Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

That's not true though; the fact that some service I'm using meets my privacy criteria today means they don't have any information to sell or exploit in the future.



How many services you use have your email address, telephone number, real name, or street address?

All of these have value, but are needed for various aspects of business (sending purchases, receipts, contacting you on case of issues with your account, etc).

For that matter the compiled list of actions you take on a site have value. The only way not to provide a service with valuable personal information is not to use it.


In the magic world where capitalism's "vote with your wallet" actually works (which as vegetablepotpie points out is fictional), email addresses given to corporations have the form "[random base64 UUID]@generic-mail-service.example.com", phone numbers are similar but base ten, businesses don't distinguish between 'real' names and "John Q Smith", and mailing addresses (given to corporations) are of the form "[random base64 UUID] care of [US postal service or a more cooperative competitor thereof]".

(I guess this technically assumes that voting with your actual vote also works, at least for the purposes of removing abusive know-your-customer laws, but lack of gratuitously harmful regulation seems in line with the libertarian-esque philosophy behind "vote with your wallet", so... eh.)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: