Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

neilzone.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 645 posts

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#601

Post by [deleted] »

cortesoft wrote: post #310
1shooner wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, if you don't practice any tracking limitation, you're almost certainly giving additional parties (directly or otherwise) access to your personal information. This is marketing data brokerage, this is the whole ballgame. To your point about the actual harm, I've come to see it as a kind of ecological problem. Wasting energy and sending more trash to a landfill doesn't harm me individually, at least not i…

Sadly, this still doesn't do anything to show me that I should opt out. I, as an individual, am not going to have any effect on a business if I opt out or not. No business decision is going to be made because I opt out. You might argue that it will matter if enough of us do it. Sure, that is true... but again, it won't matter if I do it or not. If N number of people opting out is enough to ruin the business model, th…

[deleted]

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#602

Post by duskdozer »

poszlem wrote: post #495
graemep wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use exactly the same argument for not bothering about doing things that pollute, generate landfill, or generally make things worse for society. Its highly unlikely your vote will swing an election. If you want easy things to do use cookie blocking extensions.

> You could use exactly the same argument for not bothering about doing things that pollute, generate landfill, or generally make things worse for society. Which is why those things need laws to create any meaningful change.

That's not a justification for participating in them yourself, though.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#603

Post by duskdozer »

XorNot wrote: post #506
shevy-java wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do use an ad blocker, and never click on ads. I feel like that action has a bigger return on investment than no clicking the cookie banner. Right, but this is not solely about cookies or blocking ads. You also leave behind data which helps create a profile. AI is mass-creating profiles of everyone. Not everyone will have the same pattern, but information space is finite and they get more and more data about you o…

The future of myself and my son does not depend on nor benefit from my anonymity. I'm not a revolutionary taking up arms I'm a voter and a citizen in disagreement. Unless I am seen and counted, then being any of those things is worthless as well. There is no value in hiding from the system while the system goes to hell and attacks everyone else.

>I'm not a revolutionary taking up arms I'm a voter and a citizen in disagreement.

That's not up to you to decide. It's up to whomever is in power and has the ability to label you as such.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#604

Post by duskdozer »

richardubright wrote: post #283
1shooner wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, if you don't practice any tracking limitation, you're almost certainly giving additional parties (directly or otherwise) access to your personal information. This is marketing data brokerage, this is the whole ballgame. To your point about the actual harm, I've come to see it as a kind of ecological problem. Wasting energy and sending more trash to a landfill doesn't harm me individually, at least not i…

I hear what you're saying, and instinctually I feel gross about it. But, if enabling advertising allows the website I'm visiting to stay in business, I think that might be a trade-off worth making.

Most of the websites I would want to see most are smaller and hosted and maintained by individuals or small groups.

People already pay for things like Kagi to try to get out from under the mountains of SEO adspam. I have to pay in time and aggravation to stay sane in the face of ever escalating tactics to shove ads in my face and manipulate my online behavior. So I don't think a smaller web would be a bad thing.

But I don't see that as likely to happen anyway; companies have found out that advertising and data harvesting is far more profitable, and governments have found the same to be very useful for exercising control.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#605

Post by gzread »

ang_cire wrote: post #454
keerthiko wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same logic as opting to not go through the hassle of registering to and casting your vote in your national elections (unless that physically isn't an option where you live) -- yes, your government isn't going to make a decision one way or another based on your vote alone. But will you affect the sociopolitical trends by whatever fraction of societal opinion you represent? It may be you don't believe…

> consumer action is the only way you can affect business decisions I mean, insomuch as any action I take is a consumer action, because I am a consumer, this is true. That's why Luigi'ing is a consumer action. But 'vote with your wallet' is an illusion; you have no way of informing an entity why you are rejecting their service if you simply don't patronize them. On a ballot you're actively choosing another over them.…

Marketing teams do check how total sales responded to different decisions. If they make an announcement and a bunch of people cancel, they note that as cause and effect.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#606

Post by gzread »

cortesoft wrote: post #367
ryanwhitney wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have no idea of the actual outcome, I’ll muddle through the extra step + thinking to opt-out where possible. My own personal bend is that I do not want to be sold anything and I want anonymity where possible. We’re constantly being advertised to. Anything small action that I can take to deter that, or make the ads less personalized/interesting/distracting to me, is worth it. Even if I also will never knowingl…

> My own personal bend is that I do not want to be sold anything You can always choose this no matter what ads they show you. In some ways, choosing to not be sold AFTER being shown ads might be more effective at shutting down that behavior than simply avoiding the ads entirely; forcing the company to pay to show you the ad that you ignore is costlier to them than simply not being able to show you the ad at all.

They pay even more if you click on the ad and stay on the site a bit.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#607

Post by gzread »

duskdozer wrote: post #603
XorNot wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future of myself and my son does not depend on nor benefit from my anonymity. I'm not a revolutionary taking up arms I'm a voter and a citizen in disagreement. Unless I am seen and counted, then being any of those things is worthless as well. There is no value in hiding from the system while the system goes to hell and attacks everyone else.

>I'm not a revolutionary taking up arms I'm a voter and a citizen in disagreement. That's not up to you to decide. It's up to whomever is in power and has the ability to label you as such.

See: all of the old ladies in the UK protesting Palestine being arrested for domestic terrorism.

See: US ICE telling people filming that they're domestic terrorists because they are filming.

See: the poem "first they came..." which happens every time

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#608

Post by gzread »

richardubright wrote: post #283
1shooner wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, if you don't practice any tracking limitation, you're almost certainly giving additional parties (directly or otherwise) access to your personal information. This is marketing data brokerage, this is the whole ballgame. To your point about the actual harm, I've come to see it as a kind of ecological problem. Wasting energy and sending more trash to a landfill doesn't harm me individually, at least not i…

I hear what you're saying, and instinctually I feel gross about it. But, if enabling advertising allows the website I'm visiting to stay in business, I think that might be a trade-off worth making.

You can whitelist the sites that provide content valuable enough to justify it, which is not most sites.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#609

Post by gzread »

belorn wrote: post #372
xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel similarly. And to be honest, even when I do select decline all, I have little confidence that the function does what it says it does.

This is how we should view all information we get from a company. If the product say organic, claim to be pure ingredients, recycled material, made in "COUNTRY", or any other claim, it is only just that. It is simply a claim that you as the customer has no way to verify.

That's why we fine companies that make false claims, and if they keep doing it, we shut down the company and imprison the people in charge.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#610

Post by gzread »

asdfman123 wrote: post #239
Forgeties79 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s absolutely safer browsing the internet now than it was when I was a kid. Getting a virus or equivalent on your phone is no small feat

The late 90s internet was filled with predators, skeeziness, and viruses that would break your computer and require a reformatting. That stuff is still there if you look for it, but it's not on your social media feeds or in any of the apps provided through app stores.

They don't break your computer. They still do all the other bad stuff.
Post reply on HN