Techdirt. Stories filed under "opt-out"

Canadian Cities Looking To Opt-Out Of CETA Rather Than Get Roped Into An ACTA-Like Situation

Wendy Cockcroft — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 23:27:39 PDT

Though the specific process differs from country to country, international agreements are generally negotiated and signed at the highest levels of government, with input from everyone else filtering up (in theory) through the hierarchy—at least until you get something like ACTA, where the public rises up en masse and essentially overrides the whole system. One thing that you don't often see is municipal governments standing up to take a direct role in international negotiations—but that's exactly what's happening now in Canada, where cities are seeking to avoid an ACTA-like situation by asking to opt out of the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) at the municipal level.

The effort is being led by The Council of Canadians, a social justice group which is working to persuade cities, towns, and municipal authorities all over Canada to request exemption from CETA. Their core concern is about the agreement's procurement chapter, which sets down rules about how governments and other public bodies can spend money on goods and services, and which they fear will unduly restrict municipalities:

For example, new rules in CETA on how public bodies spend money would:

Prohibit municipalities from putting buy local or buy Canadian preferences on contracts, or requiring that bidders use some portion of local or Canadian goods, services or labour. This would end the ability of municipalities to use procurement as a local economic or social development tool.

Prohibit municipalities from using public spending to create or support a market for innovative goods and services, including green technologies, if the effect would favour Canadian producers or attract investment to Canada.

Prohibit municipalities from spending public money in ways that support sustainability, for example through buy local food policies like the one Toronto passed to reduce emissions from food miles.

As long as municipal governments are part of the CETA deal, these prohibitions will apply to local purchases. We need to make sure cities, towns, school boards and hospitals are not bound by these unnecessary rules.

So far, over 30 local governments representing over 5.5 million people have joined the exemption campaign and another 30 to 40 municipal councils, school boards or associations have asked for more information and more input in the negotiations. Unfortunately, as is common with these situations, such concerns have been largely brushed off in a weak damage control effort by the federal government. Assurances from the Candian Foreign Affairs and International Trade Ministry on the Myths and Realities page are reminiscent of the EU's ACTA Facts, and the Council of Canadians have a page that debunks them. International trade strategist Peter Clark laughs off the fears Canadians have of corporate control of their water services.

CETA is not about diverting Canada’s lakes and rivers – which would not do Europeans much good in any event because we have no common borders... There is no requirement to privatize services which do not compete with private entities and do not operate on a commercial basis.

There are good reasons for the municipalities' concern about the investors' clauses, but Clark just tells them not to worry their pretty little heads about it and run along. Stonewalling and secrecy are not the way to build confidence in the benefits of CETA.

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Yellow Pages Companies Team Up To Offer Opt-Out

Mike Masnick — Thu, 3 Feb 2011 16:19:24 PST

It's pretty much a national joke these days that every few months, yet another totally useless giant phone book gets dumped on your front doorstep. We don't even let them get into our house before they're tossed in the appropriate receptacle, and if you walk into some apartment buildings, you've probably seen lobbies littered with stacks of ignored phone books. There have been some (slightly controversial) legal fights over attempts to get the various phone companies to stop delivering these giant wastes of paper. Clearly sensing the writing on the wall, and trying to avoid more strict legislation, apparently a bunch of Yellow Pages companies have teamed up to let people opt-out of receiving the useless book. Whether or not the site, YellowPagesOptOut.com actually works may be another question. And some may worry about having to provide information to the very companies whose entire goal is to market to people. But, it's at least a project worth watching to see if it can be effective in stopping such a massive waste.

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Would Top Sites Really Opt-Out Of Google Based On A Microsoft Bribe?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:10:00 PST

Every so often, internet pontificators try to come up with ways to "kill Google." It's a silly game, but in an oddly timed move, three people (who have all put forth "how to kill Google" ideas in the past) all suddenly published similar ideas, yet again. Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban and Tom Foremski all posted similar ideas about how certain sites (such as the top sites in the top search results) could all choose to opt-out of Google and, say, join another search engine like Bing. It's one of those ideas that sounds good for about 5 seconds. And then you actually think about it. First, the numbers being tossed around concerning how much it would cost, say, Microsoft, to convince most of these sites to opt-out of their number one driver of traffic is significantly higher than what's being mentioned in these articles. Many of these sites rely on Google traffic to make a ton of money, and they're not going to throw that away easily. At least in Calacanis' plan he suggests Microsoft offer "50% more than they make in Google referrals" which certainly beats Cuban's idea that many sites would opt-out of Google for $1,000.

Here's the thing, though. Most of those sites worked hard to get to the top of Google for a very good reason: they understand the value of being easily findable. As such, they also recognize that it makes little sense to make themselves less findable at almost any price. Getting anyone to opt-out first (other than suicidal sites like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) is going to be nearly impossible. Who would want to risk that? Because the instant they opt-out, someone else would take their place. Quickly. And decisively.

There's value in being found these days, and to be found you need to be easily findable from anywhere if someone's looking for you. Not only would traffic decrease, but so would basic reputation. Even if Microsoft pays you a ton to drop out of Google, people are going to search for your business in Google and when they can't find it, they're not going to care how much Microsoft paid, they're going to think you're a small-time nobody. The best strategy these days, as most web site operators know, is to be as widely available as possible. Opt-ing out of Google because someone pays you some money is a lot more costly than just the lack of traffic.

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Can Technology Solve The Privacy Questions Around Behavioral Advertising?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:22:00 PDT

Jim Harper makes a really good point as there's a growing clamor for regulators to step in and legislate around online privacy concerning things like behavioral targeting of advertisements. Before we rush into new laws, let's see if technology can solve the problems, such as Chris Soghoian's new tool to let users add a browser extension that let's them block out all targeted advertising cookies. That doesn't necessarily solve the issue with ISPs selling clickstream tracking, but it does suggest that technology may do a decent job protecting against some of these issues.

