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The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

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Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#11

Post by CapitalistCartr »

duxup wrote: post #8
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Even straight up first party information is an accurate. Amazon thinks I’m a woman despite buying men’s products. Google is convinced I’m a fan of a rival sports team despite obvious information otherwise. I have even told them I don’t want stories about the other team, but they keep popping up. I feel like most places are gathering information enough to somewhat fulfill their goal of getting a profile for advertisin…

Auditing a representative sample of their profiles for accuracy would be trivial, and the obvious check. They pointedly choose not to.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#12

Post by z_ack »

I did an experiment: I deleted all the cookies using privacy settings of my browser then I avoid to click anything about cookies' authorisation, i.e. if a page present that kind of requests I immediately close the page itself. At the and, I verified that cookies are presente on browser's storage despite my absence of authorisation, even third parties cookies. So, yes, I agree: commercial surveillance is creepy and I guess is some organisation do effective control to avoid abuse from those actors.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#13

Post by judge2020 »

bobim wrote: post #6
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

They do this without the help of third parties - by offering a hundred+ dollars off your policy every 6 months (or over 6 months) for having their driving habit tracking app enabled at all, more if you actually drive like they want you to.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#14

Post by gausswho »

bobim wrote: post #6
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

Which begs the idea: how would one successfully pollute insurance data. I am now a non-smoking vegan ironman.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#15

Post by voidpepe »

bobim wrote: post #6
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

Insurance companies get these information from more direct sources. For example how you drive your car is sourced straight from the car manufacturers. And they pay big time for it. I can confirm this at least for one large automotive company that I cannot mention because of legal reasons, but they were founded by one infamous failed artist.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#16

Post by BurningFrog »

z_ack wrote: post #12

I did an experiment: I deleted all the cookies using privacy settings of my browser then I avoid to click anything about cookies' authorisation, i.e. if a page present that kind of requests I immediately close the page itself. At the and, I verified that cookies are presente on browser's storage despite my absence of authorisation, even third parties cookies. So, yes, I agree: commercial surveillance is creepy and I…

This could easily be automated and the results published.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#17

Post by BurningFrog »

bobim wrote: post #6
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

Bad drivers should pay more for car insurance.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#18

Post by mixedmath »

BurningFrog wrote: post #16
z_ack wrote: post #12

I did an experiment: I deleted all the cookies using privacy settings of my browser then I avoid to click anything about cookies' authorisation, i.e. if a page present that kind of requests I immediately close the page itself. At the and, I verified that cookies are presente on browser's storage despite my absence of authorisation, even third parties cookies. So, yes, I agree: commercial surveillance is creepy and I…

This could easily be automated and the results published.

Where would one publish such an experiment?

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#19

Post by ssss11 »

teddyh wrote: post #3

> Don’t get hung-up on consent folks, it’s not needed if a business has what’s called a ‘legitimate interest’ – which can be a rather stretchy, elastic term when in the hands of less reputable businesses Less reputable businesses will simply do whatever they like, but claiming “legitimate interest” means something specific: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re... >

It seems every website thinks they need your PII for legitimate interests though, i wonder how many have actually been taken to court, and actually lost. I bet close to zero, and zero.

Re: The problem of creeping commercial surveillance (2022)

#20

Post by speed_spread »

duxup wrote: post #8
afpx wrote: post #5

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Even straight up first party information is an accurate. Amazon thinks I’m a woman despite buying men’s products. Google is convinced I’m a fan of a rival sports team despite obvious information otherwise. I have even told them I don’t want stories about the other team, but they keep popping up. I feel like most places are gathering information enough to somewhat fulfill their goal of getting a profile for advertisin…

Profiling is not about filtering what you see but about ranking viewership from an advertiser's standpoint.

For an ad campaign to succeed, it's allocated budget _has_ to be spent. Targeted advertising gives a higher value to certain eyeballs but if the selected set isn't big enough to spend all the money on, other people will see the ad whether it concerns them or not. And that's actually what happens most of the time.

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