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Please Sell My Personal Information

taylor.town

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Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#81

Post by dnissley »

boh wrote: post #17
chadd wrote: post #4

in all seriousness, i'll take the contrary opinion, i love targeted ads. saves me time, and there's no way to keep my data private anyway, so i might as well get some value out of it. i wish there were a browser plugin called "please accept all cookies" which would just get rid of the friction, and as a downstream fringe benefit, show me better ads.

Do you love targeted pricing too? Like user X is more likely to buy product Y so make the price +10%. It’s a good thing that targeted pricing is illegal in many places, but oh wait, there’s an AI pricing layer which cannot be reverse engineered so evidence of price targeting can’t be found. The problem with user data is it lasts forever, and as the political and technological environment further shifts into "profit-f…

Honestly totally fine with this and wish high demand items were mostly just auctioned off when they are first released. E.g. graphics cards, concert tickets, etc. They tend to end up in the hands of the people who want them most anyway, just through middle men (scalpers), so might as well have that value go directly to the company/artist.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#82

Post by timeon »

drusepth wrote: post #60
manicennui wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have money burning a hole in your pocket? I don't want to be constantly prompted to buy and consume things. When I have a problem, I research solutions and buy a product or service if necessary. I don't care what those with the largest marketing budgets think I should buy. I also follow companies on social media that I know and trust if I think I might be interested in their future products.

>Do you have money burning a hole in your pocket? I don't want to be constantly prompted to buy and consume things. On the other hand, I like to be constantly made aware of new things I might like to buy and/or consume. That way, when I do have a little extra cash to burn (or just want to save up for something, or want to be inspired to create something similar), I already have a feel for what all is out there withou…

This sounds like peak consumerism.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#83

Post by not_kurt_godel »

xvector wrote: post #78
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe that advertising is a legitimate and useful source of truthful factual information that people should be using to make decisions and shape their thinking about the world?

Do you honestly think that there is a single "useful source of truthful factual information" on this planet? There is not a single organization out there that will not present you facts without some sort of bias or slant.

I would love to watch you tell me in person that you believe that targeted advertisements are as good a source of knowledge and information as any other on the planet, and try to keep a straight face while doing so.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#84

Post by timeon »

bluesign wrote: post #57
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #55

There are many in tech whose jobs rely on selling personal information in ways that users would never consent to if they were made fully aware of what was being collected, how it was being collected, and how it was being used. I can't imagine it feels good to constantly deal with the cognitive dissonance required to participate in such schemes.

This is not tech specific, this is the world we live in. It is built on ignorance. - It is the steak I ate at dinner. - It is the AC I turned up in summer. - It is the car I drive etc.

> - It is the steak I ate at dinner. - It is the AC I turned up in summer. - It is the car I drive

I know that this is just example. But are these specific things common?

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#85

Post by imiric »

xvector wrote: post #74
imiric wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if an ad is straight facts How would you determine this? Distinguishing fact from opinion is impossibly difficult, just ask social media companies. Besides, ads are supposed to be manipulative, otherwise they wouldn't be nearly as effective. Taken to its extreme, and with the capabilities of adtech, it's no wonder they're used for propaganda, to influence elections, etc. None of this spreads "new information" meant…

Does the news media not "psychologically manipulate people to get them to vote or think a certain way?" By your logic, we shouldn't just ban ads, we should ban most journalism and news websites, as they are all also propaganda arms to promote different ideologies. Rather than banning everything that's not "straight facts," from ads to the news media, maybe teaching our population critical thinking is the solution ins…

There's an argument to be made that news media in the 20th century was focused on delivering facts, and that objective journalism as we knew it then is dead today. This shift was accelerated by the 24-hour news cycle and eventually the internet, where the media was incentivized by attention-grabbing headlines, advertising profits and private investors. When journalism was alive, opinions were sectioned off and known as editorials, and the public could assume that everything else was factual information. There's no such distinction today.

Teaching critical thinking is important, but let's not ignore the deeply rooted problems of both advertising and the modern news media.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#86

Post by oarsinsync »

charcircuit wrote: post #71
garganzol wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Annoying as hell, this should have been a browser setting. Global/per site/etc. But we should not blame EU here, we should blame predatory advertising tactics.

>we should blame predatory advertising tactics Most sites that have this pop up aren't being predatory. The EU is fully to blame for ruining the internet.

Every site that has these pop ups is literally doing so because they’re tracking you. Staking you. Surveilling you. They might be doing it on behalf of a third party, but they’re still doing it.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#87

Post by imiric »

Ekaros wrote: post #68

I wonder, how much my personal information is actually worth? The stuff you have at least? And if I were to approve it for the sale, what would be my cut of that value be? As surely I deserve it?

There's some napkin math in this article[1].

User data is worth much, much more than the the value users extract from "free" services. Especially considering this data is sold continually and perpetually. It doesn't just get purged from the market when the user stops using the service, and it's even bought and sold if the user never signed up for the service (shadow profiles).

We should definitely receive a fraction of these profits, or at the very least have control over the price and terms of sale.

[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/30/sh...

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#88

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

timeon wrote: post #84
bluesign wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not tech specific, this is the world we live in. It is built on ignorance. - It is the steak I ate at dinner. - It is the AC I turned up in summer. - It is the car I drive etc.

> - It is the steak I ate at dinner. - It is the AC I turned up in summer. - It is the car I drive I know that this is just example. But are these specific things common?

The commonality I believe they're pointing to is the suffering that is often caused for these things to exist / function.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#89

Post by xvector »

imiric wrote: post #85
xvector wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the news media not "psychologically manipulate people to get them to vote or think a certain way?" By your logic, we shouldn't just ban ads, we should ban most journalism and news websites, as they are all also propaganda arms to promote different ideologies. Rather than banning everything that's not "straight facts," from ads to the news media, maybe teaching our population critical thinking is the solution ins…

There's an argument to be made that news media in the 20th century was focused on delivering facts, and that objective journalism as we knew it then is dead today. This shift was accelerated by the 24-hour news cycle and eventually the internet, where the media was incentivized by attention-grabbing headlines, advertising profits and private investors. When journalism was alive, opinions were sectioned off and known…

The Spanish-American War was literally caused by journalists. It's always been an arm of propaganda. You're seeing this through rose-tinted glasses.

Re: Please Sell My Personal Information

#90

Post by sneak »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #49
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR has had a huge cost. If it doesn't yield any benefit because it's not being enforced, then it is a bad law, because it has costs without benefit, unlike the prohibition on physical assault, which is "free".

How is it free? London in Victorian and worse in earlier times was a much less safe place than London now and a lot of the credit goes to having an organized police force that takes action to find and apprehend those who commit assault and battery. That police force cost money to create and costs money continuously to maintain.

I didn't say police are free; I am not referring to enforcement. The assertion (by mindslight) is that GDPR is not adequately enforced anyway, so the comparison you make is somewhat apples to oranges.

It costs society nothing to not punch people (complying with the laws against physical battery). It costs society a lot, however, in real economic terms, to comply with GDPR.

Therefore, if GDPR is not being enforced, it is all cost for little/no benefit.

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