Examples:
"Our mission is to organize the world's information." (proceeds to organize the world's commercial brands and spam people based on what they do online)
"We value freedom of speech." (proceed to literally ban the president, wrong opinions and alternative apps like Parler)
"We value your privacy." (Every big"tech"/cloud company ever that sells your data and has an automated system in place to pass all data on to the NSA, authorities and anybody willing to buy data)
"Download now" (not actually now, but after you get our download manager adware/cryptolocker)
"Download full functional version for free now" (actually a limited trial that you get to use after you dump personal info)
"Free trial, unlimited music downloads, cancel any time" (proceed to charge your credit card even though you cancelled the limited DRM download service on time. I'm looking at you Amazon Music)
https://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs-randfinal.pdf
"People of average education show off the studied regularity of their script, but the well educated often scribble illegibly. Mediocre students answer a teacher’s easy questions, but the best students are embarrassed to prove their knowledge of trivial points. Acquaintances show their good intentions by politely ignoring one’s flaws, while close friends show intimacy by teasingly highlighting them. People of moderate ability seek formal credentials to impress employers and society, but the talented often downplay their credentials even if they have bothered to obtain them. A person of average reputation defensively refutes accusations against his character, while a highly respected person finds it demeaning to dignify accusations with a response."
What would you recommend people to put on their website when they genuinely would want to provide a search engine that plants trees?
Do you imply matrix.org being a protocol for closed islands for insecure, centralized silence instead of a protocol for an open network for secure, decentralized communication?
Please start finding actual arguments instead of spreading superficial unfounded commentary.
They actually don't imply that but the exact opposite, which is "the website that talks the most about tree planting, plants the least". The way you phrase it reverses that logical implication, which is not what they said.
Everything except lies. Simple.
PS: I think the idea of a search engine like that is great (assuming the tree planting is done in a responsible way without destroy ecosystems). But I don't think implying to be privacy friendly when you're not really is great.
I don’t believe any particular company cares about anything other than maximizing their profit.
You lose your freedom of assembly if you use it to form mobs with the objective of perpetrating crimes.
You lose your freedom of speech if you use it to form unlawful assemblies with the objective of perpetrating crimes.
Trump was banned because he sent a mob of Q-indoctrinated lunatics to the Capitol with the likely objective of kidnapping senators and staging a coup (they were photographed carrying zip-tie handcuffs in Senate chambers).
It was a good idea to ban Trump, let's keep it that way. He rarely said anything of value anyways, only reality show trash talk, hate speech and pseudoscience.
Saying this is not open-mindedness or support for free speech.
The president and Parler both have acted as direct, unequivocal instruments of fomenting and directing violence, especially with racist and fascist nature.
Banning them from any platforms is in no way connected to free speech whatsoever. President Trump’s Twitter account and Free Speech are two completely disconnected, unrelated concepts.
It requires fascism-sympathizing and racism-sympathizing to even suggest otherwise.
At this point, anything of the vein like, “Banning Trump from Twitter is unfair censorship” or “Banning Parler from app stores is unfair censorship” is just hate speech disguised as if it’s an attempt to uphold freedom.
This appears to be accurate.
That said, my gripe isn't with their Facebook integration, it is with their dishonest privacy posture when the fine print reveals something else. They can do way better.
I definitely agree about the fine print. I wish more companies would just say up front what they are going to do.
I don’t mind if they use environmental issues for their marketing interests, but this is so ridiculous to have such privacy policy.
It's very important to remember the legal and liability requirements associated with privacy policies. In many jurisdictions, you are subject to liability if you collect something that was not disclosed in your privacy policy.
Therefor, the default is to over-report. If there's a chance that something is collected, better to put it into the privacy policy. This is similar to the famous "California Cancer Warning" - the incentives to include everything, no matter the materiality, ultimately render the warnings useless.
Any central server will "collect" everything typed into a text box. If it allows registration, requires password verification, perhaps offers customer support, it will disclose collection of "personally identifiable information" including email, phone number, possibly computer-specific information like browser, IP, installed version info, etc. Hosting on Amazon means it's shared with a 3rd party. And so on.
