"customers’ real-time location information, revealing where they go and who they are.”
All of them did it. That either means collusion or they’re all evil and bold enough to do this despite the risk. Either way, this was not an accidental slip up or a hack. Jail time and a crippling fine is the solution. This is neither.
Evidence that the tiktok ban is not about privacy. It’s ok when our corporations do it
They never claimed it to be about privacy from American corporations. That’s why divestment to an American ownership is an option in the bill. They don’t want tremendous amounts of American user data to be collected by a company beholden to the Chinese government.
But that’s the thing. US corporations are sure as hell to continue that same data collection and sell it. China does bulk data buys from US social media companies. The ban does not in any way do anything to prevent the Chinese government from obtaining that data. It’s extremely obvious cold war political nonsense.
That’s aggregated or ad-driven data. That’s very different than a psychographic profile, like what Meta or TikTok has on individuals. Meta can’t sell your psychographic profile or personal data to a foreign entity. They can sell metrics that represent your interests, or aggregated data that includes you in the sample group.
With enough aggregate data points to the intersectional interests of enough people, anyone is capable of identifying individuals. The “anonymous data” that is legal to sell is trivially de-anonymized. This has been known for nearly a decade, US privacy laws have failed to update privacy standards in light of this, and companies tend towards the optimal and cost effective solution (read: cheapest and minimum required).
Wonderful. Now where’s my share?
Don’t worry, you’ll get a check for like $3.50 three years from now.
