Businesses have experimented with "other people's data" forever. The clerk at the video store chats with customers, learns which ones are chatty, what recommendations work out, etc. This is considered to be good service. But a cloud software company does the same thing with an algorithm and a CPU and suddenly it's an outrageous violation of privacy. Suddenly we need informed consent protocols to change the signage on the store front or the font on the web page. Seems like an overreaction to me, assuming that all cloud companies are out to take zero-sum advantage of you.
Do you seriously not see a difference between the video store clerk recording people who voluntarily information and personal data such as browsing history?
Nobody cares about Amazon using their own sales records and server logs to generate recommendations. The problem comes when technology companies decide that means they get to use any data.
If you're fine with google using personal data, are you also fine with FedEx opening up every package they deliver to you?
> take zero-sum advantage of you
Nobody said "all" or "zero sum", which doesn't apply here, but "take advantage of you:" is pretty much a description of capitalism. On HN, this is usually called "monetizing".
Why is the boundary of a firm relevant? If Amazon buys a shoe store, does that make them more legitimate in their use of your shoe shoppng data than before? This seems like an arbitary choice that is biased in favor of big companies.
Incorporation isn't the boundary. Again, why are you conflating business data with the personal data of someone using a product that has nothing whatsoever to do with the business transaction.
If Amazon buys a shoe store, they get the sales records and any other related data. They do not get to know where you walk with their shoes.
If there is any confusion here, it is because of the recent trend in Services as a Software Substitute that makes the business's server necessary for normal use of their product. Some people seem to think this lets them open the packages they are conveying or storing.
Of course they do. Traffic analysis is always a problem. They obviously know the src/dst addresses and the package dimensions (including weight), as those features are necessary for the the delivery.
They still don't know what's inside the package. I really don't see why this boundary is hard to understand. With snail-mail (fedex, usps, etc) there are even laws that protect the boundary between the envelope and the private contents. Why would you think software would be different?
