[JohnFen]

Most privacy advocates I know revolve around the concept of "informed consent". The idea isn't to ban technologies because they can be abused, it's to stop the abuse.

The guiding principle for when that line is crossed is whether or not the affected person was completely and accurately informed about what is going to happen, and that they have affirmatively given their consent for it to happen.

[eternityforest]

The GDPR goes a little farther than that though, because it makes consent revokable even after the fact, and disallows consent as a requirement to access a service, and some privacy advocates seem to think that's still not enough.

[JohnFen]

The ability to revoke consent is an essential part of consent, in my view.

> some privacy advocates seem to think that's still not enough.

I am one of them. I think the GDPR is inadequate in many ways, but it's certainly a huge improvement over the nothing that existed prior, and it's much better than anything we have here in the US.

But the things I think are inadequate about the GDPR still revolve around consent. I will admit that "consent" is a very broad term, though, and includes a whole lot of intricacies and nuances. It's a bit like "freedom" in that sense.

[eternityforest]

I guess it depends on how you view personal data.

To me, it's just like any other data, licensing it to someone is no different than licensing the source code to something you wrote, if it's revokable the whole concept doesn't make sense, and you don't really own it so much as it's held in trust by the state.

But it seems like some people see it as something really personal and special that inherently shouldn't be treated like any other commercial asset, (Possibly because they've got more interesting lives than mine!) and there doesn't seem to be any compromise that doesn't make someone unhappy.

Revocability does make a lot of sense and I can think of a lot of very good use cases for that right, but also some ways it impairs P2P.

I think the only real solution is for private tech to achieve real parity with nonprivate tech, at least as much as is possible (Tech is almost never private compared to no tech at all, it can always be hacked), but I have no idea how that would be possible.

Technically it could happen, socially FOSS devs would rather work on minimalist stuff.

[Shish2k]

> To me, it's just like any other data, licensing it to someone is no different than licensing the source code to something you wrote, if it's revokable the whole concept doesn't make sense, and you don't really own it so much as it's held in trust by the state.

We live in a world where “buy this movie” on a streaming site gives you no kind of ownership, merely a temporary license to rent the data until the company decides they don’t want you to have it any more - treating personal data the same way doesn’t seem bad by comparison...

[JohnFen]

> To me, it's just like any other data, licensing it to someone is no different than licensing the source code to something you wrote

I agree with this. It's your data, you're free to license it out in any way you choose.

> if it's revokable the whole concept doesn't make sense, and you don't really own it so much as it's held in trust by the state.

I don't understand this. How does your ability to revoke a license you've issued mean that it's held in trust by the state? Revocability underscores that you own the data and can control what happens to it in the future.

By the way, almost all licenses are revocable.

> But it seems like some people see it as something really personal and special that inherently shouldn't be treated like any other commercial asset,

And those people aren't wrong. They're exerting their rightful control over their data as they see fit. If I choose to license my data out, I am also exerting my rightful control over my data as I see fit. There is no contradiction here -- in both cases, it's about consent.

[specialist]

What's your position on the right to privacy?

[labster]

The right to privacy is alienable, like the right to party; it must be fought for.

[specialist]

Like indentured servitude?

[eternityforest]

It's a basic human right, same as right to free speech. Encryption and anonymity technology should be strongly protected and respected, and I support most of what the GDPR is doing.

It's just completely banning the choice to use nonprivate services I have an issue with.