eBay privacy policy update and AI opt-out
eBay is updating its privacy policy, effective next month (2025-04-27). The major change is a new section about AI processing, accompanied by a new user setting with an opt-out checkbox for having your personal data feed their models.
While that page specifically references European areas, the privacy selection appears to be active and remembered between visits for non-Europe customers. It may not do anything for us at all. On the other hand, it seems nearly impossible to find that page from within account settings, so I thought I'd post a direct link.
I'm well aware that I'm anomalous for having read this to begin with, much less diffed it against the previous version. But since I already know that I'm weird, and this wouldn't be much of a discussion post without questions:
- How do you stay up to date with contract changes that might affect you, outside of widespread Internet outrage (such as recent Firefox news)?
- What's your threshold -- if any -- for deciding whether to quit a company over contract changes? Alternatively, have you ever walked away from a purchase, service, or other acquisition over the terms of the contracts?
Thank you for highlighting this.
I had a poke around and it seems the page is linked from account settings in the desktop version of the site, but that link doesn't exist at all in the mobile version (as a UK user). I don't have the app to check there.
I'm a UK user and the option was available to me on mobile by following OP's link. Couldn't find it in the app though.
Uhh.. By browsing Tildes, for the most part. I've caught some stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise, including this post, so thank you for posting. Also: what Firefox news is that exactly? :D (I use Firefox for browsing Reddit and only for that.)
I regularly walk away from websites when they give me the cookies opt-out panel with the hidden sections for "legitimate" interest that you have to tick off one by one if you actually want those off. There have been rare occasions when I've spent time actually ticking them off because I really wanted to access the content on that site. Most of the time I decide the content wasn't worth the effort.
The most recent software I walked away from was Adobe's transition to cloud based and the subscription model introduction. "Upgrading" to that didn't seem worth the new features that came with it, so I just stuck with the CS versions of their programs. If I had transitioned, then at the very least I would have gotten out with the latest policy changes and user outrage. I would also like to prohibit all my collaborators from ever uploading any of my work to their cloud, because according to Adobe, this now grants them rights to do whatever they please with my work. So far this hasn't been an issue but things may be about to change and I'm not sure how to handle it yet.
ETA: Reddit is a company that I haven't felt the need to quit, at least not yet, but I've been mindful about my behaviour there from the very beginning because it clearly states in their TOS that they own all content that I create on that platform. I simply don't create things that I would mind losing.
If you're talking about creating posts and comments, that content remain owned by you. The user agreement says that you grant reddit a license to use, store, display, and distribute them, but that you remain the content owner.
Tildes works the same way.
That already pretty much makes me not the owner of my content for most practical purposes, but Reddit goes further:
Even if I remain the content owner on paper, I don't have any power over what happens to it like an actual content owner does, and if I do, I irrevocably waive those rights.
I would be surprised if Tildes worked this way.
Edit: I went to see if the rules changed since I created my account here, but it still says the same, very reasonable thing:
You remain the owner in the most significant way, which is that you may continue to use, adapt, or move your content. It's still yours. You can copy it to a blog post, or post it to another website, or make any changes to it that you like. If reddit were the owner as suggested above, that wouldn't be possible.
Bear in mind that any site requires a license to store, display, and distribute content at the very minimum, Tildes included. These are basic prerequisites to hosting user content on a website. Most go further to include adapting/transformation, which is required for showing previews of posts or different display formats. And also copying, which is required for common features like caching or CDNs that duplicate data for performance reasons.
Reddit does go further than most in regards to the ability to sublicense and share with partners, which Tildes does not do. But the bulk of the bolded text is completely normal and required for this kind of website.
Not if Reddit decides to put some of it behind a paywall and I don't want to pay to access my own content. I know this isn't the case right now but I don't care about that. I care about what the terms permit them to do, should they decide to.
In practical terms, I also can't financially profit of my content if a much larger entity with more traffic is already distributing it to paying users, even if I'm technically allowed to try. As well, I can't protect it from being modified and used for nefarious political purposes or some such, which means I'm not comfortable with associating my identity with the content, which further limits my "ownership" of the content.
In my opinion the bolded parts become problematic when license is granted to third parties and platforms, anywhere in the world, including ones that do not exist yet. And when there is a separate clause that takes away my rights to actually exercise my moral rights in any way. A right that can't be exercised is as good as non-existent.
Most recently: https://tildes.net/~tech/1maf/firefoxs_new_terms_of_use_grants_mozilla_complete_data_processing_rights_of_all_user_interactions
I do this often, too. My working hypothesis is that content quality is inversely correlated with the number of unique domains a page tries to load resources from.
You mentioned 'collaborators' -- are they folks that you could encourage to sign an agreement of some sort? Even if it's not a business relationship, many open-source projects have codes of conduct (and project licenses) that can help corral some potential avenues of disagreement.
They are close enough that I wouldn't need formal agreements to trust that they'll do what's best for me (and by extension, anyone who works for me). The problem is more practical. If they are to do their work, they're going to have to use Adobe software unless they've already migrated away from it. Asking them to adopt other software just to work on this one project would be excessive. I'm probably just going to accept that I can't practice complete Adobe hygiene as of yet.
About your cookie remark: for me, each website I encounter that does not allow me to reject everything easily is an instant block in Kagi. And frankly, I don’t understand how it’s OK, accepted & compliant to have the user manually reject thousands of vendors.
Something else I noticed on other websites which I’m not sure if it’s an intended choice, but seems scummy nonetheless: they use some common cookie template that looks like many other websites, except the Accept & Reject All buttons are switched; it happened for me to instantly accept a bunch of cookies like that.
I've noticed the same and it is absolutely intentional. There's no reason to make it confusing other than trying to trick people to make an unfavourable choice.
The GDPR regulation that mandated sites to offer the user these options in the first place is still fairly new and these rogue practices have emerged as an attempt to get around it. It's interesting to see whether there will be further regulation to ban some of them.