Lending agencies in the USA have also had the hammer brought down on them for paying attention to postal codes in some jurisdictions, but I don't think it's been banned nationally.

Regardless, the spot where surveillance capitalism worries me is that it could serve to undercut any attempts at banning such practices, regardless of how consumer-friendly a legal jurisdiction tries to be in limiting how the data can be used.

Can't use your current postal code to decide what your interest rate will be? That's fine, we'll just buy a dataset that tells us what your favorite restaurants are, and infer where you live from that instead.

Oh, but we won't do it directly, either, because someone would just blow the whistle on that, too. Instead we'll feed it and several hundred or thousand other data points into a machine learning model. And we'll pick the most black box algorithm we can think of, so we can claim plausible deniability.

Or maybe we'll set up several different online loan companies, each of which offers slightly different rates. We won't explicitly say that only certain people are supposed to use one of them, but we will still engineer the client pools by carefully targeting the advertising based on what websites people tend to visit.

I'm coming to the opinion that we should consider this kind of dragnet collection and reselling of data about people to be abusive prima facie. The potential for misuse is just too great, and the ostensibly legitimate uses that people have been able to come up with are typically really lame and uncompelling.

To paraphrase Maciej Ceglowski, this is machine learning as a vehicle for for bias laundering.

"Redlining" is illegal in the USA, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

Interesting, I didn't know that!

I'm not an expert in any way so it was probably a bit inappropriate to just assume what the author stated to be true - however, I don't want to focus on the discussion whether, how and where Redlining is existing in the US, because I notice this trend a lot.

Another, (hopefully less controversial) example:

Recently, I read an /r/askreddit thread titled "What sucks most about getting old?"(paraphrasing here) and literally about two third of the top level answers were something along the lines of "how much medicare cost/ how you can't have that much nice things because of doctor's appointments". Hint: It's not getting old what sucks here and neither it have to be that way.

I'm not saying that other countries are flawless, or even that they're better, but it's usually prefaced with "Well here in India" or "As a citizen of Belgium" - Americans just seem to assume their experience is valid for everyone.

Well, people have been complaining about that continuously for the 30+ years I've been on the Internet, so have fun complaining, but you're not going to get anyone to change.

And it's clear from context: Almost everyone who does that is from the USA.

FWIW, Reveal recently did a really nice investigative piece on how redlining is alive and well: https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/the-red-line-racial-disp...

The United States has privacy laws also, including a lot of regulation of the credit rating business. The laws are just created on a case by case basis, there is no general right to privacy from other private actors.

> there is no general right to privacy

For better or worse, American society chose to enshrine the First Amendment and its right to free speech over personal privacy. I personally believe speech is the more delicate right.

I'm not making the connection how free speech and privacy are mutually exclusive?

Maybe not “mutually exclusive”, but there are conflicts. For example, some EU countries media are traditionally more reticent about publishing identities of the arrested than the American media is.

The most obvious recent conflict is “Right to be Forgotten” laws in EU vs the U.S.

Well, can you name an example where the EU focus on privacy instead of free speech had an actual negative effect?

Because as I see it, witch hunting old people who fake recipes for their opiod addiction or adding "massive national fame" to the list of motives for school shooters doesn't seem to benefit anyone beside the infotainment industry - and anyone who doesn't like actual coverage instead of sensationalism.

The very essence of free speech seems to be equally there in the EU (if not more) as it is in the US, or am I mistaken?

Anything that requires a takedown will have negative consequences depending on who you are:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/right-...

The "right" of free speech really inst free when espousing unpopular views has many lasting damages.

You can get fired from a job. You can get evicted. You can have your mortgage cancelled. You can be denied service at stores.

Sure free speech is great and all, but it also means potentially subjecting yourself to poverty.

I recall the story where the lady said over twitter, " I'm going to africa, hope I don't get aids. Oh that's right I'm white". Justine Sacco, I think. Or dongle jokes....

(EDIT: already at -2. I figure people would understand what it means to be banned by faceless entities and the like over free speech. I know I don't have free speech - There's many topics in which if I discuss would have lasting job ramifications. I also refrain from many opinions about societal issues in which is republican vs democrat.

Tl;Dr. Free speech may mean government cant imprison me for complaints against politicians, but my fellow man can make sure I live under a bridge.)

The right to free speech in the USA concerns political speech, and the relationship between the people and their government. It is not a shield against punishment by society for controversial or ill-considered comments. Indeed, it likely would prove impossible to grant such protections without limiting freedom of political or religious expression.

Your first mistake is believing in the fiction that corporations are people. Just because judges said so, doesn't make it true.

