Ending "Surveillance Capitalism". -

[Overly Serious]

Watching my favourite tech news channel and they released an atypical video last week about ending "Surveillance Capitalism". Which is a terrible phrase and sounds pretty left-wing but so far as I can work out they just mean the marketing profiles that are built up as you use the Web. Goes into how much data is actually collected on you, how it's accessed and by who. And interestingly how ineffective it's turning out to be. Apparently Ebay just stopped using it, no longer paid Facebook and Google for it, and found zero difference in their sales before and after. And several other big names have recently done the same. It's this fact that they think might provide an opportunity to get in and create a more wholesome approach, likening our current state to how credit scores used to work before they got more standardised and introduced (some) better personal rights.

I found it interesting enough to share. One of them thinks this is possible, the other thinks it isn't but has plainly been persuaded to join in and try. For anyone who's never watched the channel (which will be near everybody), Wendell is the large gentleman on the left who knows a tonne about networking and hardware and has a notoriously leaden but adorable approach to humour; and Ryan is the more worldly one and a pretty sharp cookie. I watch their tech news shows and they're pretty good for an entertaining run down of the week. This is a bit unusual for them.

 

[HumanHive]

Tracking is just how the Internet works. You want a phone with a GPS? Apple and Google know your location. Want Youtube to give you videos that aren’t makeup tutorials and reality tv? Google must use cookies to do that. You are NOT going to have an Internet at all without sending every website you go to ISP information. It’s like sending letters and expect people to just ignore or blot out the return address.

Just use adblock and starve them of any value in your data. Also use Ungoogled Chromium.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

Firstly Wendell is based.
Secondly if you want to end surveillance start acting like it. Ublock Origin, SponsorBlock, DNS over HTTPS, HTTPS only mode, TOR where possible, free software where possible, avoid mainstream sites and encrypt everything you can.

 

[Pixy]

I think at the crux of the issue is that all the 'big names' can avoid implementing it, because their online and real-world presence is large enough to allow for it. Taking Ebay as an example, as it's one you mentioned, they've been splurging on advertising and product-placements since the 2000s, and it's definitely paid off.

When someone considers reselling their used items, aside from pawn shops, they'll likely turn to Ebay because it's the first second-hand goods website they know of. Ebay's got a large enough presence that they will attract users through word-of-mouth or via their own advertising campaigns.

The same goes for Amazon, too. They've entered the public's consciousness, they've grown to the extent where targeted advertising is no longer necessary to attract users. People will use it through other peoples' recommendations, social media influencers, etc.

 

[Overly Serious]

Tracking is just how the Internet works. You want a phone with a GPS? Apple and Google know your location. Want Youtube to give you videos that aren’t makeup tutorials and reality tv? Google must use cookies to do that. You are NOT going to have an Internet at all without sending every website you go to ISP information. It’s like sending letters and expect people to just ignore or blot out the return address.

Just use adblock and starve them of any value in your data. Also use Ungoogled Chromium.

There's a bit of a difference between needing an IP address or GPS so that technology can focus and building giant data profiles that know everything about you. And the video contains interesting things that even I hadn't thought of. Like if website A is a big name like Forbes and you want to advertise to its visitors, you can save money by identifying the users who went to Forbes and displaying your ads to them on website B which is less expensive to advertise on and tracking when a visitor from Forbes shows up there and now showing the ad to that individual. This video helped me understand the ways this stuff is used as well.

I think at the crux of the issue is that all the 'big names' can avoid implementing it, because their online and real-world presence is large enough to allow for it. Taking Ebay as an example, as it's one you mentioned, they've been splurging on advertising and product-placements since the 2000s, and it's definitely paid off.

When someone considers reselling their used items, aside from pawn shops, they'll likely turn to Ebay because it's the first second-hand goods website they know of. Ebay's got a large enough presence that they will attract users through word-of-mouth or via their own advertising campaigns.

The same goes for Amazon, too. They've entered the public's consciousness, they've grown to the extent where targeted advertising is no longer necessary to attract users. People will use it through other peoples' recommendations, social media influencers, etc.

Granted, we already know about Amazon and Ebay and tend to go straight there. But these are also the biggest clients. If they drop using this stuff that's got to cause other companies to question if they themselves are getting their money's worth. And I suspect they're not.

When someone suggests "just use adblock" it misses the point for me. I don't mind ads in principle (but ones that start playing sound is an instant-tab close). It's the tracking that I object to.

 

[L50LasPak]

The entire field of marketing and advertising has in my opinion never been proven to show actual results. I think nothing is a better example of this shit than the tracking profiles brought up here. They are a gigantic scam, and what's frustrating is that they slow down modern software, servers, computers, web pages, just about everything to collect, send and store meaningless data. This can be measured in actual energy wasteage, though nobody has the proper figures to run the numbers. I'll bet you anything they're high though. Its infuriating to think that such a large portion of energy is devoting to something completely meaningless so a bunch of modern witch doctors can line their pockets while making everyday life slower and more user unfriendly for the average person.

I'm glad to hear Ebay of all companies has decided to stop using them, but its probably going to be a drop in the bucket and will be pointed to as the cause of whatever economic misfortune Ebay might suffer in the next few years.

 

[Aidan]

Based and Level1-pilled. I'm with Ryan on this but I think this is a very noble effort. However, the truth is that with all things bad on the internet now, normies don't give one fuck until it directly affects them. The tracking will continue because it will always be profitable, even if it's less profitable when companies realize they're not getting returns on their investments.
Data is just ridiculously valuable and once you have it, you have it. The politicians of tomorrow will be completely profiled by Facebook and Google since they were kids.

