YouTube Copyright Transparency Report Shows The Absurd Volume Of Copyright Claims It Gets

from the turn-the-hose-off dept

Any cursory look at Techdirt for stories involving YouTube and copyright issues will give you a very accurate impression of the state of all things copyright for the platform: it's a complete shitshow. You will see all kinds of craziness in those posts: white noise getting hit with a copyright claim, labels claiming copyright on songs in the public domain, and all kinds of issues with automated systems like ContentID causing chaos. That really is a sample platter rather than the whole meal, but it's also worth noting that YouTube knows this is a problem.

To that point, the platform recently put out its first "Copyright Transparency Report" that teases out all kinds of numbers for copyright claims on YouTube videos. As with any statistical report, how you view it is going to come down to how you want to slice and dice the numbers. For instance, it's worth noting that over 99% of the copyright claims YouTube receives comes from ContentID, an automated system. More to the point of this particular post, you will likely also witness copyright enforcement advocates focus on numbers like this from YouTube's own report.

As the report notes, we see low levels of disputes relative to total claims, particularly within tools that use automatic detection. In the first half of 2021, fewer than 1% of all Content ID claims were disputed.

Sounds great, right? Even with some couched language, this looks for all the world like even YouTube is acknowledging that a tiny fraction of the copyright claims are disputed and is therefore a system that is working well. You might even decide to assume that this translates to 99% of copyright claims made at YouTube are accurate and valid.

Except that that is absurd. Vast numbers of people either lack the time, interest, or bravery to dispute a copyright claim like this. Many others may not even realize it's something for which there is a process to take action on such disputes.

And besides all of that, when you dig into the actual raw numbers rather than percentages, it becomes very clear that YouTube does indeed have a copyright enforcement problem.

Over 2.2 million YouTube videos were hit with copyright claims that were later overturned between January and June of this year, according to a new report published by the company today. The Copyright Transparency Report is the first of its kind published by YouTube, which says it will update biannually going forward.

2.2 million claims were overturned in favor of the uploader in a six month period. Let that wash over you for a second and then realize that, while this represents a tiny percentage of the overall claims, it's still a huge number. And when you factor into all of this both that there is zero chance that the actual numbers of invalid copyright claims aren't much higher and the fact that YouTube creators have long complained that this is a massive problem from a process standpoint, well, it again becomes obvious that YouTube has a copyright enforcement problem.

Though mistaken copyright claims are a drop in the bucket on a larger scale, YouTube creators have long complained about how the platform handles claims, saying overly aggressive or unjustified enforcement can lead to lost income. Copyright claims can result in videos being blocked, audio being muted, or ad revenue going back to the rights owner. This new report gives shape to a problem that YouTube itself has acknowledged needs updating.

In 2019, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in a blog post that the company heard the concerns from creators and that YouTube was “exploring improvements in striking the right balance between copyright owners and creators.”

We most certainly haven't reached that balancing point yet. I anticipate that YouTube is releasing this transparency report as part of a broader and longer term plan to alleviate the problems this is all causing. If not, then all YouTube appears to be doing is telling on itself with this report, which is not the kind of corporate action I would expect.

Meanwhile, thanks to overly restrictive copyright enforcement, YouTube's valuable creator base is left waiting for help.

Filed Under: contentid, copyright, dmca, false claims, overblocking, takedowns, transparency
Companies: google, youtube

Daily Deal: Fader Stealth Drone

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

There are few things the FADER quadcopter can't do! Ready to fly right out of the box, this drone is loaded with advanced features that make flying a breeze for beginners, and a ton of fun for experts. It is lightweight, tricked out with a six-axis gyro module, and has an awesome HD camera. It's on sale for $60.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Missouri Governor Still Lying About Reporters Who Uncovered Ridiculous Bad State Computer Security; Still Insists They Were Hackers

from the lie-through-it,-mike dept

Missouri Governor Mike Parson is nothing if not committed to shamelessly lying. As you'll recall, after journalists from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ethically informed the state that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website included a flaw that revealed the social security numbers of over 600,000 state teachers and school administrators, Parson responded by calling the reporters hackers and vowing to prosecute them. Again, the DESE system displayed this information directly in the HTML, available for anyone to see if they knew where to look. That's not hacking. That's incompetent computer security.

So far, this has mostly played out as expected. A month after the revelations, DESE finally admitted it fucked up and apologized to the teachers and administrators and offered them identity fraud protection services. Then, last week, a public record request revealed something incredible, though perhaps not surprising: the FBI had already told Missouri officials that no hacking took place and DESE had prepared a statement (correctly) thanking the journalists for alerting them to their own fuck up... but that statement was ditched in favor of the nonsense one claiming that the journalists "hacked" the system. As we said in that last story, right at the end it notes that the Highway Patrol investigation, instigated by Parson, was "still active."

And now Parson is still standing by the ridiculous claim that the reporters are hackers. As for how he could possibly claim that after the revelation of internal documents on the situation? Well, Parson is trotting out the old "fake news" bullshit:

Asked at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday whether, in light of the records provided by the state, he still believed the newspaper committed a crime, Parson said, “Most certainly I believe that. And most certainly I don’t know where that information’s coming from that you guys printed on that, whether it’s very accurate or not either. It has a tendency not to be very accurate a lot of times.”

Dude. What? Do newspapers make errors sometimes? Sure. But (1) from the very beginning it was abundantly clear that the problem here was with the state, not with the reporters, because under no circumstances should people be able to see the Social Security Numbers of other people in HTML and (2) if you're crying "fake news" about documents revealed under a public records law then you have to actually say what's fake. Is Parson claiming that his own government supplied fake information in response to a public records request? Because that would be fucked up. No, the truth is that Parson can't handle the fact that everyone knows he's just wrong, so he's going to lie right through it.

Missourians, you deserve better than a governor who will actively lie to you and put state employees at risk. Elect someone who is not a liar.

Filed Under: dese, ethical disclosure, hackers, html, journalism, mike parson, missouri, security research
Companies: st. louis post-dispatch

Life360 Scandal Once Again Shows Nobody In The U.S. Actually Wants To Fix Our Rampant Privacy Problems

from the let's-do-absolutely-nothing-about-this-growing-problem dept

For several years now a steady parade of scandals have showcased how the collection and sale of consumer location data (to governments and data brokers alike) is a hugely unaccountable mess with few if any guardrails. And every week or so a new scandal emerges making that point abundantly clear. This week it's the unsurprising revelation that "security" and "family safety" app Life360, which lets parents track the location of their kids, has been selling access to this data to data brokers for years:

"Through interviews with two former employees of the company, along with two individuals who formerly worked at location data brokers Cuebiq and X-Mode, The Markup discovered that the app acts as a firehose of data for a controversial industry that has operated in the shadows with few safeguards to prevent the misuse of this sensitive information."

U.S. policymakers and regulators have routinely turned a blind eye to bad behavior in the location data collection area, in large part because the U.S. government often purchases this kind of data to help it avoid getting a warrant. And any effort to tighten up privacy regulations (or hey, even pass a basic federal privacy law for the internet era) wind up running into a buzz saw of cross-industry lobbying opposition with unlimited budgets.

When the U.S. government does act in this space, it's usually inconsistent and unproductive. It usually involves sporadically levying a piddly fine that winds up being a tiny, tiny fraction of the money made from getting a bit too greedy. Or demanding at least some transparency into what's being collected and sold. But as data brokers, apps, telecoms, and OS makers keep making clear, nobody is taking any of those threats seriously. Especially the tangled web of data brokers, who operate largely in secrecy. When pressed on what they're doing, their responses are murky at best:

"Hulls declined to disclose a full list of Life360’s data customers and declined to confirm that Safegraph is among them, citing confidentiality clauses, which he said are in the majority of its business contracts. Data partners are only publicly disclosed when partners request transparency or there’s “a particular reason to do so,” Hulls said. He did confirm that X-Mode buys data from Life360 and that it is one of “approximately one dozen data partners.” Hulls added that the company would be supportive of legislation that would require public disclosure of such partners."

Like clockwork, when you ask a data broker what they're doing, they'll immediately insist that collecting and selling access to the data of children is no big deal because that data has been "anonymized." As if there hasn't been a steady flood of studies showing that terms is absolutely meaningless, and it's trivial to identify any of these users with just a few additional data points. See this comment from Cuebiq, for example:

"The CDC only exports aggregate, privacy-safe analytics for research purposes, which completely anonymizes any individual user data,” Daddi said. “Cuebiq does not sell data to law enforcement agencies or provide raw data feeds to government partners (unlike others, such as X-Mode and SafeGraph)."

"We anonymize data" (which again is meaningless) and "at least we don't sell access to this data to government like everybody else" aren't the comforting justifications these companies tend to think they are. But at least it's a comment. Most of the other data brokers that have been caught up in this scandal wouldn't comment, and won't ever be required to. Because nobody actually cares about consumer privacy or the ramifications of rampant over-collection. There's just too much money to be made.

Life360 justifies collecting and selling access to this ocean of data (including the data of children) because it helps pay for a service that provides security value. And while that may be true, it's not like you couldn't do all of this in a way that's more transparent and responsible. And it's not like over-collecting and creating vast repositories of user data doesn't come with its own privacy and security risks. Companies just don't want to change because they'd make less money. So instead we get a lot of flimsy justifications and half truths like "we don't sell access to data" (no, you're just providing the data to partners for free as part of a broader "consultation and analysis" deal you are getting paid for).

State and federal U.S. privacy oversight is so flimsy, you just have to tinker with semantics to fall into compliance.

Meanwhile, everybody in the data gold rush claims to support some basic privacy legislation, but then immediately turns around and has their lobbyists and umbrella policy organizations fight tooth and nail against any and all meaningful solutions. Doing absolutely anything productive in privacy regulatory oversight would cost a lot of companies billions of dollars, and make it harder for the government to spy on its citizens. So instead we do nothing, and stand around with a dumb look on our face watching a parade of scandals drift by.

Filed Under: data, data brokers, location data, privacy
Companies: cuebiq, life360, x-mode

New Jersey Cop Facing Charges After Hitting A Man With His Car And Driving His Body To His Mom's House

from the whole-lot-of-wtf-going-on-here dept

There's something different about being a cop. The training, the atmosphere, the culture… all of it leads to officers handling crime differently than regular people. Even when they're the ones committing it.

A normal person doesn't do the things Newark police officer Luis Santiago did. While driving on the Garden State Parkway, Santiago struck and killed 29-year-old Damian Dymka. This is what Officer Santiago (who was off-duty and in his own vehicle) -- with all his training, expertise, and knowledge of applicable laws -- did next:

After striking Dymka, who was a nurse, neither Santiago or his passenger, Albert Guzman, 25, of Newark, called 911 or tried to render aid.

“(The suspects) returned to the scene multiple times before Santiago loaded the victim into the Honda and removed him from the scene,” [Essex County Prosecutor Theodore] Stephens said. “Santiago then took the body to his home in Bloomfield where he, his mother and Guzman allegedly discussed what to do with the body.”

Eventually, Santiago drove Dymka’s body back to the scene of the crash, Stephens said.

It took another cop to finally end this dark and bleak farce.

Santiago’s father, who is a lieutenant in the Newark Police Department, called 911 and reported that his son was in an accident, Stephens said.

State troopers responded to the scene of at least one crime and came across Officer Santiago and his passenger. They also came across Dymka's dead body, which was lying in the back of Santiago's Honda.

More than three weeks after this happened, Officer Santiago is facing a long list [PDF] of criminal charges.

In addition to vehicular homicide, Santiago was charged with leaving the scene of crash resulting in death, endangering an injured victim, desecrating/moving human remains, hindering one's own apprehension, conspiracy to hinder prosecution, tampering with physical evidence, obstructing the administration of law, and two counts of official misconduct.

Santiago's co-conspirator/passenger (Albert Guzman) is facing many of the same charges. The officer's mother -- Annette Santiago -- is facing the same charges as Guzman, given her alleged assistance in attempting to cover up Dymka's killing.

It's all very surreal and horrifying. Some drivers might panic when they hit a pedestrian. Very few of them will leave and return to the scene several times before driving the victim's now-dead body out to their parents' house to discuss what to do about it.

Maybe it's a law enforcement thing. This incident is somewhat similar to the bizarre actions of South Dakota attorney general Jason Ravnsborg after he struck and killed a pedestrian. While Ravnsborg did call 911 within minutes of the accident, he claimed he had no idea what he had hit. He returned to the accident scene the next day and allegedly "discovered" the body of the man he had struck and killed, 55-year-old Joseph Boever. Investigators found the victim's broken glasses inside Ravnsborg's vehicle, casting doubt on his claim that he didn't know what he had hit until the next day. Investigators also pointed out Boever had been carrying a flashlight, which Ravnsborg denied seeing. The flashlight was near Boever's body and still on when investigators arrived at the scene the following morning.

These aren't normal reactions. These are the actions of people who think they have a better chance than most to escape any culpability for their actions. Most people would not compound criminal charges after striking a pedestrian. But Officer Santiago did. And, worse, he was surrounded by enablers unwilling to deter him from turning a pedestrian accident into something far worse than a hit-and-run.

But equally as surreal are the statements released by the State Police, who had encountered this bizarre scene and found a driver with a dead body in his car. While it's understandable that public statements wouldn't include any accusations of wrongdoing while an investigation was underway, the State Police withheld any information on the driver, giving residents the impression this was a normal accident involving just some guy... and that it really might be the fault of the person who was killed.

State police say a man from Garfield was killed after being struck by a car while walking on the Garden State Parkway.

The accident happened Monday morning near Exit 151.

State police is unsure why the pedestrian was walking on the highway.

His identification is pending family verification. The driver involved was not injured.

Just the facts. I mean, it's all factual but it leaves out all the interesting facts, like the body in the back of the car, or the driver being a public servant. Three weeks later, the truth is out. And chances are that if this had involved a regular person rather than a cop, a few of the more unusual details (like the body in the car) would have been added to initial press statements.

Prosecutors won't have to do much to prove intent. Someone who isn't trying to evade responsibility for striking a pedestrian with their car simply doesn't do the things alleged here. And someone who's a cop should definitely never do these things because they're supposed to be holding themselves to a higher standard, even when they're off-duty. It looks like Officer Santiago rolled the dice on being a cop, possibly assuming that would be enough to allow him to escape accountability. That gamble failed to pay off and now Officer Santiago is going to have to face the consequences of his completely inexplicable actions.

Filed Under: damian dymka, luis santiago, new jersey, newark, police

Space X Engine Production Woes Could Screw Up Musk's Starlink Broadband Play

from the trouble-looming dept

We'd already noted how Elon Musk's Starlink isn't going to be the broadband disruption play many people had imagined. The service lacks the capacity to really provide broadband to more than 500,000 to 800,000 users during its first few years in operation (for context, somewhere between 20 and 40 million Americans lack access to broadband, and another 83 million live under a broadband monopoly). With a $100 monthly cost and a $500 first month equipment fee, it's also not doing any favors for the millions of Americans who lack access to affordable broadband.

Eventually, with a fully upgraded fleet of 42,000 low orbit satellites years from now, Wall Street analysts estimate Starlink could potentially reach upwards of 6 million users. But again that's an optimistic high end guess, and it requires that everything go swimmingly the next few years.

Everything is not going swimmingly. Chip shortages initially delayed Starlink's exit out of beta. And now a new leaked email suggests that Musk is warning about a potential bankruptcy for Space X if the company can't sort out production of the company's Raptor engine:

"Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this...What it comes down to, is that we face a genuine risk of bankruptcy if we can’t achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year."

Will Heltsley, former SpaceX senior vice president of propulsion, recently left Space X due to a lack of progress on the project. In the email, Musk makes it clear that if things don't improve, Starlink could also be in deep trouble:

"The consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong."

One problem, of course, is that Starlink is poised to receive millions in FCC subsidies to bolster a service that may not be financially viable several years from now. The Trump FCC already faced a scandal after it announced it would be doling out nearly a billion dollars to the planet's richest man (who professes a performative disdain for government subsidies) to deliver broadband to some traffic medians and parking lots. The Biden administration is scaling back the scope of the hand out after backlash, but Musk's Starlink is still poised to receive tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

Those subsidies are dependent on Starlink meeting certain projected deployment goals Musk's newly leaked email suggests they won't be able to actually meet if things don't turn around quickly:

So again, the question then becomes: why is the FCC continuing to dole out millions in subsidies for a service that may not even exist in a few years? Especially when that money can be used to help fund future-proof and already proven fiber deployments across countless communities? Starlink does have the potential to provide some help to shore up U.S. broadband access, but even before these latest problems its full potential reach was limited. And the world's richest man, who routinely professes a disdain for subsidies and "freeloading," has made it abundantly clear he doesn't want or need government financial help.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, elon musk, profitability, satellite, starlink
Companies: spacex

Sidney Powell's Michigan Election Fraud LOLsuit Just Cost Her And Her Buddies $175,000 In Legal Fees

from the cough-up,-hucksters dept

Sidney Powell, the self-proclaimed "Kraken," has managed to turn a bunch of potentially defamatory allegations and unabashed pro-Trump showboating into actual money. I mean, she probably had before this, what with the Trump camp being hip deep in grifters at all times. (And neck deep in people who apparently just love being grifted.)

