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TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

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Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#51
post #10
post #3

If you want to find which apps are the worst at this use GrapheneOS. Amazon flat out REFUSES to work unless it has unfettered access to everything.

I (UK based) have pfblocker-ng running at the perimeter with quite a lot of blocking. My browser FF has uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger too. Amazon works fine. I suspect they work along the rather practical lines of: if we can snag your data we will but if you want to block our efforts at predation but want to spend out, we are fine with that too. Amazon absolutely will not refuse your money and they are jolly good…

Fair enough, it does make sense that they will maximise their profits where they can, I'm just saying that it (the app not the website) refuses to work unless you provide it a full scope of literally every permission available. Maybe it has more to do with attestation, and verifying that you are not a scammer, than stealing and selling data?

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#52
post #23

I'll post some inside baseball: Almost everyone in ecom is running every ad network integration they can, no matter the source of traffic. So if you click a Facebook ad, load a website, enter your information/checkout ALL of your information goes to every other network they integrate with. You might never use TikTok, you might have every Facebook domain blacklisted, but when you clicked on a Google search "result" (a…

I'm already low-consumption, but my personal boycott of any site using shopify, which straight up has all integrations in their js you can inspect, has lowered my consumption even further. I've been emailing stores asking them to switch to bigcommerce, or whatever, and stop sharing their customers' data. Never get answers, though I never expect any.

Switching over to another ecommerce provider is a massive undertaking. It’s like if someone asked you to move your residence because the smoke from your bbq hurts their lungs

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#53
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only winning move is not to play." If you look at these systems that same way some people look at casinos - places specifically designed to take your money - you realize there isn't a way to change them nor improve your overall experience with them. You just don't go inside. I'm kinda hoping that it becomes the trend in the next few decades to completely abandon these algorithm-driven data-hoarding attention-ste…

I used to be highly addicted to scrolling. Tiktok, reddit, instagram, everything. It nearly cost me my relationship and I swore it off ever since. I’ve been offline those apps for a few months now, and have never felt better. Cant believe what i was allowing to happen to my attention!

Its the endless shortform videos. The brain was not meant to switch contexts every 20 seconds for 3 hours straight. I replaced most of my screens with e ink, and only allow myself to scroll through text based sites and rss feeds

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#54
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only winning move is not to play." If you look at these systems that same way some people look at casinos - places specifically designed to take your money - you realize there isn't a way to change them nor improve your overall experience with them. You just don't go inside. I'm kinda hoping that it becomes the trend in the next few decades to completely abandon these algorithm-driven data-hoarding attention-ste…

I used to be highly addicted to scrolling. Tiktok, reddit, instagram, everything. It nearly cost me my relationship and I swore it off ever since. I’ve been offline those apps for a few months now, and have never felt better. Cant believe what i was allowing to happen to my attention!

6 years and counting for me

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok will de-anonymize you and connect you back to the ad networks in days, speaking as someone who tried really, really hard to not get it to do that. They probably have the most sophisticated fingerprinting ever created.

Yep! And luckily Tor Browser works pretty hard at defending against that. It even goes so far as to box the rendered page resolution so it cannot be connected to the same resolution as your main browser. But you can take first steps by using a simple dns proxy to make things more difficult.

I don't mean that, I mean behavior. The algorithm that is TikTok is running a test fingerprinting you with every video shown. It's like stylometry on steroids.

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#56
post #51
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (UK based) have pfblocker-ng running at the perimeter with quite a lot of blocking. My browser FF has uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger too. Amazon works fine. I suspect they work along the rather practical lines of: if we can snag your data we will but if you want to block our efforts at predation but want to spend out, we are fine with that too. Amazon absolutely will not refuse your money and they are jolly good…

Fair enough, it does make sense that they will maximise their profits where they can, I'm just saying that it (the app not the website) refuses to work unless you provide it a full scope of literally every permission available. Maybe it has more to do with attestation, and verifying that you are not a scammer, than stealing and selling data?

[deleted]

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#57
post #3

If you want to find which apps are the worst at this use GrapheneOS. Amazon flat out REFUSES to work unless it has unfettered access to everything.

The only websites that are allowed to run apps on my phone are financial institutions.

All other websites are just websites.

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#58
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube: There are a few long-form creators I watch, maybe 4 hours a month of content. Besides that, viewing history is off, no apps, browser extensions block mostly everything (comments, suggestions, etc.) Instagram: I have a 15 minute daily timer, because I sometimes post, and I sometimes receive DMs. Reddit: Fully blocked, I think I ublocked everything. Tiktok: I won't even download it ever again. It has an algori…

How's the dating scene where you are? Whatever bubble I'm in, in the US, while I could not be on Instagram, that would be making things harder on myself.

No idea about the dating scene in central Japan; I'm not in it.

Re: TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?

#59
post #3

If you want to find which apps are the worst at this use GrapheneOS. Amazon flat out REFUSES to work unless it has unfettered access to everything.

Doesn't grapheneos have the same permission model as stock android? The only thing it adds is internet access and sensors (eg. gyroscope) access. What extra stuff is amazon asking for?
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