Hacker News Reader

Comment by jklinger410 | Hacker News Reader

> Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation?

Not in capitalist countries. Serving someone an ad that is actually relevant to them is good business.

The government doesn't need web cookies to find you, they can just call your ISP or your phone carrier, or check surveillance cameras, ask your bank, so-on. No one from these private companies has the time to look at the data, you are just a number to them.

Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense. You are just being profiled, as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to.

Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go, if that kind of thing scares you. But the ads you see online are going to suck.

View on HN

> But the ads you see online are going to suck.

Even with all the profiling the ads still suck.

It amazes me how little insight all this profiling actually gives advertisers. Sure they advertise stuff to me that I'm already searching for, but advertising is supposed to be about brining in new customers. Not advertising a product to me after I've already decided what I want, searched for it, and bought it (or decided I don't want it).

I get ads for weeks after that are a complete waste of the advertiser's money, LOL. I don't think I've EVER bought something online that I didn't know I wanted until I saw an ad...

> Even with all the profiling the ads still suck.

It seems silly to me as well. But when it comes down to it, they serve the ads that pay the most, right? So perhaps all the fancy machine learning and all the other garbage is just a way to say to their customers, "Hey, advertise with us, look at all this fancy stuff!"

and then someone comes along and says, "hey, we'll pay more than any other relevant ad..." and POOF. All of it doesn't matter anymore. At the end of the day, it's about getting the dimes in the right pockets.

> The government doesn't need web cookies to find you

Yet the government collects[1] them [2] in[3] bulk[4].

> Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense.

Not[5] true[6]. There are real harms done.

> Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go

It's hard for paid services to compete with free ones, so they're incentivized to sell your data anyways.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism...

[2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...

[3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/12/11/googl...

[4]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/25/tech-su...

[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/catholic-priest-...

[6]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sel...

It's possible for someone to buy public data and match that with their first party data from your account on their service in order to anonymize you. But it's unlikely. This same tactic was used in Afghanistan to find terrorists.

My point being most people aren't being hunted by anyone in particular like the US Government or the Catholic Church. It's expensive to set up these honeypot apps, and to buy this data, and spend the time to de-anonymize it. Frankly that church story is kind of insane.

Your second example is not really relevant IMO.

> as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to.

The problem is that the current economics make it more profitable to operate an ad-supported product than a paid product.

Regulation that would make ads less profitable would allow paid products to actually compete on price.

Ah, so you don't find it unethical. Makes sense then you have no qualms accepting your paycheck.

For the record, "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry. Unless you consider anything beyond absolute libertarianism to be "not capitalist". I find these semantic arguments often confuse the issue at hand.

I would love to pay for services that don't track me. You mentioned in another comment it's becoming hard to own a car, have a bank account, insurance, without tracking being baked in. I'm interested in ways we can work to change this. I don't subscribe to your belief that there is no solution, or that the level of tracking involved in the status quo is not "meaningful".

> "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry

You have a strong reading of the level of citizen constituency at play in these neoliberal corporate welfare states

This type of cynicism about countries like Canada and the U.S. is unwarranted when looking at the full sweep of history. Progress was made in the past. All is not lost.

I am personally very jaded with the United States' version of capitalism and regulation. This is a country with for-profit healthcare who also run ads. To say the least.

Your voting record, vehicle ownership, and household income, depending on what state you live in, are sold by your state government itself! We have a long way to go when it comes to ethical capitalism in the United States. Too far, actually.

I absolutely agree there is much work to be done. Let's start doing it. I don't see how offering one's talents to these companies is moving us in the right direction. It's not a meaningless act to accept a higher pay check in exchange for working in such an industry. They are paying more because they want solid employees who will work hard. Unless you're there just to throw sand in the gears, I really don't get it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com