitarianism that existed in actual reality during the 20th century came to power in the 21st.

[nitrogen]

what would happen with the data in these companies if a government at the level of totalitarianism that existed in actual reality during the 20th century came to power in the 21st.

The past year should give everyone pause in this regard, no matter which side (or no side) you are on.

[rendall]

> the only reason the Europeans do is because they're not the ones running the services so the power balance is different.

My experience as an American having lived in Europe now for over 7 years is that Europeans (in general, particularly in the Nordic region) have a profoundly different relationship to their governments than US citizens do to ours. The will to protect individual users' data and privacy as expressed in the GDPR for instance is a sincere expression of European values, and would be as in effect if "the power balance" were tilted towards European companies. I know European companies who avoid Google services and all American companies to hold important data, as but one example