Pokémon Go was a warning about the rise of surveillance capitalism

wired.co.uk

3 points·oil25··4 comments

Is anyone else getting sick of these privacy violation / data collecting posts? Corporations have access to my phone information, I get it. This has been in the news since at least 2012. It's not healthy to be constantly in fear, for your worth of individual currency.

I find the information empowering and it doesn't cause undue fear in me. To the contrary, these articles help form a collective vocabulary to understand the world around us, especially the less overt parts. It is so much deeper than "corporations have access to my phone" - it tears at the very fabric fabric of our society and human experience more generally.

Here is a quote from the article itself which I think is meaningful to your comment: "There’s nothing inevitable about technology or capitalism. The idea that digital surveillance is inevitable – that’s just invalid, and we can’t let them get away with it."

See that's the thing. why does it need to be something theyre "getting away with"? I don't think it's wrong corporations collect personal data. Anything to bring marketing closer to consumer relations is better.

Not nearly all personal data collection is obvious and even less of it is of tangible benefit to users. I'm with you about voluntary collection, but when the last several years' of history is replete with spying, coercion, back-doors, leaks, lying by corporations, privacy anti-patterns in software, and general lack of any meaningful regulation to reign it all in ... we have to be more critical.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com