#switch data
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Not sure if this will reach enough people but- can we technically have 2 saves on acnh from one game with the switch 2 ? Like if you transfer your island from your first Switch but then delete your save on your second switch, do you still have your first save on your first Switch ? Then, could you make a second save on a your second switch and have 2 saves on one account ? Or is there any way at all to have 2 saves with 2 switches from one game ? I've haven't seen anyone talking about it so I might just be dumb but I really don't know 😞
#acnh#switch#switch 2#animal crossing#animal crossing new horizons#switch data#switch 2 data#switch game#switch 2 game#switch save#switch 2 save#switch 2 transfer#switch transfer#q#switch 2 question
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I think it is very cool how tech companies, schools, employers, and universities make it actively difficult to distance yourself from Google, Microsoft, and Apple.
Yes most Linux distros are very stable, way more secure, privacy friendly, and way more customizable. But every institution is built to make technological independence as difficult as possible.
Yelling on the internet that everyone should switch to Linux and FOSS really ignores how much of the technological world is designed to not let that happen.
#yes switch to linux if you can#Data privacy and security needs to be addressed on a much larger legal scale#you cant consume your way out of this my friends#opensuse#linux#open source#data privacy
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Shifting $677m from the banks to the people, every year, forever

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.
"Switching costs" are one of the great underappreciated evils in our world: the more it costs you to change from one product or service to another, the worse the vendor, provider, or service you're using today can treat you without risking your business.
Businesses set out to keep switching costs as high as possible. Literally. Mark Zuckerberg's capos send him memos chortling about how Facebook's new photos feature will punish anyone who leaves for a rival service with the loss of all their family photos – meaning Zuck can torment those users for profit and they'll still stick around so long as the abuse is less bad than the loss of all their cherished memories:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs
It's often hard to quantify switching costs. We can tell when they're high, say, if your landlord ties your internet service to your lease (splitting the profits with a shitty ISP that overcharges and underdelivers), the switching cost of getting a new internet provider is the cost of moving house. We can tell when they're low, too: you can switch from one podcatcher program to another just by exporting your list of subscriptions from the old one and importing it into the new one:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/#read-receipts-are-you-kidding-me-seriously-fuck-that-noise
But sometimes, economists can get a rough idea of the dollar value of high switching costs. For example, a group of economists working for the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau calculated that the hassle of changing banks is costing Americans at least $677m per year (see page 526):
https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_personal-financial-data-rights-final-rule_2024-10.pdf
The CFPB economists used a very conservative methodology, so the number is likely higher, but let's stick with that figure for now. The switching costs of changing banks – determining which bank has the best deal for you, then transfering over your account histories, cards, payees, and automated bill payments – are costing everyday Americans more than half a billion dollars, every year.
Now, the CFPB wasn't gathering this data just to make you mad. They wanted to do something about all this money – to find a way to lower switching costs, and, in so doing, transfer all that money from bank shareholders and executives to the American public.
And that's just what they did. A newly finalized Personal Financial Data Rights rule will allow you to authorize third parties – other banks, comparison shopping sites, brokers, anyone who offers you a better deal, or help you find one – to request your account data from your bank. Your bank will be required to provide that data.
I loved this rule when they first proposed it:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/10/getting-things-done/#deliverism
And I like the final rule even better. They've really nailed this one, even down to the fine-grained details where interop wonks like me get very deep into the weeds. For example, a thorny problem with interop rules like this one is "who gets to decide how the interoperability works?" Where will the data-formats come from? How will we know they're fit for purpose?
This is a super-hard problem. If we put the monopolies whose power we're trying to undermine in charge of this, they can easily cheat by delivering data in uselessly obfuscated formats. For example, when I used California's privacy law to force Mailchimp to provide list of all the mailing lists I've been signed up for without my permission, they sent me thousands of folders containing more than 5,900 spreadsheets listing their internal serial numbers for the lists I'm on, with no way to find out what these lists are called or how to get off of them:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service
So if we're not going to let the companies decide on data formats, who should be in charge of this? One possibility is to require the use of a standard, but again, which standard? We can ask a standards body to make a new standard, which they're often very good at, but not when the stakes are high like this. Standards bodies are very weak institutions that large companies are very good at capturing:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/
Here's how the CFPB solved this: they listed out the characteristics of a good standards body, listed out the data types that the standard would have to encompass, and then told banks that so long as they used a standard from a good standards body that covered all the data-types, they'd be in the clear.
