FTC bans X-Mode from selling phone location data, and orders firm to delete collected data

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Technology@lemmy.world – 297 points –
FTC bans X-Mode from selling phone location data, and orders firm to delete collected data | TechCrunch
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Ok. If I take 100 dollars off you each month until the police stop me. Stopping me is punishment enough because I lose revenue.

Talking money off you and taking your data and selling it on is different, but both are wrong and both should come with a punishment. Not just an order to stop.

In the EU they wouldn't have tried this in the first place, because they'd get fined.

My main revenue isn't $100/month. It's a lot more l that I use to live indoors and eat. If you removed it, that would be a huge and consequential penalty. Its odd that you think losing a lot of money permanently is not a punishment.

As to the EU, the US has no such privacy laws. The FTC just established at least part of them with this action. Sad as it is, that's huge progress for this country that shouldnt be brushed off.

Let’s put this a different way. If I make a living robbing people, and get caught one time and only have to give the stuff back, what is my incentive to not continue robbing people? There is none.

Now the real question is, what is everyone else’s incentive to not rob people? They’ve seen what happens, they just have to give the stuff back. Worst case they make no money, best case they get rich easy.

So robbings continue unabated.

Up to this point, robbing people wasent explicitly illegal.

Should the first person who is caught robbing people be imprisoned or should it be made explicitly clear to every robber that yes, robbing is illegal and we will enforce the law going forward?

That isn’t what’s happening here, at all. These aren’t new regulations.

Do they not get shut down as a company if they continue collecting and selling data?

The first time you get caught, you give things back. The second time you are put to death. No?