<story><title>Internet Companies: Confusing Consumers for Profit</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Animats</author><text>A few days ago, I posted &amp;quot;Unicorns aren&amp;#x27;t ad-supported&amp;quot; on HN.[1] There, I pointed out that, of a list of the top 50 &amp;quot;unicorns&amp;quot;, non-public startups with &amp;gt; $1bn valuations, only three (Snapchat, Pintrest, and Vice) are ad-supported.  This dot-com boom isn&amp;#x27;t driven by ads. It&amp;#x27;s driven by companies that provide a product or service for which their customers pay them.  The companies that make their money from ads are from the &lt;i&gt;previous&lt;/i&gt; dot-com boom.&lt;p&gt;Ad-blocking and tracker-blocking thus won&amp;#x27;t hurt the growth companies in Silicon Valley. YC could get behind ad-blocking without reducing the value of their portfolio. The concept that &amp;quot;the user is the product, not the customer&amp;quot; is now outdated. There are still companies which rely on it.  They are vulnerable.  Google still hasn&amp;#x27;t come up with a major revenue-generating product other than ads.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=10372789&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=10372789&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Internet Companies: Confusing Consumers for Profit</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>r0naa</author><text>I do have a Facebook account, primarily because I am studying abroad and I need to keep in touch with my family and close friends and Facebook is, thus far, the best way to share what is going on in my life. It kind of allow me to &amp;quot;broadcast&amp;quot; my life events.&lt;p&gt;Now, I really dislike what I just read.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if tech companies have a moral obligation to disclose to the user what are the terms of the contracts.&lt;p&gt;While ToS and Privacy Policy are public documents, I don&amp;#x27;t think they are close to anything readable for the layman. They are mostly pile of legal garbage and it is virtually impossible to go through them everytime you sign-up for a service.&lt;p&gt;That is why I would like to put the emphasis on clarity here. What if?&lt;p&gt;What if technology companies were forced to disclose &lt;i&gt;clearly&lt;/i&gt; what signing-up for their product entails with respect to user privacy. I am thinking of something alongside this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;
Hello r0naa,&lt;p&gt;Welcome on Facebook, we hope that you will have a great experience here.&lt;p&gt;Facebook will allow you to:
- easily communicate with your friends&lt;p&gt;- share photos, videos and play games with your friends&lt;p&gt;- keep in touch with distant relatives&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, we will:&lt;p&gt;- keep a record of the messages you send to your friends&lt;p&gt;- keep a permanent record of the photos you have shared on Facebook&lt;p&gt;- keep a log of all the websites you have visited that contain a &amp;quot;like&amp;quot; button.&lt;p&gt;Moreover, you should be aware that we will disclose all your personal data to the US government if we are issued a NS letter.&lt;p&gt;Hope you have a great day,&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, I am not saying that this is the right solution. Only, I believe it is pretty obvious that there is a problem and that a lot of people who are not technically literate are not able to make a informed choice about whether or not they want to give up their privacy, even partially.&lt;p&gt;I hope it will spawn an interesting discussion, feel free to share your ideas and suggestions.</text></comment>