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Congressmen Not Happy About Charter's Plan To Sell Out Users To Advertisers

Mike Masnick — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:02:19 PDT

While Charter Communications is out defending its efforts to inject ads into your surfing activities by collecting data on where you surf, it appears that some powerful Congressional Representatives are suggesting that Charter might want to think twice about implementing this. Reps. Ed Markey and Joe Barton (who both have a fair amount of power in Congress) have sent Charter a letter warning the company that doing this without letting people affirmatively opt-in may violate the Communications Act, which limits what cable companies can do with customer records. What's really surprising is that, after so much anger over similar efforts in the UK (including similar questions about legality) that Charter forged right ahead with a nearly identical plan in the US, positioning it as an "enhancement." Update And on top of this, reports are now coming out that opt-ing out of this system isn't so easy after all.

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Marketers Freak Out About Mandates To Make Clickstream Tracking Opt-In Only

Mike Masnick — Wed, 7 May 2008 16:38:00 PDT

With all of the fuss finally being raised concerning clickstream tracking by companies like Phorm and NebuAd, there's an effort underway to force ISPs to make any such tracking strictly opt-in. That is, users would have to proactively agree to allow their data to be used in this manner. In response, various marketers are complaining about how much data they would lose, claiming it would be an "armageddon" for the industry. Don't believe them. This is the same thing marketers warned about when the US instituted a "Do Not Call" system, and it's hardly decimated the marketing industry. Instead, it's improved marketing by making firms focus less on intrusive telemarketing and more on useful marketing. The same would happen if ISPs were required to make this an opt-in instead of opt-out setup. It would force the ISPs and companies like Phorm to make sure that the services really benefited customers in meaningful and noticeable ways so that customers would be happy to make use of the services. By whining about an opt-in solution, all these firms are really admitting is that they do not add value to the surfing experience of users.

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Apple Trying To Sneak Safari Onto Windows Machines?

Timothy Lee — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:25:28 PDT

Last week, Apple apparently began distributing its Safari web browser to Windows users using the software update mechanism that comes with iTunes. This has generated a firestorm of controversy, notably from Mozilla CEO John Lilly, who says Apple's behavior undermines users' trust in the software update process. He's got a point. What Apple is doing here is a little bit sleazy. Users who opt to download iTunes aren't necessarily interested in installing or running Safari, and so making installation the default is an abuse of the relationship between Apple and its customers. On the other hand, I think it's important to make it clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with Apple using its installed base of iTunes users to help promote Safari. The issue here is that the opt-out mechanism it's chosen is somewhat misleading. Apple can fix the problem very easily by switching the default, so that Safari is unchecked until the user chooses to check it. Or, if Apple wants to be a little more aggressive, a pop-up window could require the user to make a yes or no choice on installing Safari. If the user clicks "no," the update mechanism should respect this choice and not bring it up again. The problem, in other words, is not that Apple is using the popularity of iTunes to promote another of its products. The problem is that it's not being as transparent as it could be with its users.

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Can Legislation Let People Opt-Out Of Having Their Info Show Up Online?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:20:02 PST

The "Do Not Call" list has been something of a success over the past five years, but the various attempts at similar "do not X" lists always seem a bit ridiculous. The latest, coming from the state of Connecticut, would institute an impossible to enforce and most likely unconstitutional universal opt-out list for your info online. The idea is that there are so many directory sites/people search engines/list sites online, many of which have your name, address and potentially other information such as where you work. The law proposed by Connecticut's governor would allow you to "opt-out" and require all of these sites to take your info offline. Of course, as the article notes, much of that info is already public info and there's nothing illegal about compiling a list of public information. Where would the line be drawn? If your info shows up in a Google search, is Google suddenly liable? It's also unclear how you could possibly enforce a requirement that someone's name and address never get posted online. If anything, it sounds like more grandstanding legislation designed to make a politician look good rather than deal with the very real issues at hand concerning privacy.

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Time To Do Away With Sleazy Checkbox Opt-Outs

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:08:13 PDT

We've all seen the practice of somewhat sleazy "opt-out" offerings on things. You sign up to buy something at an e-commerce site and you have to uncheck a box or you'll get bombarded by promotional emails for the rest of your life. However, Jeremy Wagstaff is pointing out one that's even more questionable. Apparently, on a Lenovo page for journalists, it includes two confusing checkboxes. The first says: "Please use e-mail to send me information about other offerings." The second says: "Please do not use this data to send me information about other offerings." They're checkboxes (not radio buttons), meaning that you can check none, one, the other or both... which raises some interesting questions. What happens if you check none or if you check both?

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Verizon Wireless To Hand Over Your Info To Advertisers Unless You Opt Out?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:11:21 PDT

Jeff A. writes to let us know that Verizon Wireless is trying to change its policy on what it can do with your calling record info. Basically, it sounds like they want to start selling it to marketers, so they had to change their terms of service. What they did was send customers a letter telling them they had 30 days to call and opt-out of this new plan to hand over your calling records, or you'd have automatically accepted their changed terms of service and Verizon Wireless could hand over the info to advertisers. Of course, many people will probably just see this as junk mail and toss it out, not realizing that they've just agreed to get a lot more advertising sent their way -- and, more importantly, opened up access to (what they thought were) their own private phone records. This is doubly sneaky, because the FCC recently released new rules on how telecoms shouldn't release info to third parties without "explicit consent from a customer." Verizon Wireless seems to think that sending this letter with its fine print and demanding people opt-out within 30 days falls under "explicit consent," though some customers would likely disagree.

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