<story><title>Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re implying (perhaps unintentionally) that selling an organ is equivalent to selling information on what websites you visit. There&amp;#x27;s a reason selling organs is illegal, at least in the US.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think personal information is so valuable that we need to outlaw its sale.</text></item><item><author>jolmg</author><text>Recently, there was an HN thread of a Chinese man who sold his kidney for an iPhone at 17 years of age and 8 years later was bedridden for life because his remaining kidney failed.[1]&lt;p&gt;You could say the people who bought his kidney for an iPhone did nothing wrong. The kid had control over his own body and they made a deal the kid thought was good.&lt;p&gt;I think, though, that he wasn&amp;#x27;t properly educated of the risks that doing such a trade would leave him with, and that the people who offered him the deal very well knew them, but targeted him for being a naive child who wouldn&amp;#x27;t take them seriously.&lt;p&gt;I think this is the same case. People just don&amp;#x27;t understand or don&amp;#x27;t take the risks of this seriously enough, and companies like Facebook take advantage of that.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18925780&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18925780&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>The fact that this exists makes me uncomfortable, but I&amp;#x27;m having trouble pinpointing a reason why it&amp;#x27;s bad. People are opting into the data collection. Perhaps they don&amp;#x27;t know the full extent of what Facebook is tracking, but sideloading apps on iOS is not a one-tap process—anyone who used this had a sense of what they were doing.&lt;p&gt;And, $20 per month is pretty substantial compensation.&lt;p&gt;The way that Facebook is bypassing Apple&amp;#x27;s rules feels shady, but I&amp;#x27;ve always felt those rules were user-hostile to begin with. I firmly believe that users should have control over their own devices, and that means letting users give information to companies if they so choose—especially if they&amp;#x27;re being financially compensated.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheSpiceIsLife</author><text>I’m led to believe a whole bunch of intellectual heavy weights agree that privacy is so important it needs to be heavily regulated fairly immediately.&lt;p&gt;I tend to agree with them.&lt;p&gt;Come to think of it, is there anyone making a strong case for weaker privacy protection? I’m prepared to put aside my existing assumptions long enough to read an article or two.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re implying (perhaps unintentionally) that selling an organ is equivalent to selling information on what websites you visit. There&amp;#x27;s a reason selling organs is illegal, at least in the US.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think personal information is so valuable that we need to outlaw its sale.</text></item><item><author>jolmg</author><text>Recently, there was an HN thread of a Chinese man who sold his kidney for an iPhone at 17 years of age and 8 years later was bedridden for life because his remaining kidney failed.[1]&lt;p&gt;You could say the people who bought his kidney for an iPhone did nothing wrong. The kid had control over his own body and they made a deal the kid thought was good.&lt;p&gt;I think, though, that he wasn&amp;#x27;t properly educated of the risks that doing such a trade would leave him with, and that the people who offered him the deal very well knew them, but targeted him for being a naive child who wouldn&amp;#x27;t take them seriously.&lt;p&gt;I think this is the same case. People just don&amp;#x27;t understand or don&amp;#x27;t take the risks of this seriously enough, and companies like Facebook take advantage of that.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18925780&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=18925780&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>The fact that this exists makes me uncomfortable, but I&amp;#x27;m having trouble pinpointing a reason why it&amp;#x27;s bad. People are opting into the data collection. Perhaps they don&amp;#x27;t know the full extent of what Facebook is tracking, but sideloading apps on iOS is not a one-tap process—anyone who used this had a sense of what they were doing.&lt;p&gt;And, $20 per month is pretty substantial compensation.&lt;p&gt;The way that Facebook is bypassing Apple&amp;#x27;s rules feels shady, but I&amp;#x27;ve always felt those rules were user-hostile to begin with. I firmly believe that users should have control over their own devices, and that means letting users give information to companies if they so choose—especially if they&amp;#x27;re being financially compensated.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>peteradio</author><text>Noone said they were equal, just that informed consent is important.</text></comment>