But this time it's the grifter, alleged defamer, and spectacular flameout being relieved of money. Sidney Powell -- along with several other lawyers who sued over Michigan election results (most notably, fellow grifter L. Lin Wood) -- has already been sanctioned by a federal court. Back in August, Judge Linda Parker ran Powell and her legal arguments through the judicial woodchipper, leaving nothing but minute chunks of election fraud rhetoric and MAGA blood scattered across the 110 pages of masterclass excoriation.

For instance:

It is not acceptable to support a lawsuit with opinions, which counsel herself claims no reasonable person would accept as fact and which were “inexact,” “exaggerate[ed],” and “hyperbole.” Nor is it acceptable to use the federal judiciary as a political forum to satisfy one’s political agenda. Such behavior by an attorney in a court of law has consequences.

And:

Plaintiffs’ counsel did everything in their power to ensure that their bias—that the election was fraudulent, as proclaimed by Former President Trump—was confirmed. Confirmation bias notwithstanding, Plaintiffs’ counsel advanced this lawsuit for an improper purpose and will be held to account for their actions.

And this one sentence summary of L. Lin Wood's post-2016 career:

Wood is not credible.

Powell and her co-counsel were ordered to attend classes on the subject of pleading standards (lol) and election law (LOLOL). They were also referred for investigation, with the possible outcome of being disbarred. On top of that, they were collectively responsible for the legal fees racked up by the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit, which were both forced to respond to Powell's court-based electioneering.

The bill has arrived. First, there's the opinion and order [PDF], which explains the how and why of the amount charged to Powell et al.

The sanctionees complained they were being double and triple-charged, arguing the expenses claimed by both Michigan and Detroit were unreasonably large. The court (Judge Linda Parker again) points out the expenses incurred are the fault of the failed plaintiffs, who couldn't be bothered to make a concise argument, much less a coherent one.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys identify only four instances where the billing records of the City’s attorneys reflect duplicative efforts: (i) review of the Complaint by four attorneys; (ii) review of the Amended Complaint by three attorneys; (iii) reviewing and revising the City’s Supplemental Brief in Support of Sanctions by two attorneys; and (iv) reviewing and preparing the City’s response to Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ supplemental briefs regarding sanctions. But this was a complex case which, by Plaintiffs’ account, needed to be resolved rapidly.

Plaintiffs’ Complaint, along with attached exhibits, exceeded 800 pages. Their Amended Complaint, with exhibits, exceeded 900 pages. The length of the pleadings alone justifies the contribution of multiple attorneys to sort through Plaintiffs’ allegations. Moreover, all attorneys defending a case need to be familiar with the pleadings to adequately assist in the litigation. It was not unreasonable, particularly given the complexity and significance of the litigation, for more than one attorney to prepare and draft briefs.

If you had just stopped emptying the clip into your own foot, you might have been able to stop the bleeding, the court reminds Powell and her co-conspiracy theorists.

Nor does the Court find the 114.25 hours billed by the City from the date of the hearing to August 4 excessive. Ms. Newman attributes all of these hours to the City’s preparation of its supplemental briefs. Again, the docket reflects more activity after the hearing than that. For example, Plaintiffs’ attorney L. Lin Wood had posted a video from the hearing on social media in violation of the Court’s local rules, leading to the filing of an emergency motion and a show cause order issued by the Court. Plaintiffs’ attorneys filed an emergency motion asking the Court to publicly release the video. Moreover, Plaintiffs’ attorneys raised many arguments for the first time at the July 12 hearing in response to the motions for sanctions, many of which related to the City’s Rule 11 motion, not the State Defendants’ motion. Additional new arguments were made (and even new facts asserted) in Plaintiffs’ counsel’s supplemental briefs. Counsel for the City reasonably had to expend time responding to these new arguments.

