This kind of things will stop only if there will be legislation in place to let somebody say "No, I'm not doing this because [leaving out moral considerations] if we get caught everybody in this meeting room gets jailed and everybody working at the software too."
Do you think users should be prohibited from installing software on their own devices to monitor and analyze their internet usage?
Or do you think they should be allowed to do that, but they should be prohibited from selling that data to a third party?
Or do you think they should be allowed to do that, but said third party should be prohibited from using that data to analyze their competitors' apps?
Or do you think they should be allowed to do that, but the user should be informed very clearly exactly what kind of data they're selling and what kinds of sensitive information they might be revealing about themselves?
Exactly where in the chain do you put the point where someone gets jailed?
The first two, the user is in control of their data. The rest, they aren't.
The comment doesn't track well either: the user is already being advertised to by using these services and understands the transaction. The user becoming the product too, is not clear to the user.
In the second and third cases, the user is selling the exact same set of data, so how come they're in control in one case but not the other?
I don't see how advertising is relevant here, since AFAIK the Facebook Research VPN didn't show ads, but did pay users $20 per month to record their traffic.
Currently this is a moral issue not a legal one - the users consented to Facebook snooping (capturing analytics) when they accepted the privacy policy and terms of service when they installed the VPN and root certificates.
Why should engineers be jailed for management decisions?
Engineers are just told to build the mechanisms for passing data around. It's management that actually decides whether or not to collect data and what to do with it.
Engineers are fungible. Disobeying the management can only cause job loss for the engineer, and won't change a thing in management.
The logic of punishing engineers comes from the false belief that engineers can all somehow synchronize their actions (through some kind of collective consciousness?) and coordinatedly disobey their supperiors in order to teach them a lesson.
Prison guards are fungible. Disobeying officers can only cause imprisonment, and won't change a thing in leadership.
The logic of punishing prison guards comes from the false belief that soldiers can all somehow synchronize their actions (through some kind of collective consciousness?) and coordinatedly disobey their supperiors in order to teach them a lesson.
Engineers at Facebook don't think they're slurping up BIG data?
You make it seem so unknown or abstract for engineers today, claiming that Nazis knew the "scope" with no evidence, as if engineers knew the millions they were killing.
Yeah, let's punish the people who just want to feed their families, and don't have any real control over company decisions, so they may do our (the regulators') work for us... What could possibly go wrong?
Why not jail their families, too? That would give them even more incentive to fight back!
