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Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

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Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#171

Post by lmm »

ipaddr wrote: post #24
_8j50 wrote: post #20

Earlier 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?

> Neither of these companies will create a shell profile if you never visit them.

Citation? I bet TikTok will create shadow profiles for anyone who browses the web (and sure, somewhere in the 89 zillion line small print for whatever tools they offer to small time webmasters will be a carefully phrased line about how it might occasionally send small amounts of visitor information to them) just like Google does.

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#172

Post by lmm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50
raverbashing wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to be honest If they're acting so antagonistically against GDPR maybe , for some of the most egregious cases, throwing some people in jail will do the trick I mean, whoever does the whole song and dance for rejecting cookies that shows a loading gif and takes a while does deserve it And if you think I'm exaggerating, guess who has the best info now on the Ukraine war? Tiktok.

> If they're acting so antagonistically against GDPR maybe throwing some people in jail will do the trick This is how you get a legal code like America's, where a cop and prosecutor can put almost anyone in jail with the flimsiest excuse. I understand the impulse. But the solution to bad enforcement isn't ratcheting up penalties. It's increasing enforcement.

> This is how you get a legal code like America's, where a cop and prosecutor can put almost anyone in jail with the flimsiest excuse.

Then how come America, with its strict procedural safeguards, has that legal environment where people now feel unsafe even talking to cops, whereas many European countries with a more common-sense, less rules-lawyery approach (like the big fines handed out to a lot of privacy-violating tech companies lately) have a much friendlier culture with fewer obvious abuses?

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#173

Post by marrone12 »

y3sh wrote: post #170

At a quick glance it seems rather easy for tiktok to slip in whatever it wants in that source from time to time. Is this the status quo for third party cookies?

Yes. You link to a random 3rd party javascript, which they could change what it loads at any point.

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#174

Post by Nextgrid »

sha256sum wrote: post #165
Nextgrid wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in this case data is collected and sent to various third-parties even without you willingly entering any data on the website manually.

The best bypass for this process is to cut Ubereats entirely out of the picture and call the local restaurant directly to place your order. Ubereats in this case is a third party so what difference does it make? None of you start to think about it.

Because Uber Eats provides me some service that I value and I am happy for them to be part of the process as a result.

TikTok, Facebook, Google, etc following me around provides me no value on the other hand - in fact, I have no account with any and would not see their ads even if I wanted to, so it's technically in their best interest to not waste processing power on stalking me.

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#175

Post by babyshake »

lupire wrote: post #154
notyourwork wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re giving Meta a break with best intention operation. I really think web tracking is much more nefarious than you are giving credit to.

No one said anything about "best intentions" or "non-nefarious". They said "legal".

Lawful evil.

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#176

Post by mst »

samwillis wrote: post #30
_fat_santa wrote: post #4

I'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 immeasura…

At my first ever job where I was actually hired as a programmer (December 2000) my first project was to build a web stats system. I knew little enough that I flailed for the first week or two, then independently invented the tracking pixel from first principles - backed by an unbelievably ugly perl CGI script - to enable data collection.

It collected only pages visited, browser versions and referer (sic) headers - it didn't occur to me to collect anything else - and yet provided vast amounts of business value to our customers as well as a vast amounts of experience at scaling for me (though, uh, given how badly the early versions of that code scaled, not necessarily at the same time).

> 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.

I entirely agree with this statement, and what's happened since saddens me.

I'm going to pour another drink and take a moment to feel old now.

(edited to add: 'tracking pixel' seems to mean that class of instrument to many other commenters, I'm specifically talking about an tag that loaded a single pixel transparent gif ... I also made bar charts for the analytics users' UI using HTML tables with a pair of tags per row, one with a coloured background, one clear, using percentages to provide relative data. 2001 was a different world)

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#178

Post by mst »

_8j50 wrote: post #104
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This needs to be criminalized Literally criminalised? As in you’ll throw people in jail for putting up a pixel? Made illegal, sure.

Yes. Make the law clear and lock up CEOs just as you would common stalkers.

Given the, uh, highly variable, quality of government legislation wrt the internet I am seriously skeptical they'd do more good than harm if they tried.

Then again we as an industry and/or community don't seem to be doing too well either.

Not a trivial problem or policy space, sadly.

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#179

Post by blululu »

Nicksil wrote: post #169
refulgentis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

>Ads are fine You work for Google; of course you find them fine.

This comment adds little more than name calling. Can ads be annoying? Yes. So is paying money for the things you enjoy. Very few online businesses have been able to find a business model that does not amount to selling ads or selling links. Some people find ads more intrusive than others but personally I find paywalls to be much more of a nuisance than seeing a banner ad. If free as in beer comes at the cost of hearing a sales pitch then I am personally fine with that.

Re: Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?

#180

Post by askura »

DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote: post #147
notyourwork wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re giving Meta a break with best intention operation. I really think web tracking is much more nefarious than you are giving credit to.

I really don’t understand the goal with vague statements like this that can’t even provide even the slightest hint of specifics. What specific data? Even a single example would make this anecdote useful.

A lot of people talk in broad strokes because if you use their marketing platforms you can see exactly what data is being mined. You can posit their ideological, political, and personal stances. Their friends, family, and pay more to reach people that are shown to influence them. You can choose their region, their income, their habits, hobbies, and kinks.

You can quickly create an account and look at their self-serve ads. There's no reason why anyone needs to try and "guess" what these tracking tools can do. You can just go to the endpoint of that collected data and just see what you can target.

It's better now but before you could do EVEN more. But better in the sense that someone who needs a limb amputating to stop gangrene setting in is better.

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