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We accepted surveillance as default

vivianvoss.net

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Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#51

Post by verisimi »

My opinion (probably an unpopular one) is that tracking for advertising is merely the excuse to justify widespread surveillance. I don't think all the advertising revenue that is purported to be in play stacks up. I personally do not think advertising directs my purchasing. I don't think it directs others either.

I get that this is Google's business, but perhaps a large amount of their 'business' is actually from the government system (directly or indirectly) - they merely have to pretend to be running an advertising business.

I'm saying that the whole point of advertising was surveillance from the beginning.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#52

Post by alt227 »

anovikov wrote: post #30

Well, ever since the ads i see on iPhone Safari are utterly irrelevant bullshit because tracking there is crippled. Was 1996 88x31 banners world that just advertised random stuff, better than what we have today? They gave websites less money taking more space and annoyed users more.

Yes, personally I prefer the concept of random ads over tracked, profiled, and targeted.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#53

Post by htrp »

oaweoifjwpo wrote: post #44
_doctor_love wrote: post #18

This is all well and good but as long as advertising is how folks make money on the web, the surveillance state will persist.

They'll still surveil even if you pay for the product. Why wouldn't they? It's an additional income stream.

It's also the market for lemons. You can't tell if they surveil you

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#54

Post by shevy-java »

I wanted to read, but my cursor was a hungry monster and so I chased after things to eat. After I played this for a while I had to close the tab. I think if you have something to say, having a cursor with an animation is a bad idea. It distracts from the content.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#55

Post by jmorenoamor »

anovikov wrote: post #31
GolfPopper wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the solution is obvious, even if the path to an ad-free web is not. And it's a solution that also has the advantage of being a solid public good.

The free internet of the workers and peasants? I mean, how will the websites make money?

That's their problem to solve

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#56

Post by heresie-dabord »

_doctor_love wrote: post #18

This is all well and good but as long as advertising is how folks make money on the web, the surveillance state will persist.

> advertising is how folks make money on the web, the surveillance state will persist.

It is more pernicious. Those in the state who want to surveil will enlist those who want the obscene revenue from pervasive advertising. Working together, their lawyers will claim that "you never had any privacy or freedom anyway, so stop wriggling."

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#57

Post by unethical_ban »

pacija wrote: post #33
inventor7777 wrote: post #10

When Apple first released App Tracking Transparency, I immediately used it to block the trackers and I have not even thought about it since because it is so simple and useful. What a contrast to modern websites which require all sorts of weird clicking gymnastics to disable similar tracking.

In my case firefox + arkenfox + ublock origin advanced mode require all sorts of weird clicking to enable similar tracking :)

I haven't looked at arkenfox. But I went to the cover your tracks tool by EFF yesterday and it was still able to uniquely fingerprint my computer, even with Firefox strict privacy and unlock origin.

I think unless you run stock mullvad/Tor browser, you're leaking who you are. Sad but true. I wish canvas and webgl fingerprinting were disabled/crippled by default.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#58

Post by nazgulsenpai »

jonahx wrote: post #47
oaweoifjwpo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll still surveil even if you pay for the product. Why wouldn't they? It's an additional income stream.

> Why wouldn't they? It's an additional income stream. If customers cared, the additional income from being someone who didn't surveil could outstrip the income stream from surveilling.

I agree with you, and if you frequent tech circles you'd be under impression that the masses prioritize lack of surveillance and privacy. In my experience with IRL acquaintances, although anecdotal, exactly 0% of people I have spoken to where it's come up in conversation care at all about privacy or surveillance in general with the old "nothing to hide" fallacy.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#59

Post by nitwit005 »

_doctor_love wrote: post #18

This is all well and good but as long as advertising is how folks make money on the web, the surveillance state will persist.

Even websites without ads often have tracking and fingerprinting simply for their own marketing efforts and security features.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#60

Post by advael »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #45
_doctor_love wrote: post #18

This is all well and good but as long as advertising is how folks make money on the web, the surveillance state will persist.

Advertising doesn't require surveillance though.

No, but surveillance is profitable outside of advertising, and advertising provides a perfect cover for surveillance: It's hard to make things that can separate third-party content from surveillance from third-party content for advertising, or for UI JS libraries for that matter
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