Once the rule is in effect, you'll be able to go to a comparison shopping site and authorize it to go to your bank for your transaction history, and then tell you which bank – out of all the banks in America – will pay you the most for your deposits and charge you the least for your debts. Then, after you open a new account, you can authorize the new bank to go back to your old bank and get all your data: payees, scheduled payments, payment history, all of it. Switching banks will be as easy as switching mobile phone carriers – just a few clicks and a few minutes' work to get your old number working on a phone with a new provider.
This will save Americans at least $677 million, every year. Which is to say, it will cost the banks at least $670 million every year.
Naturally, America's largest banks are suing to block the rule:
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/cfpbs-open-banking-rule-faces-suit-from-bank-policy-institute
Of course, the banks claim that they're only suing to protect you, and the $677m annual transfer from their investors to the public has nothing to do with it. The banks claim to be worried about bank-fraud, which is a real thing that we should be worried about. They say that an interoperability rule could make it easier for scammers to get at your data and even transfer your account to a sleazy fly-by-night operation without your consent. This is also true!
It is obviously true that a bad interop rule would be bad. But it doesn't follow that every interop rule is bad, or that it's impossible to make a good one. The CFPB has made a very good one.
For starters, you can't just authorize anyone to get your data. Eligible third parties have to meet stringent criteria and vetting. These third parties are only allowed to ask for the narrowest slice of your data needed to perform the task you've set for them. They aren't allowed to use that data for anything else, and as soon as they've finished, they must delete your data. You can also revoke their access to your data at any time, for any reason, with one click – none of this "call a customer service rep and wait on hold" nonsense.
What's more, if your bank has any doubts about a request for your data, they are empowered to (temporarily) refuse to provide it, until they confirm with you that everything is on the up-and-up.
I wrote about the lawsuit this week for @[email protected]'s Deeplinks blog:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/no-matter-what-bank-says-its-your-money-your-data-and-your-choice
In that article, I point out the tedious, obvious ruses of securitywashing and privacywashing, where a company insists that its most abusive, exploitative, invasive conduct can't be challenged because that would expose their customers to security and privacy risks. This is such bullshit.
It's bullshit when printer companies say they can't let you use third party ink – for your own good:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/
It's bullshit when car companies say they can't let you use third party mechanics – for your own good:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms
It's bullshit when Apple says they can't let you use third party app stores – for your own good:
https://www.eff.org/document/letter-bruce-schneier-senate-judiciary-regarding-app-store-security
It's bullshit when Facebook says you can't independently monitor the paid disinformation in your feed – for your own good:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/comprehensive-sex-ed/#quis-custodiet-ipsos-zuck
And it's bullshit when the banks say you can't change to a bank that charges you less, and pays you more – for your own good.
CFPB boss Rohit Chopra is part of a cohort of Biden enforcers who've hit upon a devastatingly effective tactic for fighting corporate power: they read the law and found out what they're allowed to do, and then did it:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis
The CFPB was created in 2010 with the passage of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, which specifically empowers the CFPB to make this kind of data-sharing rule. Back when the CFPA was in Congress, the banks howled about this rule, whining that they were being forced to share their data with their competitors.
But your account data isn't your bank's data. It's your data. And the CFPB is gonna let you have it, and they're gonna save you and your fellow Americans at least $677m/year – forever.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/01/bankshot/#personal-financial-data-rights
#pluralistic#Consumer Financial Protection Act#cfpa#Personal Financial Data Rights#rohit chopra#finance#banking#personal finance#interop#interoperability#mandated interoperability#standards development organizations#sdos#standards#switching costs#competition#cfpb#consumer finance protection bureau#click to cancel#securitywashing#oligarchy#guillotine watch
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#This is a joke please no one take it seriously. I know there isn’t a real reason Spot was retconned as female except that someone decided#that Spot should have kittens and therefore they switched to Spot being female#star trek#star trek tng#st tng#tng#star trek data#data
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Hello! I was reading your posts about age gaps and it made me think about how Fort and Peat did two age gap series with seniority swapped—pretty convincingly too! I can think of pairs who’ve done age-gap in one series and same-age in another but no other “verse” ones. (Maybe Yin and War, a bit, in Love Mechanics vs Jack & Joker?) Can you think of any other pairs that have done this?
Branded Pairs who Switch Age Dynamics in New Parts
Ooo yes there have been a few. Often side pairs. Gimme a sec. Honestly this is something I pay attention to for linguistic reasons but don't actually track.
