Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good luck with that. The list of companies to avoid is pretty long.
All you need to do is unplug your modem and you're good to go.
Don't drive into a mall parking lot, or use visa card, or ....
Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
21–30 of 232 posts
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#22As someone that has spent a sizable amount of my career in ad products, the outrage here is kind of (sadly) funny. A conversion pixel? Hah, if you only had an idea of what the Facebook data faucet looked like in 2007-2017, your hairs would stand. Pretty sure they were breaking all kinds of PII laws.
"I don't know why you are upset that I'm stabbing you when I've been poisoning your all these years ha ha ha".
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#23Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#24Protip: if user privacy is a concern to you, then not supporting these companies (by handing them your data) is a good place to start.
No. This needs to be criminalized. Not liking a good or service is one thing. Having things done to you or your information without consent for the purpose of spying on you is stalking with extra steps. Many of these companies still deprive you of your privacy even without using their services by developing shadow profiles on you.
This is an image that loads from a different host.
Neither of these companies will create a shell profile if you never visit them.
If they are criminal why would you use them?
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#25Protip: if user privacy is a concern to you, then not supporting these companies (by handing them your data) is a good place to start.
Good luck with that. The list of companies to avoid is pretty long.
Your list of companies is too short. Throw out the market leaders who spend on brand and cheat somewhere else in the chain and look for a smaller company.
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. This needs to be criminalized. Not liking a good or service is one thing. Having things done to you or your information without consent for the purpose of spying on you is stalking with extra steps. Many of these companies still deprive you of your privacy even without using their services by developing shadow profiles on you.
This is an image that loads from a different host. Neither of these companies will create a shell profile if you never visit them. If they are criminal why would you use them?
> If they are criminal why would you use them?
People don’t give money to scammers because they know their scammers.
It’s the same with privacy issues, people who don’t know what’s happening can’t make informed choices.
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good luck with that. The list of companies to avoid is pretty long.
Your list of companies is too short. Throw out the market leaders who spend on brand and cheat somewhere else in the chain and look for a smaller company.
Why are smaller companies any better in this regard?
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#28Protip: if user privacy is a concern to you, then not supporting these companies (by handing them your data) is a good place to start.
No. This needs to be criminalized. Not liking a good or service is one thing. Having things done to you or your information without consent for the purpose of spying on you is stalking with extra steps. Many of these companies still deprive you of your privacy even without using their services by developing shadow profiles on you.
> This needs to be criminalized
Literally criminalised? As in you’ll throw people in jail for putting up a pixel? Made illegal, sure.
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#29As one can see from comments on HN, it bothers some website developers when these basic tactics are openly discussed. The user gets no choice over whether her data is shared, or with whom it is shared. The expectation appears to be that no one will ever complain, whether for the first time or on a consistent basis. Perhaps there is a belief that if a certain amount of time passes without any complaints, this signifies a common "ad tech" practice is acceptable to the general population, and passes any sort of ethical, regulatory or legal analysis. A sort of "waiver". Silence equals acceptance.
"Everyone else was doing it, so therefore we in particular are not guilty of any wrongdoing." Perhaps some folks think that is a good defense.
Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
#30I'm no ads expert but my guess would be they run ads on TikTok and have the pixel on UberEats to figure out the conversion rate on those ads.
This is it and is how the online advertising industry has worked for over 25 years.
In its simplest form the pixel is used to attribute an ad view/click to a conversion event. At the beginning of the online ad industry that’s all it did, advertisers for the first time had the ability to directly, in real time, see the effectiveness of their ads. The economic value and GDP generated due to this innovation is immeasurable, the internet economy is literally built on it.
At the beginning there was no profile building, combining with PII and data gathered from social media or even your gmail emails (yes the content of your emails). And it was magical!
It’s the innovations since that have moved the entire industry through a grey area into the blank where the way they operate is questionable at best.
The point is, this tracking pixel on its own is incredible what it unlocks. It’s the way that data is then used that we have to call into question.
Personally the simplest form of attribution to me is fine. It works and I don’t believe it’s invasive if they aren’t then combining it with pii and profile data. Sadly that time has passed and all advertising networks now rely so heavily of ML/AI that it’s impossible to manage them, as an advertiser, in the way you used to. Hopefully regulation will push the industry back to where it was.