I don't know if I would even call this clickbait but this is not an argument against transparency. It's an argument against poor regulations. I would argue Prop 65 is the opposite of transparency because just about everything causes cancer so people have learned to ignore the warning. It was a law that was passed in a time when we didn't have as much information as we do now and it should be updated and made more specific.

> You know what would be better than a privacy policy? A privacy law.

I agree but I wouldn't call privacy policies transparent. They are made of vague legal speak like "we may or may not share your information with advertisers and partners." There are good arguments in here but they are framed against the wrong target.

"Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period."

You don't keep server logs? Cool and all, but it sounds like you'll have a hard time debugging if something ever goes wonky.

No mention of the GDPR.

I think the argument is interesting, but the specific example of prop 65 doesn't really work on a few levels. The argument in the post is that Prop 65's warnings are legitimate in some sense, but only apply in specific contexts.

However, Prop 65 is much broader than that. To qualify, a chemical just needs to show up on one of maybe half a dozen lists that show the chemical has some association w/ cancer, but all these show is that in some study, at some quantity, the association existed. The amount that was linked to cancer could be far beyond what is ever present in a consumer good.

The lists aren't the ones gov't agencies like the FDA use to regulate product safety, they're lists far upstream of that that research institutions use to inform further study.

I don't think this actually has any bearing on the substance of the broader argument, but Prop 65 is not the best example.