Nonsense - internet interactions

[french frank]

I don’t think it’s different at all. Suppose you install a lock on your house to prevent thieves from getting in, but in the small print there was a note that the installation would allow those who fitted the lock to enter your house for any purpose whatsoever.

I would still rather tend to think the two cases were different. If you agree to act as guarantor for someone else's loan, you understand exactly what that means. You have guaranteed that if the debtor defaults, you have agreed to repay the loan. If you have the ready cash, you repay it. If you can't/won't produce the cash the creditor is entitled to the equivalent sum raised from your possessions. But why on earth would you agree to the installer of a lock being able to enter your house for any purpose whatsoever? Or indeed for any purpose at all? You pay for the installation and there the transaction ends.

[LMcD]

I would still rather tend to think the two cases were different. If you agree to act as guarantor for someone else's loan, you understand exactly what that means. You have guaranteed that if the debtor defaults, you have agreed to repay the loan. If you have the ready cash, you repay it. If you can't/won't produce the cash the creditor is entitled to the equivalent sum raised from your possessions. But why on earth would you agree to the installer of a lock being able to enter your house for any purpose whatsoever? Or indeed for any purpose at all? You pay for the installation and there the transaction ends.

As a responsible citizen with my own set of priorities, I'm more concerned about the twinges in my right knee and the survival prospects of one of my azaleas than I am about the amount of information public or private bodies may or may not hold about me, or the motives or trustworthiness of anybody who has ever required entry into my house in order to provide a service. I still treasure the email I received from Greater Anglia inviting me to renew my Young Person's rail card - I'm well into my 8th decade and hardly ever catch a train, so this suggests that not all the information 'they' hold on me is correct and that even if some of it is wrong it's not necessarily harmful. And if certain companies have no idea where I am, and don't need to, that's surely their problem, not mine! If they do need to know my precise location, it's easy enough to discover whether their records are correct.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Suppose you install a lock on your house to prevent thieves from getting in, but in the small print there was a note that the installation would allow those who fitted the lock to enter your house for any purpose whatsoever. You point out that they could come in and steal all your possessions, or cause any amount of mayhem. If you challenge them the response would be “but we’ll never do that...”. However, if later on some such event did occur, then it would be very hard to deny that there was an agreement.

That sort of small print clause should greatly interest the Competition and Markets Authority, regulators of the UK's stringent legislation on unfair terms in consumer contracts if used by a UK company Unfortunately, many big internet companies are outside the UK and the EU and are probably allowed pretty grim terms on their home turf. Esp. in the USA, 'Land of the Free and Home of the Brave' of course

[Dave2002]

I would still rather tend to think the two cases were different. If you agree to act as guarantor for someone else's loan, you understand exactly what that means. You have guaranteed that if the debtor defaults, you have agreed to repay the loan. If you have the ready cash, you repay it. If you can't/won't produce the cash the creditor is entitled to the equivalent sum raised from your possessions. But why on earth would you agree to the installer of a lock being able to enter your house for any purpose whatsoever? Or indeed for any purpose at all? You pay for the installation and there the transaction ends.

You are right - in a way. Basically anyone with any sense will check what the word guarantor means, and will see what the implications are, and will make a decision.

However, the way a lot of businesses are set up - not only computer software - but software is a particularly bad case, means that effectively you won't get the software to work unless you read a whole bunch of conditions. I can assure you that that is usually the case. If you don't accept the T&Cs on a software package those usually shut down. Effectively I would view that as a form of coercion, but nevertheless "agreeing" to abide by the T&Cs by clicking on an "Accept" button might well bind you under some jurisdiction.

The situation is indeed slightly different yet again when you click on a pop up asking if you want to accept cookies. Who do those pop up "agreements" actually protect? Probably not you or I, so they are "just" a mindless irritation which serve no useful purpose and it would be simpler if they did not appear.

Perhaps someone will argue with me that things have improved since the various bits of legislation which seem to have forced these behaviours on us, but I'd really like to know in what ways things have actually improved.

[muzzer]

The cookie popups are required under the Data Protection legislation, as supposedly ensuring the data controller gets the user’s specific consent to its use of cookies on every occasion the user goes to that site. Although I agree it’s a PITA to click accept every time, if you click no you will often find plenty of other options for agreeing how your data is used by that site. Now, plenty of sites set that part up so it’s also a massive PITA to choose acceptable options but at least users are given the choice.