Also, this seems crazy to the privacy conscious, but many consumers want Facebook integration. They ask for social logins, and easy ways to share via social media. Once those features are enabled to satisfy their users, they're subject to all the cruft that comes with those APIs - and need to disclose those in their privacy policies.
None of the above means that a site is nefariously using the data it collects. Nor does it mean they do not take privacy very seriously.
The interconnectedness of the web, legal requirements, litigious privacy advocates, and overarching privacy regulations (none of which are bad on their own) combine to make the Privacy Policy an almost useless signal of a company's actual privacy posture.
That's why it's highly unfair to Ecosia for OP to so strongly imply they lie (or are, at best, misleading and hypocritical) and use your data nefariously, simply by excerpting a few lines of the Privacy Policy. The scare quotes, italicized "may"s, rhetorical questions, and other devices written to instill doubt and distrust makes me wonder about the agenda behind the message, frankly.
Privacy is extremely important, but so is customer service and a viable business model. Suggesting that any product that collects data to run the business (and properly discloses it, as Ecosia does) will "do so for nefarious purposes" and does not "take user privacy very seriously" ("Right.") is unfair and undermines the work good people do to craft a viable balance in today's difficult tech ecosystem.
I don't have a horse in this fight, but I do build FOSS anti-surveillance / anti-censorship apps, and take offense at such misleading messaging.
> It's very important to remember the legal and liability requirements associated with privacy policies.
Why isn't it important to not mislead with headlines and FAQs?
> Therefor, the default is to over-report.
Wouldn't have to if one really took measures to "protect privacy" but when one can't / don't / won't ... then one may at least have the courtesy to be upfront about it.
> Nor does it mean they do not take privacy very seriously.
They claim to "protect your privacy". Their words, not mine. But the fine-print doesn't inspire confidence, even if written in CMA-style (though, that's a lame excuse). Or as they say, why not put money where your mouth is.
> That's why it's highly unfair to Ecosia for OP to so strongly imply they lie (or are, at best, misleading and hypocritical) and use your data nefariously, simply by excerpting a few lines of the Privacy Policy.
Thanks but it is not I that's hypocritical. You have it the other way around, I am afraid.
> italicized "may"s,
Here's the clause: "The anonymised data is saved for as long as is necessary for the evaluation. The data is not transferred to any third party. We will not access your data located outside of the app, such as your calendar, photos, messages or such like unless you have permitted us to do so."
> Suggesting that any product that collects data to run the business...
You're extrapolating the critique to the entire world, which you can, but you then don't get to dismiss it for one entity just because "the rest of the world can't survive without data collection". Ecosia may not need personal data to be running a viable tech business (which at its core is a wrapper on top of Bing with ad revenue going to afforestation efforts).
> ...good people do to craft a viable balance in today's difficult tech ecosystem.
Like someone else suggested in this thread: Just because you plant trees, you don't suddenly have a claim to being an "angel". Ecosia may have good people behind them or not, but I do care about honesty and earnestness.
Also, I write FOSS software full-time, do I qualify for your "good people" list? :D
...but when you dig in, they:
1. Use Facebook for "conversion tracking".
2. May collect messages, photos, calendar information if you're using the app.
3. Hold on to personally identifiable information for upto 7 days post which they (pseudo)anonymize it to store it indefinitely. Now, without more information on how they do so, I'm not sure I'd trust the effectiveness of their anonymization, given they may store logs (and other metrics) "as long as necessary".
4. Integrate with advertisement platform run by Bing on the search pages (and so they 'don't control the data Bing collects').
Who reads privacy policies, right? Everyone just reads the headlines and FAQs.
"Ecosia is a “privacy friendly” search engine. We take user privacy very seriously." Right. I wish they were upfront and admitted to collecting data instead of trying hard to convince they don't do so for nefarious purposes (in their own eyes, that is).
https://info.ecosia.org/privacy