Quick answer? I found 4
AouBoom - BOTH
FortPeat - BOTH
KimCop - ALL 3 (older, younger, same age)
TutorYim - ALL 3
Lists and criteria follows...
Branded pairs who've done multiple roles (as of March 2025)
(pairs in bold fit asker's criteria, khun simply means they are acting using pronouns that do not indicate age dynamics)
FORMAT = PairBrand: seme actor's age relative to uke actor - age dynamics as pertains to seme actor
AouBoom: Aou is younger - BOTH, I am pretty sure he's the older one in Hidden Agenda & since then = younger
BoomPeek: Boom is younger - same age
BossNoeul: same age (!) - Boss = older
BosszoPeter: Boss is older - older
BounPrem: Boun is older - older
EarthMix: Earth is older - older & same age
FirstKhao but really Khaotung & First: same age - same age or khun
ForceBook: same age - same age & Force = older
FortPeat: Fort is younger - BOTH older & younger
G4 (AKA GeminiFourth) : same age - same age
JaFirst: same age - same age, First = older
JamFilm: Jam is younger - khun
JimmySea: Jimmy is older - khun
JoongDunk: same age - same age or khun(ish)
JuniorMark: Junior is older - older
KarnNut: Karn is younger - same age in one, (much) older in the other
Kim Ji Woong / Yoon Seo Bin: Kim Ji Woong is older, older
KimCop: Kim is older - ALL 3! younger, older, same age
MarcPoon: Marc is younger - older
MaxNat: Max is older - older
MaxTul: Max is younger - same age, younger
MeenPing: Meen is older - same age, older
MosBank: Mos is younger - same age, older
OffGun: Off is older - older, same age, khun
OhmFluke: Ohm is younger (yes, really) - older in all roles
PondPhuwin: Pond is older - same age
PerthLay: Perth is younger - older or khun
SailubPon: Sailub is older - older
SantaEarth: Santa is younger - same age
SatangWinny | WinnySatang: Satang is younger - same or Winny is older
TayNew: Tay is older - always same age (even in Cherry Magic we know they same age from source material) they also act that way IRL
TutorYim: same age - ALL 3 Tutor = same age, older, younger
YinWar: Yin is younger - older, same age
YoonLay: Yoon is older - khun
ZeeNuNew: Zee is older - older
---
Top and Mick: Top is older. I don't think these two can be considered a branded pair, but Every You, Every Me is a masterclass in switching, verse, and rearranging all power dynamics, so I figured I should mention them.
I've left off pairs who haven't yet acted in their 2nd roles (PerthSanta, PavelPoom, UpPoom, MileApo). No I don't care if a new BL is announced or being filmed. It has to actually air to count.
I didn't rewatch to double check so I may be wrong on a few of these. I suffer from Only Friends blindness so that would be one that tripped me up.

There are also actors who have played both seme & uke rolls, but with different partners.
Bah Vinh
First
Gawin
Khaotung
Marc
Mark
Mick
Neo
Pavel
Phuwin (right? when he was opposite Neo - no sure 'cause I refuse to rewatch My Tee)
Pond (not the GMMTV one)
Santa
Singto
Tay (in the same year!)
Tenon
Top
Up
A note for the history books:
OffGun are the only branded pair to have acted 5 different BL roles! Thus I am declaring them current
Kings of BL!

Congratz boys!
I'm not going to keep this post updated, but I did create a new tab in the spreadsheet for tracking branded pairs because this is getting out of hand.
(source)
#bl pairs#bl pair branding#bl pair brands#thai bl#mostly#Branded pairs who switch age dynamics in new roles#ABL spends all day with BL data#because there are thousands of other things I should be doing and don't wanna#offgun win#AouBoom#FortPeat#KimCop#TutorYim
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Of my team of 5 developers I am the only one with frontend/UI experience (yay fullstack developers let’s go!) and I swear to god if I get asked another question I am going to lose it.
Why on gods green earth are you still writing code when you haven’t even tested the page actually fucking loads??? “I wanted to finish it all before testing” that’s not how things work you dumbass!
I have resorted to linking them the React documentation instead of trying to explain it.
#he doesn’t even know if the switch between pages actually work and he is already working on the service calls and data sharing#make it make sense#programming
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Ok I'll talk more about Raven Beak's suit.
You know how Samus' suit just up and explodes if you get her killed? At least in Mawkin powersuits, that's an intended feature for specific warrior classes.
