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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

#92
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.

Sorry, that has be acquiesced

Times Literary Supplement:

[...] Reviews were normally anonymous until 1974 [...]

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

#93
post #89
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about "accept cookies or pay" like some newspapers do? Is that okay?

No, one must provide the same service with or without tracking.

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

#94
post #89
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about "accept cookies or pay" like some newspapers do? Is that okay?

A visual representation: https://media1.tenor.com/images/3adcbb8cc711b0c9a4cc2e3b90b0...

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

#95
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 quit FB as a new year's resolution. The main problem is that it's evil and I don't want to be encouraging more friends into the addiction. Something like TikTok has its evil, but it seems more trapped by their choices. Facebook has had their clear ethical choices and they prioritized growth every time.

I feel we're approaching a sunset of companies that blatantly violate privacy. It's similar to how cigarettes and sugar were king once and suddenly society strikes back at them hard.

As time goes by, bad stuff will gain traction faster, like a global virus, but we'll also develop antibodies for them faster.

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

#96

>But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion. I mean this is a weird way to phrase it but you definitely cannot participate in modern society without hindering yourself in various meaningful ways if you do not "opt-in" to giving up your privacy. "Opt-in" requirements have consequently struck me as "privacy theatre" which mostly irritates. I don't see any solution for the curre…

I think it is widely believed but you don't actually loose that much with opting out. It requires a lot of effort though and it probably shouldn't.

If it requires a lot of effort, how can you say you don't actually lose much?

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

#97
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is widely believed but you don't actually loose that much with opting out. It requires a lot of effort though and it probably shouldn't.

If it requires a lot of effort, how can you say you don't actually lose much?

Social media tries to insinuate that you loose out on current stuff, topics to talk about, the activities of your friends, it can prey on your insecurity and jealousness in general. But that is mostly not true in my experience.

I meant it requires effort to resist these temptations and of course the more technical effort of defending against privacy invasions of large networks.

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

#98
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.

I took a look the domains being used for the consent and saw an interesting JavaScript name: 'messagingWithoutDetection.js'. Looking into it more, I found the documentation [1], there is this disgusting paragraph:

> The Dialogue Javascript communicates with the Sourcepoint messaging server on a subdomain of the site. The benefit of doing that is to allow messaging cookies to be “first party” and thus, circumventing Safari’s web browser Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP). This creates a discrete messaging channel between the publisher’s messaging subdomain and the Dialogue messaging server. Once you have created the subdomain, you should create a DNS CNAME record to direct traffic to the Sourcepoint messaging endpoint message.sp-prod.net where the account id refers to you account ID in the Sourcepoint user interface

Luckily uBlock Origin now supports blocking on CNAME records and PiHole is rolling support out for it as well. I maintain a blocklist that I use with the PiHole: https://www.github.developerdan.com/hosts/

[1] https://documentation.sourcepoint.com/web-implementation/sou...

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

#99
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…

Even worse, even if you don't have facebook you are still tracked by facebook from apps you use that track your activity for them. The only way to interact with what they collect is to have a facebook account! https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity

I maintain a hosts-formatted blacklist for all Facebook owned services, like Facebook and Instagram. Combined with a PiHole, its a fairly effective way to reduce tracking exposure to Facebook. https://www.github.developerdan.com/hosts/

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

#100
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.

I took a look the domains being used for the consent and saw an interesting JavaScript name: 'messagingWithoutDetection.js'. Looking into it more, I found the documentation [1], there is this disgusting paragraph: > The Dialogue Javascript communicates with the Sourcepoint messaging server on a subdomain of the site. The benefit of doing that is to allow messaging cookies to be “first party” and thus, circumventing S…

dnscrypt-proxy is already supporting CNAME blocking and full domain based blocking (*.adhost.com), something that is still missing in Pi-Hole.
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