Strive to Fit

Last week we played a card game to play different roles from end users to designers exploring needs and responsibilities of them. One thing I found interesting was the right to be forgotten. As the power of Internet increasingly expanded, especially with the wider application of the cloud computing, I would like to take the right to be forgotten as a representative figure to evaluate how much we can control the data uploaded online.

In this discussion, the right to be forgotten is quite similar to the right to erasure, which means how can individual deletes his personal information when he or she determines to do so. The effect of such action sees in the Key Changes  from the EU GDPR.ORG. In the Key Changes, three uses may be prohibited by the data service provider -- ”...erase his/her personal data, cease further dissemination of the data, and potentially have third parties halt processing of the data”.

The question is that can the data controller really erase users’ personal information as users’ requests. The rule of free Internet service is allowing Internet Service Providers to collect users’ personal information and use those information in a commercial way. There is no real “free service” on the Internet. Social medias like Facebook, Twitter and others not only collect personal data for themselves, they also make profits by allowing other ISPs to use the data. It might be true that the biggest obstacle to the right of be forgotten of users is the Internet itself rather than technological measures.(from Lazzeri)

Article 17(2) of GDPR pointing out, the controller’s responsibility is not limited to erase user’s information on their platforms,  notices or technical measures must be taken to the third parties who are processing the information. This kind of “complete” erasure may cause the ISPs to make some tricks to avoid the request of fully erasure, for instance, writing an article to limit the scope of erasure when the user wants to “delete all personal data” in the user’s agreement.

Besides that, cloud computing takes the storage of data to a higher level -- the controller may be uncertain as traditional data storage. One example here is the 

blockchain technology. 

(picture from Blockgeeks: https://goo.gl/images/S9Kj1X)

Few months ago, I saw a video talking about a creepy thing: Google is listening to user’s speaking when using google.

Video:  Is Google always listening: Live Test 

This video was from a blogger, Mitchollow, on YouTube. He uploaded it on April 12, 2018 and got nearly 9 millions hits now. In the video, the blogger compared the website pages when using Google Chrome to the same website but after talking about dog toys  while the browser was closed, showing that the side advertisement on the website pages were replaced from irrelevant content to dog toys. 

(pitcure from Bravo Net Solution: https://goo.gl/images/L23mvJ)

Actually, targeted advertisement is not something new to users nowadays. The video was an example of it. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have been tracking users online to target users more precisely, then increasingly revenue from ads. To prevent potential legal risks of violating privacy, ISPs launch a series of preference settings and user’s terms and conditions to ask for individual’s consent to use his personal information and online tracking. If we think on the side of ISPs, it makes sense to make profits someway when providing free products, and this is why users agree to see ads. The real question is that users have no way to control how exactly their information are used because only ISPs have access to decide. In a user’s perspective, one day he may be extremely uncomfortable when seeing ads contained his released information that he is unwilling to share, and has no ideas why it happens or how to protect himself.

The video “Is Google always listening” was not a perfect test because the blogger uploaded another video with few conditions changed three days later. In the latter one, the test result to the question was NO. Despite those controversy about what was the perfect test, these two video revealed the mass public concerns regarding personal data. The unbalance power between ISPs and users has to be re-addressed by laws. Thus, EU, for instance, passed the important GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to empower EU users’ privacy protection.

However, just like we discussed on the class, how much do we trust laggard legal system can really properly limit ISPs power to use personal data? Besides that, do we really can enforce ISPs to restrict themselves by not using their products? There are people believe privacy released and unjustified use of personal data are not their problems because it never happens to them, so this concern about extreme power of ISPs might me harmless to them. Moreover, there is no options or better options if we stop using current products which may be with unfair user’s agreement. 

One interesting thing I found on class this week was YouTube Content ID. It is a advanced move against copyright infringement arisen 9 years ago on the most powerful video platform. This helps copyright holders to rely less on traditional notice-then-take-down protection which may be time-consuming and less profitable. 

The Content ID uses the mass data to find if the video upload now would match any video uploaded before. This matching process is like scanning user’s content before being published. Therefore, how this tool works will be important.

Here is the information of Match Tool from YouTube:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7648743?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=2778544

I do think this can protect copyright in some level, but there are certain concerns about how effective it could be. 

Firstly, you may find that this copyright match tool can only be applied to a small number of videos (including audios). Though YouTube has become one of the most popular online video sharing platform, there are still plenty of video platforms attracted various users and their original contents. It means contents hasn’t been uploaded on YouTube before by authors (or right holders) themselves could be considered as originals if anyone unloads them. This Content ID can only match “finger prints” already existed. For those original works don’t exist in YouTube’s database, they could be infringed and not protected by this system. Meanwhile, this database is very limited. Without significant number of “sample finger prints”, how many infringed contents could be profiled as “infringement”?

Secondly, how we can say two contents are matched? There is no clear standard from YouTube.

Pirate Bay provides an index to its users rather than works protected by copyright law contributing an infringement as an act of communication to the public.

This week, we talked about some current copyright issues in cyberspace.

One of the most up-to-date issue is ‘meme’. I love memes and the remixed culture. I do see or feel there are intellectual creations from some really good memes (or stickers). Sometime people creat their own styles or stories by using one or few same elements or original works (include but not limited to words, pictures, short videos), which may be a highly different work. The use of original word is essential but not a substantial part for the new work. That’s a new challenge for copyright protection.

Another issue may be more academic - ‘deep linking’. It’s not a simple links-provides action. It means users can directly see the context in the website they are viewing rather than click a link to open the original website. For instance, there may be a website collecting mass media information everyday to provide a ‘collection media’ to their users, where no original links of information collected from other medias are provided, so users can directly read ‘collected information’. In the collection, this website edits all contexts to make it more readable. The deep link creates a new way to spread information in cyberspace. It may infringe the right of communication to the public of right holders.

Prof Lessig believe that law chock the creativity, especially the copyright. The video was taken 9 years ago but still clearly pointing out the spirit of balance for intellectual property law. We created the absolute right for IPR (intellectual property rights) owners which prohibits other people to use ( i.e. copy in copyright) their ‘property’. But it is created because we want to encourage more people to create, therefore, benefiting the public better.

See the report here.