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354 points qingcharles | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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jart ◴[] No.43748778[source]
When all the manufacturing was moved to China decades ago, I bet no one predicted China would do this!
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Renaud ◴[] No.43748863[source]
It's not China doing this, it's manufacturers, wherever they are.

DJI happens to be a Chinese company but Samsung isn't, and they have been tracking what people watch on their TV (even if you're using HDMI and your own input) for years.

Big European, Asian and American brands are doing the same, washing machines requiring an account to access basic capabilities, cars phoning home, computers phoning home, phones phoning home, they all want it, they all do it.

Blaming China for this is deflecting the true culprit: the rampant notion that everything that could be sold has to be sold. Privacy doesn't matter, just put a red ribbon over it and force user to create an account and share their data in exchange for the priviledge of accessing what they thought they bought.

China didn't invent that, they sure love it, but they are not responsible for it alone.

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ourmandave ◴[] No.43750466[source]
... and they have been tracking what people watch on their TV (even if you're using HDMI and your own input) for years.

How? If you didn't give it an internet connection, how is it sending any tracking data back to the mothership? It can't guess your wifi password or anything.

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LadyCailin ◴[] No.43752548[source]
More and more devices are coming with SIM cards baked in. You don’t pay for them, the manufacturer does, but they harvest your data whether you give them internet or not. For now I’m only aware of cars having these, but I suspect it’s just a matter of time before even cheap consumer gadgets have this too.

Really, the only answer is privacy regulation. Any other solution (just let the free market handle it, don’t give it internet access, etc) is not workable in the long term.

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jart ◴[] No.43754615[source]
Only fools think the government is going to save them from corporate abuses, because they're in league. Half the time the government is the one forcing them to do it.
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LadyCailin ◴[] No.43764180{3}[source]
What is your solution then? The free market? That’s the status quo, and it’s not working well at all to protect consumers.
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1. jart ◴[] No.43767920{4}[source]
I'll care about protecting consumers once I figure out how to protect myself. Consumer products are an optimization algorithm where people get what they're willing to tolerate. You can either profit off it or build something better. I don't have a whole lot of respect for people who try to impose their will on the world through purely political means.