31–40 of 99 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deleting your account does not stop Facebook from tracking you, unfortunately.
Does Facebook actually delete stuff yet? For a long time they wouldn't delete accounts, photos, etc.
At times these extensions do break websites as they block some vital scripts on the site. You have to manually unblock that to make sure the site runs fine on your browser.
I used Disconnect long time ago, but that time it literally broke all the tech blogs, as its blocking was very crude. The site now looks totally different and so do the screenshots, would give it a shot.
Oh and by the way I use Ghostery now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a person is well understood and their actions can be predicted, they can be manipulated. The real question is: why aren't you?
If I'm manipulated into buying something that I genuinely want, then I'd be happier for it. It's not as if seeing an ad for a $100 256GB SSD would make me skip looking up the reviews for it and evaluating its performance before I buy it. It's mystifying to me why people are bothered by targeted ads. If ads become relevant to me, that'd be a wonderful thing. I'm not saying I'm right -- I'm saying I wish someone would…
Another line of defense it to install an ad-blocker, so even if they somehow know the perfect ad to show you, you probably won't see it.
Another line of defense it to install an ad-blocker, so even if Facebook somehow knows the perfect ad to show you, you probably won't see it. Why wouldn't you want to see it? A perfect ad is a win for the consumer.
I go to Facebook to check on friends. I don't want a fried-chicken billboard to appear beside the photo of my friend's new baby. It's the wrong context (even if I'm craving fried chicken).
Another line of defense it to install an ad-blocker, so even if they somehow know the perfect ad to show you, you probably won't see it.
Another line of defense it to install an ad-blocker, so even if Facebook somehow knows the perfect ad to show you, you probably won't see it. Why wouldn't you want to see it? A perfect ad is a win for the consumer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a person is well understood and their actions can be predicted, they can be manipulated. The real question is: why aren't you?
If I'm manipulated into buying something that I genuinely want, then I'd be happier for it. It's not as if seeing an ad for a $100 256GB SSD would make me skip looking up the reviews for it and evaluating its performance before I buy it. It's mystifying to me why people are bothered by targeted ads. If ads become relevant to me, that'd be a wonderful thing. I'm not saying I'm right -- I'm saying I wish someone would…
For instance, they could sell pseudo psychological profiles or provide scoring services to potential employers, banks, insurance companies, landlords, users of dating sites or governments.
They could be subpoenaed and hence make me vulnerable to extortion by everyone with a sufficiently large legal budget or a political interest. The data could also be stolen by organized criminals.
In other words, it would give great power over my life to anyone who gets hold of that data, and therefore I do not want this kind of data to exist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does Facebook actually delete stuff yet? For a long time they wouldn't delete accounts, photos, etc.
No, your data is never deleted, only your account is "de-activated".
if your email is abcd@gmail.com, use abcd+sitename@gmail.com (gmail will ignore the stuff after the + ). You can also use . separators.
Now, to keep track of that...
Using Ghostery over AdBlock is good but I won't recommend using any of such tracker blocking extensions to anyone until I know they understand what it does. At times these extensions do break websites as they block some vital scripts on the site. You have to manually unblock that to make sure the site runs fine on your browser. I used Disconnect long time ago, but that time it literally broke all the tech blogs, as i…
We've gotten literally two bug reports about broken blogs of any sort in the last year (I just checked; and both are now fixed, btw), so I assume there aren't issues anymore. But if you experience any, let me know!