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Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

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Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#41

Post by barcoder »

dmfdmf wrote: post #19
Jerry2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference. That's a misleading analogy. Problem is that Google/ebay/Microsoft/Silicon Valley cooperate closely with the law enforcement and employ a lot of former LEO people who still have close connections with law enforcement. Check out some of the Yasha Levine's articles. He's one of the best invest…

>That's a misleading analogy. No. It's not misleading at all. And your example illustrates the important distinction the OP made. These companies that you mentioned almost have to cooperate with the government because the government has the ultimate power to fine or even jail them, not to mention harass them or put them out of business, if they refuse to cooperate. They can't just walk away from this issue. This is w…

According to the article our behavior and therefore Freedom of Speech is being manipulated by these companies that in turn brings us full circle to the point that surveillance companies control our behavior and therefore our voting decisions and thus weapons.

Check out Eric Schmidt's ties with government:

http://www.naturalnews.com/051687_Google_Eric_Schmidt_Hillar...

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#42

Post by [deleted] »

dmfdmf wrote: post #19
Jerry2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference. That's a misleading analogy. Problem is that Google/ebay/Microsoft/Silicon Valley cooperate closely with the law enforcement and employ a lot of former LEO people who still have close connections with law enforcement. Check out some of the Yasha Levine's articles. He's one of the best invest…

>That's a misleading analogy. No. It's not misleading at all. And your example illustrates the important distinction the OP made. These companies that you mentioned almost have to cooperate with the government because the government has the ultimate power to fine or even jail them, not to mention harass them or put them out of business, if they refuse to cooperate. They can't just walk away from this issue. This is w…

[deleted]

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#43

Post by anexprogrammer »

mirimir wrote: post #39
microtonal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to mention that one obviously doesn't use Gmail or Facebook. Did you read the linked articles? The problem is that others use Google Mail and Facebook, so your e-mail/contact information end up at Google Mail/Facebook anyway. The analysis of Benjamin Mako Hill shows this very aptly. Although he runs his own mail server, Google delivered 57% of the e-mails that he replied to. So, even though he does not use G…

OK, so Google knows a lot about Mirimir. And they see email that Mirimir sends to Gmail addresses. Except for mail lists, that's pretty much all encrypted. But there is the metadata, for sure. However, I use other personas. I've had on the order of 100 email addresses, over the years. Most all now abandoned, of course. And I suspect that many of my correspondents have similar practices. That's not so easy to profile.

Except we've seen a few tools come up on HN that claim to reliably tie anonymous profiles together via stylistic analysis.

Is google doing the same? Most likely.

Is it reliable? Less clear, given the Google ads page that show what Google thinks it knows about you is often mistaken on age and gender. Perhaps it's more reliable singling out an individual than an age.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#44

Post by anexprogrammer »

ryanobjc wrote: post #17
tzakrajs wrote: post #8

"You’re giving them information; they sell your information." This is a common misconception about Google, so one can understand why the authors came to this conclusion. It would be very interesting to see evidence to the contrary. https://privacy.google.com/about-ads.html

Not sure why you were downvoted, but Google is hardly the most creepy actor here. My top votes are for Facebook and ad retargeting. One of the things people don't realize is how strict data hygene and log access inside Google is. Cross correlating data across major services in an attempt to demask individuals is a huge no-no and gets you fired. Plus there is a ton of engineers and staff who deeply care about privacy.…

You do know one of the largest ad retargeters is google adwords, right? And of course DoubleClick, also part of google.

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453998?hl=en

https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2356033/remarketing...

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#45

Post by titzer »

Animats wrote: post #4

Perhaps surveillance capitalism is zero-sum. There's only so much buying power, and at least in the US, consumers are mostly spent out. In that situation, advertising just moves demand around; it does not increase it. So all this consumer data-mining and targeting may be a net lose, just a cost imposed by the market on all the companies using it.

It can definitely be a loss for the consumers who are being manipulated. If through advertising they are convinced to spend $100 on a doodad or device rather than $100 on something that will improve their long-term well-being, or not spending that $100 at all, they lose. Who wins? Advertisers. Search engines. Producers. All the while, each of them convincing themselves that they're doing such a great job meeting the needs of consumers.

Selling people chocolate might not be evil, but a sustained multi-year billion dollar campaign to put chocolate into the consciousness of the populace and have it normalized as part of a staple diet is borderline.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#46

Post by benevol »

Animats wrote: post #4

Perhaps surveillance capitalism is zero-sum. There's only so much buying power, and at least in the US, consumers are mostly spent out. In that situation, advertising just moves demand around; it does not increase it. So all this consumer data-mining and targeting may be a net lose, just a cost imposed by the market on all the companies using it.

> consumer data-mining and targeting may be a net lose

It is at net lose.

And our current society's concept of ever-increasing growth, based on ever-increasing consumption (aka "the latest iPhone is out, you must buy that now"), is very obviously not sustainable any longer. It was sustainable during the period when our resources seemed "unlimited" to us.

It is however not a lose to Google & Co. who continually gain power over governments all over the World.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#47

Post by mirimir »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #43
mirimir wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so Google knows a lot about Mirimir. And they see email that Mirimir sends to Gmail addresses. Except for mail lists, that's pretty much all encrypted. But there is the metadata, for sure. However, I use other personas. I've had on the order of 100 email addresses, over the years. Most all now abandoned, of course. And I suspect that many of my correspondents have similar practices. That's not so easy to profile.

Except we've seen a few tools come up on HN that claim to reliably tie anonymous profiles together via stylistic analysis. Is google doing the same? Most likely. Is it reliable? Less clear, given the Google ads page that show what Google thinks it knows about you is often mistaken on age and gender. Perhaps it's more reliable singling out an individual than an age.

I doubt that they work very well across languages.

What Google ads page?

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#48

Post by xg15 »

dmfdmf wrote: post #19
Jerry2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference. That's a misleading analogy. Problem is that Google/ebay/Microsoft/Silicon Valley cooperate closely with the law enforcement and employ a lot of former LEO people who still have close connections with law enforcement. Check out some of the Yasha Levine's articles. He's one of the best invest…

>That's a misleading analogy. No. It's not misleading at all. And your example illustrates the important distinction the OP made. These companies that you mentioned almost have to cooperate with the government because the government has the ultimate power to fine or even jail them, not to mention harass them or put them out of business, if they refuse to cooperate. They can't just walk away from this issue. This is w…

If, however, companies can effectively influence who becomes the government, and if they also have close ties to those people then the distinction becomes a lot less useful.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#50

Post by anexprogrammer »

mirimir wrote: post #47
anexprogrammer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we've seen a few tools come up on HN that claim to reliably tie anonymous profiles together via stylistic analysis. Is google doing the same? Most likely. Is it reliable? Less clear, given the Google ads page that show what Google thinks it knows about you is often mistaken on age and gender. Perhaps it's more reliable singling out an individual than an age.

I doubt that they work very well across languages. What Google ads page?

It won't work for you if you have no google account, you have to log in and go to http://www.google.com/ads/preferences, so here's a story about it with images: http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-google-knows-about-you-20...

When it was doing the rounds a couple of years back plenty of people were commenting how often it got age and gender wrong. Sometimes it was widly inaccurate on interests too.

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