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Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

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Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#81

Post by spiderice »

jstanley wrote: post #53
ericd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most galling offer we saw on the mobile app side was something that would turn on the user's microphone, and listen for ads on tvs around them to track what they'd been exposed to offline. Adtech is such a thoroughly gross field.

But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.

Your phone notifies you when an app accesses the microphone. If this is happening so much, how is it not blatantly obvious?

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#83

Post by jabradoodle »

gregschlom wrote: post #62
uhtred wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so this really does happen then? Because I used to be convinced it wasn't a coincidence when I saw ads online for some niche uncommon topic I had recently talked out loud about.

This matches the audio signature of the TV ad - basically, it's like Shazam, but for TV ads. It's currently not economically possible to listen to user's conversations, transcribe them to text, and serve ads based on that. It would cost orders of magnitude more in processing power than you could get from the extra sales. This might change in the future, of course

Wouldn't cost that much if the transcribing is done on device

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#84

Post by sdflhasjd »

bornfreddy wrote: post #78
mschuster91 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My site also has some Windows software downloads on it, and I occasionally get emails for bundling dodgy installers. Most of these tend to be "residential proxy" services looking to sell access to users' internet connections. I wonder what these people are thinking? Like, TOR operators know the risks with connection sharing - most particularly: pedos using their service to share CSAM. But everyday people?! They hav…

I think these services are used mainly for scraping sites which try to hide their data (think LinkedIn). They don't offer any protection to those that are breaking the law, afaik. So I would expect that there isn't much risk of putting their victims ("endpoints") in trouble with the law. Not condoning it of course, it is still an ugly practice.

I've read through some of Brian Krebs' articles on some of these proxies, the ones I get these email offers from seem a little less slimy than that and more above board like you say. It's still not an acceptible thing to be seeling your users out to though.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#85

Post by jlnho »

thwarted wrote: post #70
collaborative wrote: post #56

I don't know what the solution to this is, but I know a few trusted/legitimate companies that sell their user data for around £20/year even after having monetized their users with actual money I will never do this because violating privacy goes against the core of my beliefs, but there is a conflict I can't seem to work out. On the one hand, I KNOW that the vast majority of users prefer to sell their privacy than pay…

The Internet has no easy to use fully-anonymous cash equivalent. If you pay for something, you're giving away your identity information anyway. The value exchange is definitely lopsided, but if I have to share my identity AND pay to get X, I'm out money AND shared my identity info. If I share my identity info and get X for free, at least I'm not out the money.

Can you hear that? It's the sound of a distant crypto-bro stampede coming your way!

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#86

Post by jabradoodle »

sorokod wrote: post #26
6DM wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have misunderstood your prior comment so please excuse me if I got it wrong. The problem I was solving was how to make money from an extension that I publish. I was outlining different business models where you could give the user access to the extension, and make money without having to accept this arrangement with data thieves.

I don't see this as problem that needs to be solved. It is freeware from the start. It's wonderful that people are willing to share their knowledge and time for free - why not let it be the way it is?

Perverse incentives being one, you make the extension for free, for the purpose of selling out later.

Project being maintained by a single dev being another, there needs to be incentive to keep the project going and not abondon or sell out.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#87

Post by justsid »

extesy wrote: post #76

Maintainer here. My extension is pretty much unmonetizable so any offer I receive would require some degree of a moral sacrifice. The least intrusive offer I've seen so far is to put a reciprocal link to somebody else's extension inside of mine, kind of like DarkReader is doing on their website. Even though it won't compromise any of my users data, the reason I'm not doing this is because it indirectly endorses that…

I really appreciate the transparency from you. I don't use Chrome anymore, but back in the day I absolutely loved Hover Zoom+ and my wife is still loving it to this day. It's a great extension and having read your comment and the linked Github issue, I feel even better about it. Thanks for your hard work.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#88

Post by tjoff »

afavour wrote: post #80
jstanley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.

Two different things. The popular conspiracy theory is that the phone listens to and presumably transcribes your conversations, sending them to a third party. The example the OP gave is specifically listening for TV content: they’ll have hashes of known ads/shows/whatever to compare against rather than do something like live transcription. Don’t get me wrong it’s shitty and gross. But they are different things.

The only reason they don't do that is because our devices aren't powerful enough to do it all the time.

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#89

Post by consumer451 »

vkou wrote: post #67
jstanley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.

Fly-by-night ad networks might engage in this. Ad networks that are in the sights of regulators, and can be slapped with $X billion fines, that may well exceed the marginal revenue produced by improved tracking[1] are going to be a bit antsier around doing that sort of thing. [1] How much more money will a $100B ad business make if they improved tracking accuracy by %1? It's some positive number, but significantly le…

Would a top tier ad network be exposed to any liability if the fly-by-night did the sketchy work, then the top tier bought that “anonymized” data?

Re: Temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer (2021)

#90

Post by Buttons840 »

jstanley wrote: post #53
ericd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most galling offer we saw on the mobile app side was something that would turn on the user's microphone, and listen for ads on tvs around them to track what they'd been exposed to offline. Adtech is such a thoroughly gross field.

But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.

> the ad companies just work out what you're interested in

The word "just" doesn't belong in that sentence. The ad companies being able to know things about you without actually listening to you is even more scary.

Evil-Ad-Company Neo: "You're telling me I can know things about my customers by secretly listening to them?"

Evil-Ad-Company Morpheus: "No Neo, I'm telling you that with the right license agreements, data sharing partnerships, and algorithms, you wont need to secretly listen to them."

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