11–20 of 229 posts
You can whinge and whine, but progress stops for nobody.
It's also great to see Apple building this into iOS, definitely a highlight of WWDC, for me. I often see the location indicator come on and wonder what else I'm not seeing.
Can tracking be useful, if used correctly?
For example single sign on, or a chat with a company representive when the company has several domains.
This "tracking" just needs to be clearly visible and controllable by the user.
It would be good if web browsers had a mode, where every time a site is trying to access cross domain cookies, a confirmation dialog was shown with details of the data requested, how the site is going to use it, their privacy policy. With options Allow once, always, 3 days, etc.
Can tracking be useful, if used correctly?
“Increase the chance of user refusal” - imagine that applied to literally any other context, such as bank accounts, credit cards, buying cars, etc. to see how ridiculous that statement is.
The difference being agency. You intend to open a bank account, buy a car, etc. “you“ [for the majority definition of ‘you’] had no idea that you were being secretly tracked, and (clutches pearls) you might even object to that. This is lifting the stone that’s been lying in the grass for the last decade or so, and watching all the creepy-crawlers scurry away out of the light, desperate to find somewhere to hide thems…
Can tracking be useful, if used correctly?
Ease of use is another, albeit less clear cut. If Ticketmaster knows I like heavy metal, they don't need to send me newsletters (that I opt in to manually of course) telling me about the upcoming country music gigs.
To be clear, I don't think that the current players are being useful to me as a consumer, they are abusing my data, but that's not to say that there is no use for tracking or personalisation,
If I buy a physical book I can lend it to someone, or sell it if I want. If I buy a digital copy (which for some reason often costs more), not only can I not lend it but I can't sell it to anyone either. I also need to ask permission from the platform to read the book I rightfully purchased.
The Google/Apple app store duopoly is another example of this. Apple for example only allows you to use Safari, and makes it very hard for you to have any choice about what software you run on your own device.
It feels like there's a slow slide into a world where we no longer have any choice about what content we consume or how we consume it. Instead, we're spoonfed what the platform decides is good for us, and in most cases good means most profitable for the platform.
Can tracking be useful, if used correctly?
Can tracking be useful, if used correctly?
Yes. Google search is infinitely more useful when mildly personalised rather than based on sheer popularity. If I search for drainage companies, I don't care who the most popular drainage company in the world is, ad it's highly likely to be weighted towards somewhere more populous. When I look at reviews for services, tracking can be used by Google and co to attempt to verify that the person who left a 5* review actu…
I can definitely see how it could be more useful, but I don’t agree that the actual factor of this increase in productivity is infinite. Maybe a factor of 3 to 5.