If you were to kill Raven Beak in some way other than allowing a Metroid to juice him like a lemon, his suit would explode. That's a security feature: the Mawkin are very proud of their technology, and firmly believe that their secrets of warfare should never fall into the hands of Others: partly because they're so proud, but also for the good of the galaxy. They don't want their secrets being used by bad actors to wreak havoc.
Raven Beak is the Mawkin Warlord: as such, his suit is juiced up to the nth degree. If he were to fall in battle and his suit didn't explode, the Mawkin would be waist-high in the swamp. If, for example, the Space Pirates were to get ahold of his suit and reverse engineer it, the Mawkin would be held responsible for unleashing the means for the Pirates to create devastating weapons based on their designs.
Mawkin suits are highly optimized and possess combat capabilities and weapons that far exceed most other tribes. Raven Beak's suit has custom "firmware". His suit and the suits of a number of high echelon warriors and intelligence agents are designed to combust in a very particular way.
When the wearer's vitals fall below critical levels, the suit cannibalizes its own upgrades. The excess matter that accumulates as a result of this reaction is highly volatile, and the speed at which this all occurs helps to catalyze a fantastic explosion that ensures no technological footprint is left behind. No user data, no biometrics, no upgrades, no suit. Typically, the more upgrades you have, the grander the explosion is: that's more matter for the dying suit to push together like a play-doh ball made of dynamite.
Upon death, the Shrouded Talons' suits are designed to destroy not just the tech, but the body as well. If a unit is decommissioned, the intelligence wing of the tribe logically does not want the agent's identity to be discerned. Leave no trace and there's no trail to follow, as it were. There's a reason the Talons aren't common knowledge in intergalactic intelligence circles: they take cleaning up after themselves very seriously.
#headcanons#metroid#txt#not art#mawkin#In Winging It the fact that the Federation can even distribute new upgrades to Samus is concerning to Raven Beak.#The notion that these features could potentially be remotely disabled on a whim flips a switch in his brain that says#'you need a better suit'#'gurl you need to invest in cybersecurity'#'your data is at RISK queen'
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There is a woodpecker hammering at the side of the house and it's a bold take for 10:30 am, bird.
#my brain is so Off its soaked in goop.#I also really fucking need to stop waking up at 1am and staying awake until 5. my friend joked I have such a dedication to the bronze age#I became biphasic and I'm worried its true lol. At least I got some reading done last night though.#Did you know they hunted elephants in Babylonia? That was cool to learn. Also that there was a family of scribes in southern Mesopotamia#who were dedicated to preserving and maintaining Akkadian/Sumerian culture that they were still inscribing tablets into the#100BC and that <333 I want to write about them. That really stuck with me.#Instead I have to do the same colloquial thing with my actual real live thesis lit review. 0/10. Scared.#High-key I also need to do rp responses and belarus is poking me to respond to dms. About 2 seconds from dropping my guy#I also have the liztlie au revolving more.. Maybe if I take two weeks after the end of classes I could switch off my brain and try to finis#I'm so close! But if I get selected to go to Turkey I'm going to have to defend and submit by mid-July.#And this is all on top of NOT HAVING ANY FUCKING DATA FOR THE COLUMN.#which is not MY fault its the development of a method and I need to... idk man. Idk. figure something out myself probably even tho#it's the other team's problem. Or switch my thesis around which is probably best even if my advisor is not in on it because#Why Would My Advisor Be Here? You Thought My Advisor Would Be Here? You Are Sadly Mistaken.#Highkey there needs to be a support group for people who's advisors are out. I'm grateful she trusts me to keep my head#above water for a month as I'm writing this fucking thing but also I feel abandoned and in distress.
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The coolest thing abt using the Xkit Rewritten addon for firefox (probably for other, worse browsers too, i dunno), is the option to theme all the posts on ur dash with the chosen colours of the blog they're from. Very cool for more of ppl's self-expression to come thru to my feed! I really like it, some ppl have great colour choices
#taste the rainbow#switch to firefox#stop just handing all ur browsing data to google#also xkit is very cool#bee talks
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The Formula 1 Career of George Russell: A Visualization
2 Teams. 128 Career Races. 711 Career Points. 8 Fastest Laps.
George's Russell's entire Formula 1 career thus far is summarized and displayed visually in these two infographics. Exploring data visualization design through the extensive and detailed data provided by Formula 1 on their website, I was able to compare the difference between more formal and statistical design against creative and symbolic design options.
(Note: The infographic on the left was my final assignment submission and thus the information ended just after the Vegas GP 2024 weekend because of where the due date fell in the F1 calendar.)
#i loveee how in the one on the right to can literally see when he switched teams LOL#the one on the left is my favourite because it just shows data patterns so nicely#not that anyone asked but i got 100% on this assignment mwah#thank you george this ones for you baybee#f1#formula 1#f1 data#george russell#george russell f1#information design#infographic#f1 art#formula 1 art#mercedes f1#williams f1#graphic design#f1 fanart#gr63#fanart#formula one fanart#formula 1 fanart
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#miitopia#mii#miis#nintendo switch#miiblr#i love miis#lt commander data#star trek data#data#data soong#final pam#the final pam#monster factory final pam#monster factory#pokémon#lucario#blue’s clues mailbox#blue’s clues#PPG#the powerpuff girls#powerpuff girls#mojo jojo#dnd oc#dnd character#ocs#K’karna Waverider#half orc#half orc wizard#half orc monk#dungeons and dragons
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned doing a deep dive into star trek history it’s that I can not clock a wig to save my life.
#beverly crusher#james t kirk#walter koenig#kathryn janeway#at least I can tell when Odo and Data switch to wigs#but in both cases it’s not even supposed to look like real hair 😅
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So. Does anyone know a Linux desktop that does art *and* gaming well?
#trying to get ps sai working seems to have irreversibly busted my graphics tablet on linux mint#im having mild regrets about switching but cant see another way#microsoft doesnt get to train ai on my art or writing or even get to have my personal data#but obviously not being able to do art is not. acceptable#atm im parsing some fic#read some notebook stuff i could post its not too bad#act 1 minthy bonding#late game and post game breakup#damn girl you really intend to break your own heart too?
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had to delete all my save data on my switch
#please god let it not be for nothing#i haven’t been able to play games without wifi#any of them#and i think it’s because i didn’t transfer my data over properly from the switch lite i gave my brother#but we finally have both of them in the same room#but i can’t transfer data to a switch that already has data on that account#anyway. hell. please work#i have to start my animal crossing island and stardew farm over again#and deltarune but i didn’t get that far#but if anyone knows anything about this please share
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Oh my god Deltarune 3 + 4 isn’t playable on the switch 1. Oh my god oh my god. Oh my god.
I mean of course not. Of course not the new chapters have a switch 2 exclusive gimmick of course that can’t be on the switch 1. Obviously of course not.
But like. I thought. I thought the pc build. Of chapters 3 and 4 were gonna be ported on switch 1 instead. I thought switch 1 people would just have the base pc version on the switch. Like it’s been happening. Like it’s been done before now. Am I the stupid one. Am I the fool for thinking that
#I don’t know. I don’t know. AM I STUPID#I THOUGHT. WED GET THE GAME BUT WITHOUT THE GIMMICK#oh my god.#I don’t know why I’m this upset I’m gonna play it on pc anyway#BUT. I HAVE SAVE DATA ON MY SWITCH FROM CHAPTERS 1 AND 2#AND I DID THINGS DIFFERENTLY ON YHOSE SAVES THAN I DID ON THE PC#I THOUGHT. I THOUGHT#AM I THE STUPID ONE!!!!!!!!!! GOD#deltarune#Starry speaks
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An interoperability rule for your money

This is the final weekend to back the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, The Lost Cause. These kickstarters are how I pay my bills, which lets me publish my free essays nearly every day. If you enjoy my work, please consider backing!
"If you don't like it, why don't you take your business elsewhere?" It's the motto of the corporate apologist, someone so Hayek-pilled that they see every purchase as a ballot cast in the only election that matters – the one where you vote with your wallet.
Voting with your wallet is a pretty undignified way to go through life. For one thing, the people with the thickest wallets get the most votes, and for another, no matter who you vote for in that election, the Monopoly Party always wins, because that's the part of the thick-wallet set.
Contrary to the just-so fantasies of Milton-Friedman-poisoned bootlickers, there are plenty of reasons that one might stick with a business that one dislikes – even one that actively harms you.
The biggest reason for staying with a bad company is if they've figured out a way to punish you for leaving. Businesses are keenly attuned to ways to impose switching costs on disloyal customers. "Switching costs" are all the things you have to give up when you take your business elsewhere.
Businesses love high switching costs – think of your gym forcing you to pay to cancel your subscription or Apple turning off your groupchat checkmark when you switch to Android. The more it costs you to move to a rival vendor, the worse your existing vendor can treat you without worrying about losing your business.