Software agreements are another thing entirely. As far as I can see their principal purpose is to limit the provider’s obligations as to performance, as well of course as to liability for losses flowing from the thing working in the wrong way. Which is why when the app goes down you have no form of redress. And that’s ignoring issues around jurisdiction, something the Internet generally seems to have removed for the person in the street.

[oddoneout]

The cookie popups are required under the Data Protection legislation, as supposedly ensuring the data controller gets the user’s specific consent to its use of cookies on every occasion the user goes to that site. Although I agree it’s a PITA to click accept every time, if you click no you will often find plenty of other options for agreeing how your data is used by that site. Now, plenty of sites set that part up so it’s also a massive PITA to choose acceptable options but at least users are given the choice.

Getting the punter to click on a box provides an audit trail for the outfit concerned to say it did seek consent. I don't mind running through the options list and eliminating the inessential, but I really object to those which don't provide such a menu and tell you to do a global disablement via your browser, knowing that everyone will just click on 'accept all' rather than do that. Complies with the letter of the law but not the spirit - there is a bit somewhere among the legislation I seem to remember about making it clear and easy for users to exercise a choice.
As I do little online I'm not much affected by such things - cookies are set for the few sites I do use - but the library has recently changed the package it uses for borrowing online copies of magazines via PC (rather than devices for which there is a choice of access) to one which uses such an approach , so that puts paid for now to more borrowing. Tiresome but not the end of the world, and to an extent inevitable given that I am in an increasingly small minority regarding my method of online access.

[Dave2002]

The cookie popups are required under the Data Protection legislation, as supposedly ensuring the data controller gets the user’s specific consent to its use of cookies on every occasion the user goes to that site. Although I agree it’s a PITA to click accept every time, if you click no you will often find plenty of other options for agreeing how your data is used by that site. Now, plenty of sites set that part up so it’s also a massive PITA to choose acceptable options but at least users are given the choice.

Software agreements are another thing entirely. As far as I can see their principal purpose is to limit the provider’s obligations as to performance, as well of course as to liability for losses flowing from the thing working in the wrong way. Which is why when the app goes down you have no form of redress. And that’s ignoring issues around jurisdiction, something the Internet generally seems to have removed for the person in the street.

I am aware that the cookie pops are required, but I am not sure that the legislation really makes sense at all. If I go to a shop to buy something I am not presented with a tome indicating all the processes and other organisations which might have had anything to do with supplying the product I might want to buy. I am not required to sign to say that I've read it.

It does appear that there are controls behind the scenes which most of us are not aware of which do impose some constraints on providers - particularly food and pharmaceutical products - but most of us take that on trust. The controls will also vary according to jurisdiction. In the UK and the USA and probably other areas such as the EU they may be quite significant in some areas, to ensure that we don't buy contaminated goods. However there is an act of trust in buying anything, or having any form of service.

Is there really anything like that for online activity, and if so, which bodies are going to enforce the constraints?

[oddoneout]

I am aware that the cookie pops are required, but I am not sure that the legislation really makes sense at all. If I go to a shop to buy something I am not presented with a tome indicating all the processes and other organisations which might have had anything to do with supplying the product I might want to buy. I am not required to sign to say that I've read it.

It does appear that there are controls behind the scenes which most of us are not aware of which do impose some constraints on providers - particularly food and pharmaceutical products - but most of us take that on trust. The controls will also vary according to jurisdiction. In the UK and the USA and probably other areas such as the EU they may be quite significant in some areas, to ensure that we don't buy contaminated goods. However there is an act of trust in buying anything, or having any form of service.

Is there really anything like that for online activity, and if so, which bodies are going to enforce the constraints?

If you buy an item from a shop and don't enter into any sort of registration or further contact process then there's not much opportunity for data acquisition which would require consent is there? There will (or should be)be the information you mention available somewhere by contacting the company which made the item, a process which those with, for instance, dietary or product safety concerns, may go through.

[Dave2002]

If you buy an item from a shop and don't enter into any sort of registration or further contact process then there's not much opportunity for data acquisition which would require consent is there?

That is my point - we buy things on trust. Trust that the company has done its job properly and the goods and/or services are what we need. That trust may, or may not, be justified.