I think it's important to note here that there are many public, government run services that collect and sell information that are incredibly hard to "just stop using the service".
- having a credit history (credit bureaus can sell by default to third parties like financial institutions, not even accounting for the equifax breach)
- buying a home (public record)
- going to court (public record)
- entering the vast majority of grocery stores with cameras
- owning a cell phone that is turned on at some point (cell towers store information on which phone numbers are connecting to them, giving rough location history)
- Messaging anybody on virtually any service without extreme precautions (even e2e apps will store who is talking to who, which can create detailed social maps)
There is the option to opt-out by living in the woods without any modern technology, but I think it's worth noting that in general, especially for anybody with a HackerNews account viewing this page, that it is not trivial to avoid having your personal data collected (and possibly sold) on a continuous basis.
We need a consortium of AI, ML diggers who can unwrap exactly how PII is being tendrically used against us and add awareness.
Recall that guy who wrote a thesis on the actual fiber-optic lines laid throughout the world and the USG seized his thesis as a matter of national security...
We need the same thing built for PII vs AI access to such information.
but starting with available PII. Regardless of the fact that the state says "public record" public recod should be fucking reigned in.
That feels dark pattern adjacent to me. It's tone deaf to think information someone gives you as part of using a service they want from you means they are okay with that information being shared with other parties in a manner completely unrelated to the service provided.
Sharing sensitive information once, or even a hundred times, should not constitute a presumed consent to opt-in to that information being shared again or data mined.
You don't need to have an account with google for them to collect your personal data. Facebook keeps and updates profiles on people who have never had accounts and never used the website.
