[yedava]

We need to think bigger. Having an app on your phone is like having a stranger in your house. The same legal protections that apply to property should apply inside the software that runs on your phone. An app should be at the mercy of the user and should provide easy (and automated) ways to turn off manipulative and surveillance features.

[avalys]

The same legal protections already apply.

You can invite a person into your house to perform a service for you. They can define conditions on performing their service: "I'll shampoo your carpet for $50." Those conditions could also be "I'll shampoo your carpet every month if you let me read your credit card bill every month." You don't have to agree to this! If you don't want to let them read your credit card bill, you don't have to agree to this service.

If you let someone into your house to shampoo your carpet, without agreeing to let them read your credit card bill, and they secretly do that anyway, that's already illegal!

What you're asking is the equivalent of saying that, if someone has a business of shampooing carpets in exchange for reading people's credit card bills, you want to be legally entitled to invite them into your house and force them to shampoo your carpet anyway, without giving them what they want in exchange.

(incidentally - if you respond to my post by nitpicking details of the analogy instead of addressing the central point, I'm not going to bother to respond).

[AlexandrB]

This is pure fiction though. How many people read an app's ToS? If a carpet cleaner showed up with terms like: "I'll shampoo your carpet every month if you let me read your credit card bill every month." no one would read it before signing either, but I suspect that a court would also consider this contract unenforceable.

In addition, with software "contracts", it's often a case of "give an inch and they'll take the mile". The terms are always open to unilateral change from the vendor. So it's more like: "I'll shampoo your carpet for $50. And I can change the terms to whatever I like at any point in the future." which in itself seems insane.

[yedava]

The tech world does not give you the choice of letting you pay for privacy or pay by invading your privacy. Now, you can nitpick that you can build your own service or host your service, but then the question becomes why is programming/sysadmin knowledge a prerequisite for using your phone?

[vundercind]

“Here’s a hypothetical ideal analogy, doesn’t that seem reasonable?” is one of my least-favorite types of arguments in cases where the observable reality is extremely different.

Who cares what it might be like? We can see what it is like.

[fallingknife]

So? You have the choice of not using the service. Companies are not obligated to give you a choice of payment type.

[amadeuspagel]

An app is at the mercy of the user, who can uninstall at any time, just as you can kick out people out of your home, but you can't turn off "manipulative" behaviour for them.

[yedava]

I can let in a contractor in my house and also ask them not to smoke. They of course have the right to refuse that request and decline my money, but in the real world, contractors usually comply with such requests as smoking is known to harm health. I don't see why the digital world has to be any different. Just because laws and awareness are lagging behind, tech world's toxic practices don't need to get a pass.

[cowgoesmoo]

> They of course have the right to refuse that request and decline my money, but in the real world, contractors usually comply with such requests as smoking is known to harm health.

Right, but you're suggesting that they should legally have to comply with this request and can't refuse service.

[yedava]

It's the other way around with apps. It's like I want to hire a contractor and every contractor says they have to smoke inside my house.

[hot_gril]

Which would be legal too, assuming it's a place where smoking is legal (some US cities have banned it in all multi-tenant buildings)