• HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
    ·
    4 years ago

    what privacy laws do we have in the US? There are data peddling firms that buy and sell the up-to-the-hour location of every smartphone in the country to anyone with a signed letter that says they work with law enforcement.

    • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      Nationally, not many. There are a few laws like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and the FTC (theoretically) has a lot of power to enforce whatever privacy statements companies make to their customers (this isn't just limited to enforcing fine print, either), but it's hard to figure out what private companies are doing in the first place and enforcement actions to date have been minimal. There was a $5 billion FTC fine levied against Facebook a few years ago (and that was the largest privacy-related fine anywhere in the world by an order of magnitude), but that happened after almost a decade of wrist-slap enforcement, and a year or so after paying the fine Facebook reported $62 billion in cash reserves.

      California has some stricter laws that are new enough that we don't have a great read on how they'll be applied, so there's at least some positive movement in one major state.

    • Sen_Jen [they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Idk but they seem terrible, my friend showed me a website a while ago that shows you all of someone's personal information if you put in their name. Address, age, employment, family members, everything. It's fucked. I can't remember the name of the site, this was a few years ago.

      Also if you paid for a premium subscription you could get even more information :agony-consuming: