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The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

the-tls.co.uk

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Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#51

Post by usrusr »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
jgacook wrote: post #7

I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now. Today as I was browsing I saw several Scientology ads. I know Facebook doesn't have an agenda per se - you have the money, they have the adspace - but I was still struck by the brazenness of advertising something whose ethical dubiousness has been so thoroughly publicized. Facebook will never change unless they are forced to. We have signed away perh…

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

I'm not really worried about being on Facebook but only about wasting too much time checking the stream (or worse: integrating with it in even more stupid ways which could result from excessive browsing). I good surprisingly good results from adding the tiny bit of friction of removing the app from the Android launcher screens, relegating it to App drawer. (and careful push configuration of course)

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#52

Post by philpem »

ratww wrote: post #46
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

I'd do something else before #3: 3. Unfollow everyone in order to disable the news feed. I did this to reduce usage and force me to actually visit friends' profiles, but it did its job too well. In the end I noticed that I wasn't really interested in anything I couldn't know by chatting in some other app or in person. The only thing hooking me up was the news feed itself.

If unfollowing everyone is too much effort (or too much potential drama from people assuming unfollow = no longer friends), then there is another way. Someone mentioned the Newsfeed Eradicator plugin the other day -- it replaces the FB News Feed with a thought-provoking quote...!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/news-feed-era...

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#53

Post by gambiting »

deadbunny wrote: post #50
gambiting wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about a phone? Prepaid SIM cards are free, top one up with £5 and you're good to go.

> Sounds like a job for a burner phone. I mean it's right there...

Right, but the "phone" part of a burner phone is essentially superfluous, it's the sim card that serves the purpose here. Of course you need to put it into something but it doesn't matter what. You can swap your main sim card with a "burner" sim, get the code to authenticate, then swap back. It takes 2 minutes.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#54

Post by pergadad »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
jgacook wrote: post #7

I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now. Today as I was browsing I saw several Scientology ads. I know Facebook doesn't have an agenda per se - you have the money, they have the adspace - but I was still struck by the brazenness of advertising something whose ethical dubiousness has been so thoroughly publicized. Facebook will never change unless they are forced to. We have signed away perh…

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

Why not delete? This way they legally keep your data and it would be naive to assume they don't find a way to keep following you...

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#55

Post by GoblinSlayer »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #17
celeritascelery wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitch I can see. Very complicated interface and chat setup. But I was surprised to see a warning on stackoverflow.

On the bright side, SO warns you that it might degrade, but it does actually work fine (heck, I can browse SO in dillo without issue), which is far better than most sites, and actually pretty decent.

It's a dark pattern though. It doesn't provide any useful information, but is an ugly red hover panel in addition to other hover panels.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#56

Post by TeMPOraL »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
jgacook wrote: post #7

I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now. Today as I was browsing I saw several Scientology ads. I know Facebook doesn't have an agenda per se - you have the money, they have the adspace - but I was still struck by the brazenness of advertising something whose ethical dubiousness has been so thoroughly publicized. Facebook will never change unless they are forced to. We have signed away perh…

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

That's a good approach. On top of being easier than going cold turkey, it also lets you slowly migrate all your social needs elsewhere. For instance, having done step 2, you can start telling your friends that you barely ever check Messenger these days - they're more likely to accommodate that than you going all "Facebook is evil and I cleansed myself of it".

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#57

Post by matsemann »

IshKebab wrote: post #47
bmn__ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regulation already says that this kind of coercion is illegal and subject to admonishment and eventual fining. Sites that do not offer the equal choice between "continue with privacy intrusion" and "continue without privacy intrusion" are definitely out of compliance since 2018. Report them to ankle-biters like http://noyb.eu if you feel like making the world a little bit better.

Unfortunately it isn't very clear about it at all, and it actually only talks about it in advice about the legislation - not in the main body of the legislation. It also isn't clear if you can do things like "Click here to continue for free with tracking, or pay to access without tracking".

No, it's very clear. From the guidelines:

> Consent will not be free in cases where there is any element of compulsion, pressure or inability to exercise free will

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#58

Post by TeMPOraL »

dorgo wrote: post #37
thaumasiotes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion. You can generally just delete the popup from the DOM.

Idea for an addon: delete popups, delete overlays, fix scrolling ( which is often broken after deleting popups ). Is it possible to earn money with addons?

> Is it possible to earn money with addons?

Sure, if you lack your spine and moral compass. The business model is as follows:

1) Make a free add-on and have it gain popularity.

Then, either:

2a) Inject malicious code into it that delivers malware/advertisements, making you money.

or:

2b) Sell your add-on to a third party that will do 2a). If your add-on is popular enough, potential buyers will come to you themselves.

Other than that, no, I don't think you can monetize an add-on directly.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#59

Post by vodkaPong »

philpem wrote: post #52
ratww wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd do something else before #3: 3. Unfollow everyone in order to disable the news feed. I did this to reduce usage and force me to actually visit friends' profiles, but it did its job too well. In the end I noticed that I wasn't really interested in anything I couldn't know by chatting in some other app or in person. The only thing hooking me up was the news feed itself.

If unfollowing everyone is too much effort (or too much potential drama from people assuming unfollow = no longer friends), then there is another way. Someone mentioned the Newsfeed Eradicator plugin the other day -- it replaces the FB News Feed with a thought-provoking quote...! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/news-feed-era...

I've found that to be a really useful extension as well, stops you getting distracted by all the news feed posts when you just logged in to check an event or something.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#60

Post by fmajid »

jwr wrote: post #49

Oh, the irony of this article slamming me in the face with a sleazy "We need your consent" dialog with intentionally confusing options and sub-dialogs... My "consent" is being forced out of me so that roughly ~100 (at a first glance) "partners" can invade my privacy and learn about my browsing habits. By the way, if you are a programmer and you implement those sleazy dialogs, think about your life choices.

On the positive side, the Quantcast cookie popups now offer a choice between "Accept All" and "Reject All".

Previously they offered "Accept All" or "Click here to enter our deliberately confusing rat's warren of options".

I wonder if the French DPA's announcement that they will start cracking down on dark patterns like this was the impetus for the change.

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