Tracking is just how the Internet works. You want a phone with a GPS? Apple and Google know your location. Want Youtube to give you videos that aren’t makeup tutorials and reality tv? Google must use cookies to do that. You are NOT going to have an Internet at all without sending every website you go to ISP information. It’s like sending letters and expect people to just ignore or blot out the return address.

Just use adblock and starve them of any value in your data. Also use Ungoogled Chromium.

I disagree, overall. You can use GPS without Apple or Google knowing where you are, but only the exceptional privacy-minded people bother. You can use the vast majority of the web without relying on trackers or cookies. Though the real issue is just the scale of it and how much can be figured out about someone through this tracking. If people were more aware of this, I think there'd at least be more of a public outcry.

The web is now much more than scripts and cookies, it's fingerprinting and shadow profiles. You can block ads all day but Google in particular is still running Google Analytics on nearly every website people go to, often including financial websites, and so Google fingerprints your browser and follows you along everywhere you go, and that's assuming you're not using Chrome to begin with which has OS-tier telemetry. Spergery aside, it's ridiculous the amount of tracking going on and how many hoops one has to jump through to avoid it.

I think Google, Facebook, and various other data companies understand there's more benefit to this than just short term money and advertising. They get data that helps them map entire nations and they have more data than spy agencies did even 10 years ago. Strava had data leaked that showed where secret US installations were and that's a company using primarily fitness data. Expand this to Google's dataset and they know or have acces to nearly everyone who works at every intel agency in North America, what car they drive, what routes they take, who they talk to, what they buy, etc.
I have always believed that if people realized how ridiculous it was, they may think twice about using Google for nearly everything.

 

[HumanHive]

I disagree, overall. You can use GPS without Apple or Google knowing where you are, but only the exceptional privacy-minded people bother. You can use the vast majority of the web without relying on trackers or cookies. Though the real issue is just the scale of it and how much can be figured out about someone through this tracking. If people were more aware of this, I think there'd at least be more of a public outcry.

The web is now much more than scripts and cookies, it's fingerprinting and shadow profiles. You can block ads all day but Google in particular is still running Google Analytics on nearly every website people go to, often including financial websites, and so Google fingerprints your browser and follows you along everywhere you go, and that's assuming you're not using Chrome to begin with which has OS-tier telemetry. Spergery aside, it's ridiculous the amount of tracking going on and how many hoops one has to jump through to avoid it.

I think Google, Facebook, and various other data companies understand there's more benefit to this than just short term money and advertising. They get data that helps them map entire nations and they have more data than spy agencies did even 10 years ago. Strava had data leaked that showed where secret US installations were and that's a company using primarily fitness data. Expand this to Google's dataset and they know or have acces to nearly everyone who works at every intel agency in North America, what car they drive, what routes they take, who they talk to, what they buy, etc.
I have always believed that if people realized how ridiculous it was, they may think twice about using Google for nearly everything.

People were never as anonymous as they believed themselves to be pre-internet. You could always connect the right dots and find out everything there was to know about a person, Sherlock style. The difference is that pre-internet it was simply more difficult to do so and people would eventually forget all those minor details that added up give you away.

Big data doesn't forget, that's the difference. The genie is out of the bottle and there's no sense trying to put it back in the bottle. So even if it wasn't Google, it'd be some other company. Like I said, just starve them of their profitability from your data and that should be the end of your paranoia. If you go further than that, be prepared to just cut yourself off from the internet entirely.

 

[Aidan]

People were never as anonymous as they believed themselves to be pre-internet. You could always connect the right dots and find out everything there was to know about a person, Sherlock style. The difference is that pre-internet it was simply more difficult to do so and people would eventually forget all those minor details that added up give you away.

Big data doesn't forget, that's the difference. The genie is out of the bottle and there's no sense trying to put it back in the bottle. So even if it wasn't Google, it'd be some other company.

Like you say, the problem is much worse, however any step towards getting away from the ridiculous amount of tracking is a step in the right direction. Even if Google knows literally everything about you at this moment, suddenly deleting your google accounts, setting up a de-googled phone, and basically setting a clean slate is a step in the right direction.

Targeted advertising is a major justification for a lot of the tracking and the investment in that tracking, so any hit on that is a welcome one.

 

[Andy Bandy Man]

One again, like I think "autism always prevails" I've been seeing interest in companies in the private sector wanting to take platform back into their own hands; the whole fediverse thing has been a huge source of hope for me,

Maybe in the near future bright people can turn a quick buck by running federated protocol services for their friends, ya know kinda like how credit unions work.

 

[Overly Serious]

One again, like I think "autism always prevails" I've been seeing interest in companies in the private sector wanting to take platform back into their own hands; the whole fediverse thing has been a huge source of hope for me,

Maybe in the near future bright people can turn a quick buck by running federated protocol services for their friends, ya know kinda like how credit unions work.

There might be a glimmer of hope on that front. One of the things they've been discussing on the L1 news segments is this ongoing battle between Apple and some app sellers which they were saying probably wouldn't force Apple to change their app store rules but might well end with Apple being forced to allow other app stores on the phone. If and when that happens, the door is opened to more privacy oriented and decentralized systems. In the short-term because you can put apps on there that Apple doesn't approve of but in the long-term because if apps start being written for generic stores rather than just Apple's and Google's, it means it might be possible to create a market for non-Apple and Google phones. I don't want an Android phone. At least, not Google's. But I also need to be able to call an Uber or use a payment network.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

Until you make the average person computer literate enough to be able to avoid this sort of this by themselves, it's never going away.