Re:How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful
by gaius on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @12:30AM
(#14305927)
Imagine ten years from now you decide to run for some kind of important political office.
The real nightmare is when insurance companies have access to your search history.
"We see that you googled X and Y on date D which was before your policy started, so your problem Z is probably a pre-existing condition, claim denied"
Re:How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful
by ajmurmann on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @10:16PM
(#14305466)
Playing devil's advocate: They might expose that a candidate just likes to grab women by the pussy who did not indicate that they'd like that to happen. The candidate might still successfully be elected.
Re:How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful
by spearmint on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @07:47AM
(#14307457)
How is that playing devil's advocate?
Are you implying that if such a campaign were to hurt a candidate you don't personally approve of, it would be perfectly fine?
Re:How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful
by ajmurmann on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @10:47AM
(#14308593)
No, I'm saying that having even massive dirty like this on a candidate apparently doesn't prevent them from winning anyways. A common response to pussy gate was that you hear stuff like that in any mens room. So digging up dirty from twenty years ago from someone Facebook page will likely be met with the same response.
Re:How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful
by michaelbuckbee on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @12:12AM
(#14305875)
I like this explanation but would suggest that the more likely scenario is that all that data is accidently dumped onto the Internet for anybody to dig through.
Imagine your opponent had access to every single search query, email and message you had ever sent.
Imagine they had access to all of the GPS data from your smartphone so that they could tell exactly where you went each day, how long you spent there and (importantly) which other people were nearby.
Correlate all that with all of the things you've ever bought because your credit card company sold that info years ago.
Add in all the data from your spouse, your children and your closes family and friends.
Now hand it to the people that are trying to smear your reputation in the worst possible way.
You can see how easy it would be to sway elections this way. Even if right now it wasn't something you cared much about - this data is collected forever and I doubt you know exactly how your life is likely to be ten, twenty, thirty or more years from now.