It appears to be an issue with expectations for some people (including me). "Burger" is associated with a certain flavor, texture and appearance, so when I eat a veggie burger my subconsciousness is disappointed because it's too different. The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish. This is the main reason why I dislike so many "vegetarian alternative" dishes on our kitchen's menu like chili sin carne, while some "standalone" vegetarian dishes are among my favorites like pasta with spinach, tomato and feta in cream sauce.
I hope artificial meat will be introduced as a 'luxury' product and replace mass-produced fast food ground beef after it is well established as a genuine alternative and not some inferior knock-off like artificial cheese.
> The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish.
I can understand why some people can be put off by the taste. Having previously eaten non-human animals, I can say that I prefer the taste of veggie burgers and sausages, although most vegan cheese tastes absolutely disgusting (especially the ones pretending to be parmesan). But I really, really wish that more of us would be willing to accept a reduction in the tastiness of certain dishes to help prevent antibiotics resistance, non-human animal suffering, climate breakdown, dead zones and starvation.
And other times I really can't tell the difference, and to be honest it kind of scares me. Some brands go so far as to make the minced "meat" look red and bloody[0]. Then, I have to take someone's word that this thing that really looks like a shrimp and is all crunchy really isn't a shrimp[1]. It's like a whole new art form.
Society cares about working products, not the tech behind it - I don't see calls specifically for making critical software open source any time sooner than the year of the Linux desktop.
Regulations and fines are proven tools, and even if it doesn't make autonomous cars significantly safer, it will make them expensive enough to reduce fatalities.
>With the GDPR in place, you theoretically now need to get consent every time
This is false. There are multiple ways to justify processing of personal data, and your example would fall under data processing necessary to perform a contract at the customer's request. Depending on your location, there might also be legal requirements to record and keep user data, which is also a valid reason that doesn't require consent of the user.
> Enforcing your moral values inside the company and even worse, using the company's power to force them to the world - only to abandon them when it hurts profits - is perverse IMO.
The same could be said about executives and their lack of moral values. Except the C-level actually wields the power to control the company.
Not analyzing IP addresses to deliver more relevant results seems pretty aligned with that whole "respecting your privacy is our main selling point". I gladly add another word to my queries if that keeps DDG from taking a step towards where google is today.
A couple of months back, everybody went ballistic when the EU GDPR declared IP addresses as "personal data". Can't recall any posts/articles that were actually defending this GDPR provision—if you can point us to one, I'd love to read the counter-arguments.
So I believe that there is a consensus that using IP addresses to improve search results would be fair game for DDG. It's also consistent with the DDG promise: "we don't track you".
OTOH, not using them has only marginal effect on user's privacy: (a) DDG doesn't serve ads anyway, and (b) the metadata of user's online activity are still available to three-letter agencies to analyze.
as long as they aren't being stored, it shouldn't matter. You could just read user's IP, use that to filter results, then throw it away
Also IP by itself isn't really that much of a privacy problem. It only becomes a problem when it's used in the process of delinkage of more sensitive information
Also consistency is to be valued. Example: if I say to someone else over the phone to search for "X", then I usually want them to see the exact same search results as I do.
If the customer does not respond to your requests to accept your house rules you deny them service. GDPR is quite clear that "silent agreement" does not apply.
GDPR Recital 32, sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/
How silent is installing an extension that clicks "dismiss" for you? It's like that argument where you can't be bound by the EULA because you put your cat's paw on the mouse and had your cat click "I agree". Good luck with that argument.
If I install an extension that sends agrees to a website then yes, it's the same as using a cat as a proxy, because objectively the request for consent has been fulfilled without irregularities. It's even mentioned in sentence 2 of Recital 32, using technical measures to auto-consent is valid as long as it is done clearly.
However uMatrix does not send agrees; in fact, it shreds most 'requests to consent' to pieces before relaying the page to the user as a side-effect of blocking third-party cookies+scripts. So unlike the cat proxy, uMatrix will never send a (deceitful) agreement back and the website owner never gets a reply for his inquiry.
All a website owner gets from a uMatrix user is the wrench they threw into the consent acquiring procedure, and I doubt that's enough to signify consent as defined in GDPR.
‘consent’ of the data subject means any freely given,
specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data
subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a
clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the
processing of personal data relating to him or her;
The important difference is that the only "license terms" for paperback copies are laws designed to protect publishers, whereas digital licenses can be as arbitrary as a publisher chooses to as long as they don't conflict with laws designed to protect consumers.
Same thing as WhatsApp. VC pay most of the bills until the network effect has cultivated the userbase to a size attractive for a buy out by a bigger fish.
WhatsApp was bringing in 10M in revenues[1] a year with the .99cent fee. Not selling it wouldn’t have made them billionaires, but it’s certainly fuck you money for a team of 8.
"opt-out as default" in the context of GDPR means that all EU citizens have to be considered as not having given consent to usage of their personal data until they explicitly do so. See Recital 32, Sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." [0] in the context of consent of the data subject to make processing of personal data lawful (Article 6 [1])
I'd be glad if you could point out a regulation on the content website owners must offer to people who do not wish their personal data to be processed.
I hope artificial meat will be introduced as a 'luxury' product and replace mass-produced fast food ground beef after it is well established as a genuine alternative and not some inferior knock-off like artificial cheese.