1) so do you have to wait until a car accident to put your seatbelts on?
2) Independently of the political alignment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
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1) so do you have to wait until a car accident to put your seatbelts on?
2) Independently of the political alignment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
Ultimately, information is power — be that the power to shape your spending habits, the power for a government whose motivations you may or may not agree with to track your activities and viewpoints and use them against you, or the power for an online adversary to gain access to your personal accounts.
If you still think online privacy is unimportant, this might also be worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy
Fair question. Re-read my post. The only examples we've heard where a lack of discretion caused harm were self-inflicted. Typically, when someone publicly made controversial comments that outraged. Sometimes there's vindictive members in the audience. Anonymity is your only safeguard.
A legitimate marketer or public researcher doesn't pose the same risk as a zealot or hostile group. MacRumors and its backstage associates, for example, aren't likely to do something irrational. You might. I'm anonymous to you. MacRumors, however, knows my real identify and how to locate me. And more importantly, I know their identity and how to locate them if they cause me harm.
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I'm aware of the real risks of not wearing a seatbelt. What are the proven risks of letting bonafide businesses monitor my Internet usage? I'm not arguing that none exist. I'm asking alarmists to list them. Without evidence, it's just fear mongering.
State surveillance and political propoganda aren't harmless but they won't be erradicated or prevented by privacy measures that cripple beneficial data collections.
You're missing the forest for the trees:
1) You are making the classic mistake of treating your private information as discreet pieces of data when the real threat lies in the amalgamation of your data. The fact that you visit the site Macrumors isn't all that significant (though for some sites such a disclosure may be be extremely harmful to someone), it's that people know ALL of your website visits, your searches, your clicks, your posts, etc., etc. And, all of the that is added to an ever growing number of dossiers assigned to you, the most massive of all is Google's. *Remember, Google deliberately misreads people by disclosing only the information that is specifically held under your Google ID, NOT THE INFORMATION THAT THEY LINK IT TO.
2) You don't understand the threats you and your family face from your acquiescence to this harvesting of your private data. It's only limited by your imagination. As a dossier is built on you and your family, access to that data is an enormous threat to you, not from some hostile actor, but from a hostile government, institutional and corporate abuses, hackers, etc. Let's start with some easy ones. What if an administration decides to screen out people who don't have "acceptable" thoughts? What if they asked for a list of everyone who visited particular sites, made particular searches, made particular posts? What if they used your gmail scans to screen out anyone who ever communicated with a person they didn't approve of? What if an insurance company or business decided to lower their health insurance costs and screened out anyone who searched topics that may indicate they have a physical or mental illness? See how that works?
How would you be harmed if MacRumors required access to your webcam while browsing their site? What if they installed cameras and microphones in your house? Same principal; different degree.
Really though, to think that no harm can come out of the widespread collection of personal data is naive. Even if you're not concerned about the right to privacy for its own sake, you only need to look as far as Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to see how a businesses my misuse the data it's gathered about you. And history is rife with examples of how governments have used far less information to control their populace. (For a modern example, what do you think it is, exactly, that China's government does with the extensive access it requires to its citizens' online data.)
Are you being intentionally dense, or did you completely miss the Wikipedia link in the post you responded to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal? That was a case of a "bonafide businesses" using the data it gathered about its users to literally influence elections. Besides, why can't data collection be a harm in and of itself? I certainly don't want to share vast amounts of data with every online service I use, I just have little choice if I want to participate in modern society.
As for government actors, better online privacy protections certainly aren't going to eliminate surveillance or propaganda, but they'll do plenty to limit their scope and effectiveness.
true to some extent..but, Brave works better than Safari..only issue is you can not make it default browser..
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you dont have to be harmed to feel the problem..'Annoyance' ....ads are annoying..it sucks out your browsing or any activity on net.
On lighter note..if i have your drivers licence and address..people buy that for 1 BTC .
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Good points but your caution or mistrust is speculative at this point. None of the offenses you imagine have actually been discovered. For that reason, it's unreasonable to shun data collection and accuse practioners of abuses that haven't been proven. Instead of crimminalizing data collection, the goal should be to crimminalize abuses of that data. Health insurers, per your example, should be legally penalized for using circumstantial data to deny or price coverage.