My primary complaint comes down to this country coming to an understanding of "right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" apply to actual people, and shouldn't apply to companies and capricious decisions. Things people do on their private time should have absolutely no bearing on where they work, where they live, or where they shop.

We already have laws on companies that restrict many different things. Companies can't violate the EEOC: they can't legally ask if you're married. Nor can they use your racial identity as a reason to hire/fire you. (they do, just under the guise of selective enforcement and firing for 'insubordination')

> The right to free speech in the USA concerns political speech, and the relationship between the people and their government. It is not a shield against punishment by society for controversial or ill-considered comments. Indeed, it likely would prove impossible to grant such protections without limiting freedom of political or religious expression.

And there was something that bothered me with your post... I've read similar kind of comments regarding desegregation in the South. Not that I'm calling you racist, mind you. But there were people who doubted similarly, and used that as an excuse to not make those changes. Fortunately, they were wrong.

> Things people do on their private time should have absolutely no bearing on where they work, where they live, or where they shop.

Yes, you are correct that the U.S. has passed laws that take a hard line against certain forms of discrimination, especially when it comes to employment and housing.

But even a law as accepted and adhered today as The Americans with Disabilities Act (one of the laws EEOC enforces [0]) is not even 30 years old. And in that brief time, into today, it has ongoing battles and controversies. The definition of "disabled" is most definitely not universally agreed upon [1]. Nor is there an easy consensus about the costs society should bear to follow the ADA. One example on HN that comes to my mind is this thread last year [2], in which many folks (perhaps the majority) argued that UC Berkeley should be allowed to continue producing online lectures without subtitles for the hearing-impaired.

You're probably aware even the most seemingly obvious consequence of the 1st Amendment -- that the government cannot censor people's free speech -- has been a continual matter of litigation and debate over the past century in every domain, from student protests to national security.

And yet you think that an expansive interpretation of the First Amendment -- such that no one in America should suffer negative consequences for expressing beliefs -- would have no complications or unintended consequences. How are you so wrapped up in your own predicament -- having to self-censor because you fear people may dislike and even shun you for your personal opinions -- that you can't see the obvious and immediate ways in which such a law would severely curtail the free speech of everyone, particularly the folks who do not have the resources to go to court?

If you believe the 1st Amendment stops the government from abridging free speech, isn't it also blatantly obvious how problematic it would be to enforce this law? (Hint: who do you think runs the regulators and courts who would be in charge of enforcing and passing judgement?)

Let's pretend we have the power to time travel and go back to rewrite the 1st Amendment; I challenge you to come up with just the words/phrases that would reasonably describe the free speech protection you want.

[0] https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/45th/ada20/ada_cases.cfm

[1] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=521f98d2-a9b0...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856

Not sure what you're getting at, so called "redlining" is illegal in the US as well.

The US has a slew of laws around lending, the ECOA and FHA being the main ones.

It's illegal nationally for some specific things like home loans.

Insurance redlining, on the other hand, is rampant and not even particularly secretive. I've heard it's also a problem for credit cards.

Thank you for the insight, please see my reply to /u/greglindahl above if you're interested in my answer!

There is not much you can do if you just try to avoid mass surveillance, but if you try to get laws changed, then there is some hope.

I disagree. You can do a lot to avoid mass surveillance. But you need to think like a smart criminal. Or a spy. And that comes hard for some.

I truly doubt that there's much hope for limiting mass surveillance in the US. The NSA does not respect the law. Because it's a military organization, and the US is always at war. At most, the NSA merely pretends to respect the law.

> The NSA does not respect the law. Because it's a military organization, and the US is always at war.

You're working your way backwards through this problem, but stopped short. The US is always at war because...

This is a feedback loop, and the ones causing the endless war utilize the NSA, indirectly, and otherwise, to keep the train moving.

Yes, agreed.

I think that you underestimate them... How often do you change your burner phones? Do you turn them off before you get back home? do you use different phones/computers for different purposes?, etc... if want to be truly untraceable, it is not practical at all.

I have just two phones, a smartphone for work, and an old dumb one for friends and family. Using those, I am entirely unremarkable.

I have occasionally used burner phones. Except when in use, I would remove the batteries and store them in an old steel paint can, with a charger. In the back of my vehicle, with tools. I never opened the can unless I was a few hundred km from my home and work. Supposedly on camping/fishing trips, and I lied about where I was going. Using an old vehicle, and keeping to back roads.

You might or might not be remarkable but even if what you do is of no interest to the NSA, they know a lot about you and you are not doing enough if you are trying to avoid the NSA net.