Capitalists genuinely hate capitalism. As the FBI informant Peter Thiel says, "competition is for losers." The ideal 21st century "market" is something like Amazon, a platform that gets 45-51 cents out of every dollar earned by its sellers. Sure, those sellers all compete with one another, but no matter who wins, Amazon gets a cut:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital
Think of how Facebook keeps users glued to its platform by making the price of leaving cutting of contact with your friends, family, communities and customers. Facebook tells its customers – advertisers – that people who hate the platform stick around because Facebook is so good at manipulating its users (this is a good sales pitch for a company that sells ads!). But there's a far simpler explanation for peoples' continued willingness to let Mark Zuckerberg spy on them: they hate Zuck, but they love their friends, so they stay:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs
One of the most important ways that regulators can help the public is by reducing switching costs. The easier it is for you to leave a company, the more likely it is they'll treat you well, and if they don't, you can walk away from them. That's just what the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau wants to do with its new Personal Financial Data Rights rule:
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-proposes-rule-to-jumpstart-competition-and-accelerate-shift-to-open-banking/
The new rule is aimed at banks, some of the rottenest businesses around. Remember when Wells Fargo ripped off millions of its customers by ordering its tellers to open fake accounts in their name, firing and blacklisting tellers who refused to break the law?
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/10/07/497084491/episode-728-the-wells-fargo-hustle
While there are alternatives to banks – local credit unions are great – a lot of us end up with a bank by default and then struggle to switch, even though the banks give us progressively worse service, collectively rip us off for billions in junk fees, and even defraud us. But because the banks keep our data locked up, it can be hard to shop for better alternatives. And if we do go elsewhere, we're stuck with hours of tedious clerical work to replicate all our account data, payees, digital wallets, etc.
That's where the new CFPB order comes in: the Bureau will force banks to "share data at the person’s direction with other companies offering better products." So if you tell your bank to give your data to a competitor – or a comparison shopping site – it will have to do so…or else.
Banks often claim that they block account migration and comparison shopping sites because they want to protect their customers from ripoff artists. There are certainly plenty of ripoff artists (notwithstanding that some of them run banks). But banks have an irreconcilable conflict of interest here: they might want to stop (other) con-artists from robbing you, but they also want to make leaving as painful as possible.
Instead of letting shareholder-accountable bank execs in back rooms decide what the people you share your financial data are allowed to do with it, the CFPB is shouldering that responsibility, shifting those deliberations to the public activities of a democratically accountable agency. Under the new rule, the businesses you connect to your account data will be "prohibited from misusing or wrongfully monetizing the sensitive personal financial data."
This is an approach that my EFF colleague Bennett Cyphers and I first laid our in our 2021 paper, "Privacy Without Monopoly," where we describe how and why we should shift determinations about who is and isn't allowed to get your data from giant, monopolistic tech companies to democratic institutions, based on privacy law, not corporate whim:
https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy
The new CFPB rule is aimed squarely at reducing switching costs. As CFPB Director Rohit Chopra says, "Today, we are proposing a rule to give consumers the power to walk away from bad service and choose the financial institutions that offer the best products and prices."
The rule bans banks from charging their customers junk fees to access their data, and bans businesses you give that data to from "collecting, using, or retaining data to advance their own commercial interests through actions like targeted or behavioral advertising." It also guarantees you the unrestricted right to revoke access to your data.
The rule is intended to replace the current state-of-the-art for data sharing, which is giving your banking password to third parties who go and scrape that data on your behalf. This is a tactic that comparison sites and financial dashboards have used since 2006, when Mint pioneered it:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/mint-late-stage-adversarial-interoperability-demonstrates-what-we-had-and-what-we
A lot's happened since 2006. It's past time for American bank customers to have the right to access and share their data, so they can leave rotten banks and go to better ones.
The new rule is made possible by Section 1033 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, which was passed in 2010. Chopra is one of the many Biden administrative appointees who have acquainted themselves with all the powers they already have, and then used those powers to help the American people:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
It's pretty wild that the first digital interoperability mandate is going to come from the CFPB, but it's also really cool. As Tim Wu demonstrated in 2021 when he wrote Biden's Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, the administrative agencies have sweeping, grossly underutilized powers that can make a huge difference to everyday Americans' lives:
https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!
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#pluralistic#cfpb#interoperability mandates#mint#scraping#apis#privacy#privacy without monopoly#consumer finance protection bureau#Personal Financial Data Rights#interop#data hoarding#junk fees#switching costs#section 1033#interoperability
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