1,700 pages in complaints alone adds up to over $175,000 in legal fees. Here's the fee order [PDF]:

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ counsel, jointly and severally, shall pay attorneys’ fees in the amount of $21,964.75 to Defendants Gretchen Whitmer and Jocelyn Benson;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ counsel, jointly and severally, shall pay attorneys’ fees in the amount of $153,285.62 to Intervenor Defendant City of Detroit.

I don't know what the going rate for bad faith arguments is, but this seems about right. If anything, it's maybe a little low. But it's enough to be a deterrent. Or at least it would be if any of these lawyers had managed to walk away from the Trump presidency without their brains being scrambled by hyper-partisanship. This isn't the end of this either. The Kraken and her crack(ed out) team of co-litigators may still see their law licenses stripped. If nothing else, that will, at least temporarily, keep them from stamping "COMES NOW THE PLAINTIFF" on 800 pages of conspiracy theories and conjecture and heaving it into already backlogged courts.

Filed Under: election fraud, elections, kraken, lin wood, linda parker, lolsuit, michigan, sidney powell

Verizon Once Again Expands Its Snoopvertising Ambitions

from the opt-in-to-adventure dept

Back in 2008, Verizon proclaimed that we didn't need additional consumer privacy protections (or opt in requirements, or net neutrality rules) because consumers would keep the company honest. "The extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers," Verizon said at the time.

Six years later and Verizon found itself at the heart of a massive privacy scandal after it began covertly injecting unique user-tracking headers into wireless data packets. The technology allowed Verizon to track users all over the internet, and the company neither bothered to inform users it would happen, or gave users any way to opt out. It took security researchers two years before security researchers even realized what Verizon was doing. Verizon ultimately received a $1.35 million fine from the FCC (a tiny portion of what Verizon made off the program), but still uses the same tech (albeit with functioning opt-out) today.

A few years later and it's not clear Verizon has actually learned all that much. The company last week began expanding its data collection and monetization once again, this time via a new "Verizon Custom Experience" the company says will help it "personalize our communications with you, give you more relevant product and service recommendations, and develop plans, services and offers that are more appealing to you." In reality that means Verizon is expanding the collection of data on the websites you visit, the people you communicate with, and the apps you use.

Of course Verizon isn't asking user permission before enrolling them in this new exciting "experience," and while the company claims it emailed users to inform them they were being opted in, many customers (including myself) never received any such notification. So while users can opt out through a fairly simply opt-out process, most users aren't going to know they're enrolled in the first place. And Verizon being Verizon (where most of its apps and services are shoddy copies of better products), nobody really wants any of this stuff in the first place:

"Nothing I’ve read about the program would make me even consider staying in, especially since Verizon is sneakily signing people up without asking. In an example of how the program could benefit you, Verizon says it could present music listeners with a “Verizon offer that includes music content” or give you a “choice related to a concert in our Verizon Up reward program.” The company then tries to persuade you with “personalized content and marketing” when opting into Custom Experience Plus."

Of course Verizon has been caught up in more privacy scandals than I can remember, from its collection of user metadata to its role as one of the NSA's most trusted allies in domestic surveillance. And when Verizon gets too greedy, which it does a lot, it generally sees a wrist slap with a fine that's always a tiny, tiny fraction of the money made from the dodgy behavior. And the only demand placed on it is usually that it be transparent about whatever dodgy behavior it's doing, while providing working opt out tools.

So not only does Verizon never really face any meaningful accountability when it goes too far, any feckless regulatory enforcement that does happen generally puts the onus on the consumer to not only pay attention to what Verizon's doing, but to also take the time to understand it then opt out. Verizon being Verizon, it's going to always be financially incentivized to make that as convoluted and cumbersome as possible, assuming the opt out system works at all (telecom, like Facebook, has a nasty habit of re-enrolling users who've opted out of such programs).

Filed Under: advertising, custom experience, opt-out, privacy, super cookie, surveillance, telcos
Companies: verizon

Daily Deal: TREBLAB Z2 Bluetooth 5.0 Noise-Cancelling Headphones

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The Z2 headphones earned their name because they feature twice the sound, twice the battery life, and twice the convenience of competing headphones. This updated version of the original Z2s comes with a new all-black design and Bluetooth 5.0. Packed with TREBLAB's most advanced Sound2.0 technology with aptX and T-Quiet active noise-cancellation, these headphones deliver goose bump-inducing audio while drowning out unwanted background noise. These headphones are on sale for $79.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal