Here is a privacy-related article about a phone app tracking its customers all the time.
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Fun story, I have been using Timmy Hoho’s (as we say where I’m from) as an example in my classes about crisis management since 2016/2017. I love how it just keeps getting worse…
The TL;DR version is this:
- Bought by RBI around that time (same company as Burger King)
- Switched coffee provider, now their coffee is gross, McDonald’s uses the old supplier
- Wage related lawsuits
- Tried to introduce 60 new products
- Franchisees also sued I believe
Then bigger problems… TH has a yearly contest called Roll up the Rim. But, the cups aren’t really recyclable. Some middle school students started a petition to change that after TH was listed by GreenPeace along with Nestlé is a major polluter. So, they called in a PR agency.
PR agency thought up the app idea and TH was declared awesome and green again… but 2 or 3 months later the app messed up and wiped several thousand accounts of their balance, so, I believe it was like $20000 but that doesn’t matter. Then, not even 2 months after that they get dinged for tracking. That was 2020.
Now I can update my lesson to include this news about class action lawsuits.
They tried to save face with greenwashing and failed.
Love this never-ending story, what will they try next?
I’m curious about these types of problems in general. Can extremely shortsighted and tone-deaf policies be attributed to individuals? Do these problems follow them from company to company? If so, what should be done about these people in a free society? Shkreli is an example of what I’m thinking about.
I was hoping that someone would come and point out how dystopian my comments were.
I’m solving a relatively minor technical problem which suits my worldview at the expense of someone else’s rights and culture and, in particular, their right to exist.
In my mind, there is a stereotype of a person who sees profit and escaping consequences as unqualified good. And I want to isolate them from the rest of society.
There is a broken process where I am only comfortable going as far as my in-group to find information or criticism.
What we need is a process where different people come together and frankly discuss issues. There, humility and progress are more important than posturing and winning.
I think that everyone has the right to food, housing, medicine, and dignity in work.
I think a lot of society’s problems begin in the minds of individuals who do not challenge their own beliefs. I think the challenge is to start by saying something humiliating and to continue by saying that solution is not good enough. Or, contemplate something untenable to my in-group and find the cost paid by the people I am excluding. We have limited knowledge. And we have no chance of succeeding if embarrassment and low standards are acceptable excuses.
This is the process where bad ideas–like tracking people to sell more coffee or raising the cost of lifesaving medicine–can’t survive.
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Agreed wholeheartedly here if I’m following you; the minute I lost my trepidation around saying stupid stuff I started to learn properly, and was surrounded by people willing to treat these mistakes with kid gloves and point me on the right path.
Attributed, in a lot of cases, yes, but I’m guessing you also are asking the question as to whether you can apportion blame here, and I’d say that’s on a case-by-case basis.
I would say yes. One person who has been in the news recently due to her moving on is an example that comes pretty easy.
This is such a difficult one to answer. It’s hard enough to convince people that a lot of these things are bad and that we’re building sci-fi level dystopia without them considering you to be sensationalising things… 
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the adult ego is the enemy - we tend to think we know something to be true, even when the evidence clearly suggests otherwise, and we don’t want to be embarrassed by admitting we are wrong
i’ve been researching a very wide variety of topics for over 20 years and it is transparently clear to me that the world people think they live in is not the world they actually live in, not from any perspective and regardless of how awake they think they are
every one of us is an idiot, myself included
if you want to get at the root cause of the worlds problems, i’d suggest studying the concepts set forth by Peter Joseph, ( Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) ), Jacque Fresco, founder of The Venus Project and Ben Stewart ( UNGRIP (2011) )
+1. Also check out his more recent content. Deep, original thinker who has done his research well and is able to synthesise and communicate it. No coincidence that he worked in the past in investment banking and adtech, if I recall correctly.
Tim Hortons and Canada.
A collection of articles from local people and experts called: “Why is [Your] Government So Indifferent to Privacy?” will show a pattern.