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Trackers

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Trackers

#31

Post by jacquesm »

akerro wrote: post #28

Did you start visiting shops and places you didn't like just to mislead them? So you have more and more of them tracking you until they run out energy and money because their targeting is just wrong? http://adnauseam.io https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/adnauseam https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/trackmenot

That takes the confrontation to a wholly different level and I'm definitely not yet so far that I'd do this but I can see why some would and who knows, maybe one of these days I'll join the ranks. For now, I think that simply blocking what I don't want and being strict in what I send out is my best bet at reaching some kind of stable long term solution. Retaliation is - for now - for me one step too far.

Re: Trackers

#32

Post by karmacondon »

Where this analogy breaks down is that the people sent to track you are invisible and can't be seen without the aid of special technology. So what you end up telling people is that they are being followed everywhere by invisible ghosts, who's only desire is to change what ads appear in their newspaper. And it appears that the reaction of most people is about what you'd expect.

If a store has policy of "If you come into our store, we'll have employees follow you home" and you don't like that policy, then don't go to that store. That simple. It doesn't make sense to go into the store and have your goons beat up their employees. That might mean that you can't go to the stores you want to go to, but that's how it goes. It seems as clear online as it does in the physical world.

(tldr without the analogy: The overwhelming majority of people don't care about being tracked online because there are no obvious ill effects. The problem with ad blockers is that it makes more sense to just avoid sites that show ads, but most people don't want to do this because it would exclude their favorite sites.)

Re: Trackers

#33

Post by raldu »

tux3 wrote: post #2

It's funny how much more relatable the whole privacy debate becomes when transposed to the physical world. Some will disagree, but I think the comparison was spot on.

Exactly. I am using the same analogy to explain non-technical people about tracking, ads, surveillance etc. so that they can relate. Otherwise the abstract technical concepts seem like coming out of a science fiction story to them.

Re: Trackers

#34

Post by makeitsuckless »

S4M wrote: post #3

Thank you Jacques for writing how something that would be completely unacceptable in the physical world is deemed perfectly fine online. It has always bothered me. Take for example how the FBI wants to have automatic access to the data in all iphones through a backdoor. Would that be considered OK if they asked lockers makers to make their locks accept a master key so they would be able to enter in anybody's house, s…

It's not "perfectly fine online". In fact, much of it is already illegal in most civilized countries, and has been long before internet was a big thing.

However, any attempt to execute and finetune legislation and regulation to explicitly include the online is generally either ridiculed (example: the EU "cookie law", which is actually a "don't track without explicit permission" law) or portrayed as anti-American protectionism on forums like HN.

Re: Trackers

#35

Post by Tepix »

buro9 wrote: post #25
phillc73 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about how uBlock works, but I'm mostly concerned about blocking trackers, and dislike invasive advertising. I use Ghostery with everything blocked. I also bank with smile. I've just confirmed that Ghostery is blocking Adobe, Omniture and Tealium trackers, but I was able to log into my account no problem. I also transferred some funds to a linked account. What aren't you able to do with smile? And…

I noticed with Smile that when I first went to the login page it would fail to login the first time... they have some server-side code to track sessions linearly and force log-out if it detects background operations. Their use of one of their trackers meant that the first time I ever arrived at their site (every time, because private browsing) it would set things up that touched their server and triggered Smile's sec…

It's not just banking. How can sites be so credulous to include 3rd party javascript into their login form pages? It's an invitation to steal your users' credentials! If you really must rely on a 3rd party captcha service put the captcha into an iframe or put it on a separate page.

Re: Trackers

#36

Post by jacquesm »

karmacondon wrote: post #32

Where this analogy breaks down is that the people sent to track you are invisible and can't be seen without the aid of special technology. So what you end up telling people is that they are being followed everywhere by invisible ghosts, who's only desire is to change what ads appear in their newspaper. And it appears that the reaction of most people is about what you'd expect. If a store has policy of "If you come in…

If that's all you got from it then I should really do my best to write better. One of the key parts - to me - is that the data silos start trading your data as if it is theirs to whoever pays for it, and that goes a lot further than a real time bidding on ad space, even if that was the initial drive to collect that data.

Re: Trackers

#37

Post by wouterinho »

It is funny how things change when you use the physical world metaphor. There was a campaign recently by the Dutch regulatory agency that made people aware of the implications of allowing permissions in "free" apps.

They made an (anecdotal) video by promising a free cup of coffee in exchange for your contact list on your phone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYXM56YJWSo (Dutch unfortunately)

Re: Trackers

#38

Post by gglitch »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #15

Believe it or not, some stores sympathise with you. They might actually be run by people like you, people who read your story. They still want to know how you proceed round the store, because that helps them optimise shelf layout, identify hard-to-find items, and so on. So yes, they might use the standard in-store CCTV to observe your journeys, and when they figure that you and people like you always have difficulty…

What is meant by "populist" in this critique?

Re: Trackers

#39

Post by Kristine1975 »

karmacondon wrote: post #32

Where this analogy breaks down is that the people sent to track you are invisible and can't be seen without the aid of special technology. So what you end up telling people is that they are being followed everywhere by invisible ghosts, who's only desire is to change what ads appear in their newspaper. And it appears that the reaction of most people is about what you'd expect. If a store has policy of "If you come in…

>If a store has policy of "If you come into our store, we'll have employees follow you home" and you don't like that policy, then don't go to that store ... That might mean that you can't go to the stores you want to go to, but that's how it goes.

Actually that depends on the laws of the country the store is in.

Re: Trackers

#40

Post by return0 »

The solution would be a decentralization. Tracking is a real threat when we only have 1 search engine, 2 social networks, 1 retailer and a single ad network. The web has created global-scale monopolies faster than before , and it seems like the centralization of VC capital and IT talent is permanent. Tracking becomes less of a problem when they are unable to follow you everywhere.
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