>But, I didn't opt in for them to have this information about me to begin with.
Everyone is up in arms about Facebook and Google collecting our information... meanwhile credit bureaus are sitting in the shadows giggling to themselves
The obsession with "big tech" as the biggest abuser of consumer privacy frustrates the hell out of me, and must be a real delight to credit bureaus, cell carriers, data brokers, fintech parasites, and all the rest of the slimy fuckers who do far worse things every day and aren't even on the public's radar.
Reporting an employee’s salary vs Zuckerberg selling your political motivations to manipulate elections are two different ballparks. It’s not that people aren’t frustrated with other abusers of customer privacy, it’s just big tech is the best at it.
The Big Techs that run on ad revenue typically keep user data to themselves, and offer advertisers a platform for targeting ads without knowledge of individual users. There have been some scandals (CA is the one I always think of, and there are more) but typically selling de-anonymized user data is not the business model of these companies. That doesn't stop people from saying it is, but AFAIK they are largely incorrect.
Contrast that with e.g. the somewhat recent revelations that cell carriers have been selling individuals' granular, de-anonymized location history data to, essentially, anybody willing to pay.
From a privacy standpoint, which I think is the context here, I consider the latter sort of thing to be far worse.
They are 2 very different ballparks in that I would much rather let FB sell my info which I provide willingly than a credit bureau sell my salary history, which I don't.
Well yeah -- did you think it was somehow about consumer rights?
Democrats and Republicans alike want to use the threat of regulation and anti-trust action to force social media companies to adopt moderation policies favorable to them. They both recognize (IMO correctly) that they must make these threats; principled adherence to economic liberty leaves one without leverage and is likely to result in companies simply caving to one's opposition (c.f. the behavior of most companies with respect to China).
Credit bureaus don't influence elections, ergo there is little advantage to be gained by making threats against them.
Or, combine with other people to fight the ridiculous system? Even if you manage to pull off a life like this, you're limiting yourself significantly and leaving many people behind.
> It's impossible, people are not rebelling after being forced in their homes for two years
Did you ever get the news that the world went through a pandemic and millions of people lost their lives? We all hate being cooped up at home but what's the alternative? What did you expect the governments to do when they had no other solutions?
When you talk about good countries, please remember that their citizens make them so. If you ever happen to move to one of these "good" countries, please remember that these societies are built upon a collective realization that rights come with a set of moral duties and obligations towards each other. By staying inside, we bought old, sick and immune-compromised people some time till a vaccine arrived.
Aren't NFTs essentially just file hashes/signatures that can be associated with a public/private key pair on a blockchain? If so, the link between the NFT and the key pair might be solid (as in cryptographically secure) but the link between the NFT and its "underlying asset" (which might be copyrightable) seems flimsy.
That being said, since both NFT ownership and our legal systems rely on consensus and majority opinion, it's not hard to imagine a corrupt society in which the opinion of judges is disregarded in favor of blockchain consensus.
Edit: you might be joking but it's an interesting question nonetheless because it highlights how various systems compete for legitimacy :)
The NFT would be completely irrelevant here. Basically I assume you are claiming copyright over your salary and personal information. Unfortunately you can't trademark facts, so this approach isn't viable.
For employers it offloads employment and salary verification. Instead of having to pay someone to answer verification calls all day they just upload the data to The Work Number and let them handle it.
ADP Rep: "Hey, we have an exciting new feature to offer you! We partner with the worlds premiere credit and employment reporting agency to eliminate the hassle of salary and employment verification."
VP, HR: "Go on..."
ADP: "If you opt in to this innovative program, you'll never again have to respond to your employees' lenders or landlords. 97% of banks participate in this program. Instead of them asking their applicant—your employee—for paperwork that you have to deal with, they come direct to the source automatically. Again, this is at no additional cost. It's included with our Premium Payroll Plus offering. Interested?"
HR: "Yeah, of course. One less thing I have to deal with"
ADP: "And the best part is you'll then qualify for a substantial discount on our partner's Employment Data System. Rest easy with unlimited verification reports for all your prospective new hires"
Banks and organizations that are considering lending you credit (i.e. buying a house / car / getting a credit card) can know if you're getting in over your head with finances and might be higher risk to repay. They can set their interest rates and fees appropriately.
Although all that said for any major loan the bank is going to ask you to provide detailed proof of all income, assets, etc. They likely use this service as a check to make sure you aren't trying to overstate your income.
From what I recall at my time there, banks use it as supplemental source of creditworthiness validation. The government also pays for the data to verify eligibility for welfare and other social services. Employers...I don't think were a major revenue source although I wouldn't be surprised if some used it to inform their salary thresholds.
theworknumber.com is yet another symptom of a much larger problem in that it is currently impractical for a regular person to enforce their rights via the court system.
However it is really nice to see efforts by some regular people out there setting up services such as https://yourdigitalrights.org which is the service I just used to request my information from Equifax. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. I suppose if they do not respond in 45 days I'll file a complaint with the CA Attorney General to put yet another ping regarding Equifax on their radar. https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-busine...
This shows that ultimately it is the regular people who drive progress, while the powerful and the wealthy just take credit for it.
Ultimately United States will transition to European-style privacy laws when it comes to private information like income and these credit agencies will be abolished, but the way to get there is for the regular non-millionaire people to exercise whatever "rights" they kinda have to ultimately get these annoyances shut down.
So a new company you are joining can easily verify your current salary with your ssn & dob. Right? They have your history of employers from your resume already.
Get the job offer and negotiate salary before agreeing to a background check. Let them make the offer be contingent on the results of those checks (and drug screen or security check or whatever else they want).
But before turning in notice on your current job, wait until all checks are completed and make them reissue the offer letter with all contingencies removed. Otherwise you're still at risk of them pulling the offer while you're busy packing up your desk.
