[dylan604]

In legal terms stealing != stealing. There is larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny. One type gets you a slap on the wrist (stealing one's personal data for monetary gain). Another gets you a ridiculous monetary fine (downloading a song/game from torrents). It's out of balance like the murderer going free while the kid with minor amounts of weed going to jail.

[jimmaswell]

I find it absurd to frame making an observation (this person buys a lot of cereal from my store, so I'll tell him about a new brand of cereal that came in he might like) as stealing their data. How do you justify that? How has this cereal buying customer been robbed?

[iujjkfjdkkdkf]

Harvesting peoples behavioral or other data is depriving them of privacy. There is lots of precedent for why privacy is important. So to be specific, the data collection is "stealing" privacy.

And with respect to the gp comment, this is actually different than copyright infringement, where the infringer is not depriving the copyright holder of anything, except potentially a business model based on withholding information. There is obviously a lively debate about the appropriate reach of copyright law, but imo at least, copyrights are more abstract that the privacy rights that are being infringed through surreptitious data collection

[jryle70]

> Harvesting peoples behavioral or other data is depriving them of privacy. There is lots of precedent for why privacy is important. So to be specific, the data collection is "stealing" privacy.

It's not always black and white as the OP demonstrates. Store owners memorize their customer's preferences or habits in hoping of their return; waiters do so to please their customers for tips. The customers weren't consented but that still isn't stealing. Scaling it up, small mom and pop stores compete with big box chain by providing better customer services. They can't do that without knowing their customers. That isn't stealing either.

So where is the line? I'd argue collecting customer's information en mass for the purpose of reselling being the line and that isn't perfect either.

[dylan604]

A waiter doesn't sell to an adversting company the fact that I like my food prepared a specific way, nor does/did my local bar tender sell to advertisers that i prefer a specific cocktail. Comparing these are night/day different from what pervassive online tracking is doing.