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Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by r00fus on Monday April 12, 2021 @12:43PM (#26781620)
No, because of a 1996 US Federal law, information collected about you is no longer your property, even if there is no business relationship.
Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by skybrian on Monday April 12, 2021 @01:21PM (#26782216)
When was it ever? Anyone could write an article about you. Articles about specific people are discussed all the time on Hacker News. Usually the person being written about doesn’t get a say about their reputation.
Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by unyttigfjelltol on Monday April 12, 2021 @03:45PM (#26784219)
The common law arguably put the question you ask in the hands of a jury.[1] It is public figures whose lives are fodder for public consumption; more generous privacy rules traditionally have applied for the more mediocre among us.

[1] https://law.jrank.org/pages/9409/Privacy-Common-Law.html

Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by samatman on Monday April 12, 2021 @02:20PM (#26783055)
Sadly, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment, from my utterly amateur legal armchair.

We need new laws for this. GDPR is a good start, if one happens to be an EU citizen, if a bit toothless.

We need new laws because automated collection of vast amounts of personal data, at scale, is a thing different in kind from manually collecting personal data about a specific person. Due to the expense and difficulty, the earlier system would tend to scale broadly with someone's fame, or at least wealth, which matches our expectations: it's not surprising that, say, a gossip magazine would have a fat file on Leonardo DiCaprio, and we figure he has lawyers on hand to deal with any consequent fallout.

In fact, we all used to be quite grateful for the unsung laborers who would collect and publish a doxxing book, called the white pages, which would list the names, phone numbers, and addresses, of most local people. Of course they were legally obligated to unlist those who requested it...

Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by alexvoda on Monday April 12, 2021 @03:15PM (#26783787)
> We need new laws for this. GDPR is a good start, if one happens to be an EU citizen, if a bit toothless.

It actually has a better bite than most. The problem is that the one suposed to do the biting doesn't do a lot of it.

Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by devenblake on Monday April 12, 2021 @01:19PM (#26782181)
What law specifically?
Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by tyingq on Monday April 12, 2021 @02:11PM (#26782929)
I would guess the "Telecommunications Act of 1996".

https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt

Probably the text starting here:

  SEC. 702. PRIVACY OF CUSTOMER INFORMATION.
  Title II is amended by inserting after section 221 (47 U.S.C. 
  221) the following new section:
  SEC. 222. PRIVACY OF CUSTOMER INFORMATION
Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by zelphirkalt on Monday April 12, 2021 @03:15PM (#26783789)
If it is about customer (!) information, does it still apply to people simply visiting websites, and due to not knowing better, not blocking Google and FB trackers? It would not seem like they are automatically Google's or FB's customers.
Re:Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020) by ssalka on Monday April 12, 2021 @02:00PM (#26782763)
On the off-chance that the parent's description has a typo, it may be this 1976 court ruling:

United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435