[dx034]

Not really horrified. Yes they save it, but they don't seem to be able to use it well. The ads I get on Facebook are sometimes really interesting (i.e. targeted well), on other pages it's mostly stuff I bought a while ago or topics where I don't even have a clue why they think that could be interesting.

And even though they can save it forever, it's outdated pretty quickly. If someone has information that I clicked a button 5 times when I visited a page in '09, this will have zero value now. The information is only valid for hours or days.

I guess most of this information is used to test behavior on pages and to optimize them. And I can only support that. Tracking like this is the reason why popular pages are intuitive. They perform A/B testing extensively to see what works best. I don't see an issue with that.

[LeifCarrotson]

But the goal of that optimization is not to make your life better, it's to make money for them.

They may be pretty bad at it now, but one thing about technology is that it gets better and better, and their goal is to encourage consumption of their product.

I'm thinking about buying a new laptop right now. I'm trying to make a smart choice, weighing the funds I have available, my need for it, the options available, my preferences for various brands and features, and my own desire to have new shiny stuff.

The advertisers can distort this rational decision. Right now they just have a poorly-targeted generic bit of text that I don't really read in the sidebar of certain websites, and I feel comfortable with this level of influence. If they were super-persuasive at selling their product to me Present Me would consider that theft. Future Me would probably be grateful to the advertiser, and that's terrifying.

A Self-Driving, Self-Selling Tesla might show up at my door, perform an inspection of my current car, and, in its silky voice, deliver an irrefutable argument why I must never get in that car again and should instead hop in for a free ride across state lines so I can take out a home equity loan and cash in my 401k to buy it. Yikes!

The optimistic side of this is that maybe they'll eventually move beyond market research and on to individual research to give us stuff that we actually want. "Oh, LeifCarrotson is filtering out our 1366x768 TN panels, doesn't seem to care about thickness, has recently read about the Samsung 960 Pro? Let's build him one with a big 9-cell battery and longer travel keyboard, a good screen, and one of those SSDs. And he seems to be running Linux? Let's swap our default touchpad for one with an open driver, and donate a few percent of the profits to the EFF, that's sure to make him happy."

[dx034]

> But the goal of that optimization is not to make your life better, it's to make money for them.

I don't pay to use services online. They somehow have to make money. Until we start donating/paying for each service we use, we have to expect that people will make money otherwise.

[LeifCarrotson]

I'm not even talking about the free services, though.

I am talking about the ordinary consumer goods manufacturers that buy the ad space that may or may not be sold on free online services. They're the ones who want that ad space, who benefit from the targeting, and who make the whole operation work.

[tunap]

The "how" they make money and how they secure, anonymize and to whom they share it are all important considerations that are almost exclusively(there are exceptions) never divulged.

[pdkl95]

> they don't seem to be able to use it well

You are implicitly assuming that this won't change. Databases persist indefinitely.

> The information is only valid for hours or days.

This simply isn't true. You seem to be only thinking about single data points, not the entire picture about your life that is painted when you aggregate that all of the captured data. For example, timestamps of your clicks build a pattern about when you use your computer, and the domain names you have visited (including the order you visited them) probably gives a reasonably accurate estimation of your political views, personal beliefs, and other data that you haven't shared on the web. (Bayesian analysis, machine learning, and other modern analysis methods do amazing things with minimal data)

> I guess

It might be a good idea to not base your risk analysis on a guess. If you have no other option and have guess the level of risk, you should be assume the worse. Assuming benevolence (or incompetence) without evidence is incredibly foolish.

[enraged_camel]

>>Databases persist indefinitely.

They can, but most don't, simply because it's not worth the effort and expense.

[falcolas]

From personal experience as a DBA: the effort usually consists of not deleting rows out of the database. The expense is a few cents a month for gigabytes of data.

Worst case scenario, the companies will simply set up a separate data warehouse style data store, and make it available to anyone who wants it internally. If we as consumers are lucky, they will scrub the data of PII before moving it to the data warehouse.

[tunap]

Worst case scenario must include if they find a market for the data, similarl to the recent AT&T revelations.

Pick your source:

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=at%26t+data+government...

[dx034]

They will probably put it in some archive where they delete it after 10 years. Or they keep it somewhere on a drive where it could be accessed but will never be, since no one has a reason to use the data.

[falcolas]

> they don't seem to be able to use it well

Or they are intentionally dialing back on the accuracy.

Being too accurate in your advertising is like delving into the uncanny valley of CGI. It gets spooky and makes people intentionally shy away from your products.

So, perhaps they're following the same trajectory as CGI: adding intentional inaccuracy to mask their actual targeted ads. If I saw the one thing I wanted in a lineup of four other poorly targeted ads, I'd be less likely to consider it as spooky, and more likely to treat it as I would any other advertisement. These companies follow you around the internet for years, after all. They can afford to play a long game.

Or it's just my tinfoil hat. Either way.

[pdkl95]

> too accurate in your advertising is like delving into the uncanny valley

This isn't speculation - it's standard practice now in some companies to try to avoid "scaring" the customer with something that reveals how much modern advertising looks like a stalker. A well known example is Target when they discovered[1] they could predict pregnancies very early and very accurately:

    At which point someone asked an important question:
    How are women going to react when they figure out
    how much Target knows?

    “If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations
    on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re
    pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,”
    Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance
    with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the
    law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

The article then tells the story of the time an angry father stormed into Target after the company had sent ads for maternity clothing and nursery furniture to his high-school age daughter. He was angry what he thought was an attempt to coerce his daughter, but later apologized when he discovered that Target was right.

We now live in a world where it businesses can infer significant attributes like pregnancy from subtle changes in their buying patterns. When stalker-like behavior is built into modern business models, the smarter businesses realize that most people will hate you if you act like a creepy spy.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...

[Pigo]

I sometimes wonder if I should be more concerned with privacy and my data than I am. I don't engage in risky behaviors, and use mailinator as much as possible. But I also have nothing to hide, and rarely share anything critical apart from cc# with amazon. If they want to know how often I show up and track events, I couldn't care less. I suppose it's good more people know what they're capable of. I know people who think they need to go Snowden when they're daily life is just finding answers on Stack Overflow and watching Joe Rogan on YouTube.