If you feel that it's reckless to trust anybody to profile you, then you should consider the irony of having a smartphone that knows your fingerprints or facial characteristics. There's no guarantee that those identifying features can't be hacked.
As for Apple's on-device services personalization. It has the same effect or outcome as a profile that is assembled remotely. It still monitors your habits and recommends content accordingly—content that earns Apple money for providing.
There's not much that technologists have created that didn't have consequences. Even the seemingly benign and well-intentioned smartphone spawned all sorts of regrettable side-effects. But which is flawed? The tool, the User, or the playing field?
in short 'You are being influenced', you will hear/see what they want you to hear/see...you might have a better deal on some other site..but if you depends on ads, your vision is controlled and you might get a bad deal. just a example.
The incident wasn't representative of the legal and ethical collections that Users agree to routinely. Cambridge had done their harvesting without consent. However, their disregard for privacy wasn't what earned the most scorn. It was the misinformation they crafted and directed to those users. As for Facebook, they were criticized for not vetting Cambridge's intentions.
First, it’s not speculative as you suggest as you are in denial as to what has already happened regarding data being hacked and the fact that law enforcement serves already serves legal process on Google and others to get your data.
Moreover, it’s ironic that you suggest that companies be allowed to build massive dossiers in every person in the world and then we rely on governments who use those dossiers to pass laws to prevent abuses, and trust private companies to not misuse that data.
Authoritarian governments are increasing across the globe, and here in America a growing number of people calling for limitations on basic Constitutional rights, including the 1st Amendment, as the tech giants are now engaging in ever more censorship.
Making statements ridiculing people about a desire for privacy from an account with a pseudonym.
I do love irony.
Hacked data is not a privacy mistrust. It is a security issue. As for law enforcement, I have no issue with the Law doing its job as long as it shows just cause and follows due process. I cheer when I hear of someone being outed for child pornography on their computer. And GPS data has both exposed and exonerated suspects. That's right, if you can't use data to prosecute, you can't use data to prove innocence.
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The same observation was made earlier. Read my explanation of how that is not hypocritical.
You're throwing up straw man arguments. No one disputes that hacking is a security issue and everyone supports law enforcement in the battle against child pornographers. But neither of those has anything to do with whether private companies gathering every intimate detail of your life, and your family and friends, and then using that for whatever means they want, including having it available to anyone else, voluntarily or not, is a good thing.
You evidently, like many nowadays, don't place much value on your privacy, especially if you get better ads delivered as you state. That's your choice to feel that way, though ironically Google, and other, take that choice from you as they build these dossiers without your permission and effective knowledge.
It's a basic human right to be left alone and have privacy. People don't have to be doing something wrong or have something to hide, to want privacy. That said, that you don't see the danger in either a government or private company knowing and owning every detail of your life, is a sad commentary on how successful Google, and others, have been in giving you "free stuff" to prepare you for a new world. Perhaps the billions living under the new Social Score system in China, made possible only by such data collection, might be able to give you some insight.
Sorry to hear about your health issues .
But online privacy is about something else entirely .
Targeted ads are just the tip of the iceberg .
Personal user data is both treasure trove for and a currency used between big players in the data market , used for a multitude of purposes .
Your age, nationality, race, gender, location data , all being traded for serious money .
Any more detailed data goes for even more .
Want to know more about it, or control how your data is being used - hope you are are good at jumping through hoops and are an expert in the field .
In the EU, efforts are being made to reign in the big online players, now that politicians in their 50s or younger come into power - the generation that understands both the pre and post internet situation , still has that Euro attitude towards monopolies, tax dodging and corruption, and has Apple worried quite a bit .
Yep.... They dropped it.. THey replaced with cross site scripting and anti-tracking...
https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/06/safari-drops-support-for-do-not-track/
Apple, thinks, it can do better.. and they probably would be right..
It's like saying "we've decided to take out all the 'Do not walk on the grass'" signs because people ignore them.
And Apple wants to protect you, everyone should be doing themselves anyway. The "control" companies do is just a side-track.
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