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Why we should end the data economy

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Re: Why we should end the data economy

#11

Post by pascalxus »

And yet, with all this information about me, they still struggle to come up with even the slightest big of relevant advertising. 99.9% of the products I see advertised to me are either completely irrelevant to me or products I down right hate: and I never buy them. If they do have all the information the article claims, it just doesn't seem like they're able to use it in an effective manner. So what's the harm?

the key here, is, just don't buy products you don't want or don't need. as long as you do that, you'll be fine. I have yet to meet a single Ad that forced me to buy a product I didn't really want or need. And, just don't let the ads manipulate you.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#12

Post by version_five »

What these kinds of articles (that basically just say how much of our data is being collected, and assert that it's bad) miss is the whole "attention economy" side of the equation, which I believe is more detrimental.

Data is concretely used to maximize engagement, outrage, polarization, etc. in order to get more attention, which is at a root of a lot of the public discourse challenges we have these days. It would be much more benign if tracking was really just about trying to see what I am most likely to buy and target that to me.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#13

Post by DanielBMarkham »

I think a big part of the problem here is that our computers, and the associated data they collect, are part of our extended brains. They're not record players, hotel registers, or any other metaphor society or our legal system has used in the past. It's virtually as if you could take part of your brain out and hand it to somebody, perhaps to whistle a tune you remember from school or recount that chat you had with your previous SO.

It's not okay to take a person and hold them against their will, even if they've signed some sort of agreement. Indentured servitude and slavery are considered non-viable business arrangements. No matter what I promise you or what our trade-off is, these contracts cannot exist.

I think the only way this reasonably ends is when the rest of society catches up to that conclusion. It might be a while, though. I honestly don't think most people _want_ to know what's going on, since it's quite frightening and there's nothing they can do about it. This is going to have to get more and more stressful to the average citizen until most folks realize what kind of world we've crept into.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#14

Post by Hasz »

Ending the data economy means ending inference. Most of the examples listed in the opening paragraph are not direct measurements, but mundane behavior that can associated with something interesting. I don’t think stopping inference is possible (or a good idea!), but it is easy to subvert and reign in, at least online.

Simply letting your browser emulate the browsing habits of a wide variety of people could knock down your uniqueness if done in bulk. I’m pretty sure there was a chrome extension a while ago that browsered major sites to obfuscate your actual traffic. I also like the EFF’s panopticon if you’d like to see some real value uniqueness scores.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#15

Post by croes »

version_five wrote: post #12

What these kinds of articles (that basically just say how much of our data is being collected, and assert that it's bad) miss is the whole "attention economy" side of the equation, which I believe is more detrimental. Data is concretely used to maximize engagement, outrage, polarization, etc. in order to get more attention, which is at a root of a lot of the public discourse challenges we have these days. It would be…

Still a bad thing. Most likely to buy neither means you need it nor you really can afford it. It's still just exploitation for profit.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#17

Post by lsb »

jtdev wrote: post #3
anm89 wrote: post #2

Explaining to people what they should do regarding matters that there are no ways to achieve the stated goals is the laziest, lowest value category of journalism. It's a plague.

Uhhh, you can stop using said services and software that abuse privacy, e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter, TicToc, etc.

You can't opt out of cities' car culture by not driving: the rest of the city is all there all the time. You can't opt out of a data economy by your individual isolated action: the rest of the economy is vacuuming up similar people's data all the time.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#18

Post by Impassionata »

anm89 wrote: post #2

Explaining to people what they should do regarding matters that there are no ways to achieve the stated goals is the laziest, lowest value category of journalism. It's a plague.

There's a way to achieve the stated goals: have the government come down real hard both on the low-level data crime and the big players that are supposedly legit.

Burn it all down.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#20

Post by metalliqaz »

lsb wrote: post #17
jtdev wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh, you can stop using said services and software that abuse privacy, e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter, TicToc, etc.

You can't opt out of cities' car culture by not driving: the rest of the city is all there all the time. You can't opt out of a data economy by your individual isolated action: the rest of the economy is vacuuming up similar people's data all the time.

facebook has a profile for you even if you don't have a facebook account
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