Surprising omissions: touch events, and zoom events.
Subject develops on a MacOS machine?
A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
111–120 of 172 posts
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really horrified. Yes they save it, but they don't seem to be able to use it well. The ads I get on Facebook are sometimes really interesting (i.e. targeted well), on other pages it's mostly stuff I bought a while ago or topics where I don't even have a clue why they think that could be interesting. And even though they can save it forever, it's outdated pretty quickly. If someone has information that I clicked a…
> they don't seem to be able to use it well Or they are intentionally dialing back on the accuracy. Being too accurate in your advertising is like delving into the uncanny valley of CGI. It gets spooky and makes people intentionally shy away from your products. So, perhaps they're following the same trajectory as CGI: adding intentional inaccuracy to mask their actual targeted ads. If I saw the one thing I wanted in…
> too accurate in your advertising is like delving into the uncanny valley
This isn't speculation - it's standard practice now in some companies to try to avoid "scaring" the customer with something that reveals how much modern advertising looks like a stalker. A well known example is Target when they discovered[1] they could predict pregnancies very early and very accurately:
At which point someone asked an important question:
How are women going to react when they figure out
how much Target knows?
“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations
on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re
pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,”
Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance
with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the
law, you can do things where people get queasy.”
We now live in a world where it businesses can infer significant attributes like pregnancy from subtle changes in their buying patterns. When stalker-like behavior is built into modern business models, the smarter businesses realize that most people will hate you if you act like a creepy spy.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really horrified. Yes they save it, but they don't seem to be able to use it well. The ads I get on Facebook are sometimes really interesting (i.e. targeted well), on other pages it's mostly stuff I bought a while ago or topics where I don't even have a clue why they think that could be interesting. And even though they can save it forever, it's outdated pretty quickly. If someone has information that I clicked a…
But the goal of that optimization is not to make your life better, it's to make money for them. They may be pretty bad at it now, but one thing about technology is that it gets better and better, and their goal is to encourage consumption of their product. I'm thinking about buying a new laptop right now. I'm trying to make a smart choice, weighing the funds I have available, my need for it, the options available, my…
> But the goal of that optimization is not to make your life better, it's to make money for them.
I don't pay to use services online. They somehow have to make money. Until we start donating/paying for each service we use, we have to expect that people will make money otherwise.
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Databases persist indefinitely. They can , but most don't, simply because it's not worth the effort and expense.
From personal experience as a DBA: the effort usually consists of not deleting rows out of the database. The expense is a few cents a month for gigabytes of data. Worst case scenario, the companies will simply set up a separate data warehouse style data store, and make it available to anyone who wants it internally. If we as consumers are lucky, they will scrub the data of PII before moving it to the data warehouse.
They will probably put it in some archive where they delete it after 10 years. Or they keep it somewhere on a drive where it could be accessed but will never be, since no one has a reason to use the data.
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#115Who else feels a sense of horrible dread and frustration that every minutiae of my (and your) online activity is recorded for eternity and exploited to the fullest extent? What are you going to do about it?
Honest question.
I think, historically, most people have lived in very tight quarters, quite close to a lot of other people. Indeed, that's still true for many of us!
Some of these very 'always nearby' people would be family members and/or greatly trusted, but even one layer beyond that would be a lot of people who we would consider acquaintances today.
My question: isn't it possible that the amount of privacy some people had in the last couple of centuries was rather anomalous? That our default level of privacy has always been very low.
Edit: To be clear, I do not intend to minimize the value of privacy, whether it's a recent thing or not. However, some historical context is, I believe, useful.
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#116This reminded me that notch web game[1]. Both kept me interested and I find them a very pleasant form of art. [1] http://game.notch.net/drowning/
This is fantastic. I got so caught up in trying to advance through the stages I ended up dead before i even knew it. It seems dumb to have not seen that coming but you seriously do get caught up in the small details of each requirement for each advancement that the big picture sort of fades away.
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the goal of that optimization is not to make your life better, it's to make money for them. They may be pretty bad at it now, but one thing about technology is that it gets better and better, and their goal is to encourage consumption of their product. I'm thinking about buying a new laptop right now. I'm trying to make a smart choice, weighing the funds I have available, my need for it, the options available, my…
> But the goal of that optimization is not to make your life better, it's to make money for them. I don't pay to use services online. They somehow have to make money. Until we start donating/paying for each service we use, we have to expect that people will make money otherwise.
The "how" they make money and how they secure, anonymize and to whom they share it are all important considerations that are almost exclusively(there are exceptions) never divulged.
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Databases persist indefinitely. They can , but most don't, simply because it's not worth the effort and expense.
From personal experience as a DBA: the effort usually consists of not deleting rows out of the database. The expense is a few cents a month for gigabytes of data. Worst case scenario, the companies will simply set up a separate data warehouse style data store, and make it available to anyone who wants it internally. If we as consumers are lucky, they will scrub the data of PII before moving it to the data warehouse.
Worst case scenario must include if they find a market for the data, similarl to the recent AT&T revelations.
Pick your source:
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=at%26t+data+government...
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#119Who else feels a sense of horrible dread and frustration that every minutiae of my (and your) online activity is recorded for eternity and exploited to the fullest extent? What are you going to do about it?
Honest question. I think, historically, most people have lived in very tight quarters, quite close to a lot of other people. Indeed, that's still true for many of us! Some of these very 'always nearby' people would be family members and/or greatly trusted, but even one layer beyond that would be a lot of people who we would consider acquaintances today. My question: isn't it possible that the amount of privacy some p…
This is true for many things though. Isn't it true that the level of healthcare available recently is rather anomalous, historically speaking? Or the quantity of food available?
Technology can grant us advantages if we allow it. It can also take them away.
Re: A demonstration of browser events used to monitor online behaviour
#120Who else feels a sense of horrible dread and frustration that every minutiae of my (and your) online activity is recorded for eternity and exploited to the fullest extent? What are you going to do about it?
Maybe it's time to accept that we are ems.