I have a client that uses Claude, and had trouble installing it. I got to help her and to my surprise she just let the damn thing access to everything in her PC, cellphone and laptop. She says she can’t live without it…
We’re so fucked.
AI is so new, unless she’s 5, how did she live before it???
Us and our 731 partners
You can opt out and only let the 83 partners with “legitimate interest” get your data instead
General Public: smash the “accept all” button immediately
Doesn’t help when the decline button almost always shows a page-full of toggles.
That’s illegal in the EU - the opt-out must be the default option and, if it’s not automatically enabled, must be the easiest option - but then that gets flaunted by the scummier websites.
As a web developer that doesn’t do any third-party marketing (nor any kind of data sharing) I always still feel the need to put the annoying cookie pop up explaining that I don’t do this because I assume users assume I’m doing it unethically.
“we value your privacy”
It means “your privacy is valuable to us”
Scooby Doo taught us the real monsters are the people we think we know.
Just when you think you know that real estate developer who purchased an old amusement park in the middle of nowhere…
I genuinely don’t know why they think my data is that valuable, but it seems everyone wants a piece
Targeted ads.
Google and Facebook in particular aren’t selling your data, they’re selling the service of showing ads to people who are likely to purchase those things.
The average website that has 800 close friends to share data with is trying to figure out who their target demographic is so they know which demographic to pay Google to advertise to… Or they’re also selling ad space.
So it’s targeted advertisements either way, just different angles
I can’t get anything for free* because someone’s put a price on it. I’m not about to willingly let someone I don’t even like profit off me for free
*Steam is an exception
Yeah, it’s invasive and predatory and sucks and I hate it. But I also don’t understand it. Someone out there is paying for my data (demographics, purchase and browsing history, psychological profile maybe?) how are they making back their money on that purchase?
Seems like either
- a) the marginal difference in wealth extraction for the whole population is worth more than the data costs,
- b) it isn’t and these purchasers are net losing money, or
- c) there’s some nefarious propaganda goal where the motive is more control than profit
I wish they’d leave me alone*
*Except for steam
Auctioning targeted advertising while you scroll.
