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well, it's the nature of the advertising business to defy privacy and liberty. competition occurs around how well you know consumers and how well you can manipulate those consumers into actions favorable to you (i.e., exerting power over you). further, online advertising is basically a duopoly of google and facebook, with google being twice as big as facebook and much more invasive. google's, or more broadly, alphabet's, only competitive advantage is a thin lead on what might be called data intelligence (or surveillance, for the more cynical). they collect data across all internet ingresses/egresses, on not just those who opt-in, but even those who actively avoid google (through android, gmail, google apps, analytics, dns, internet access, etc.). and that data is super-valuable--alphabet had $30B in profits on $137B in revenue (an extraordinary margin). to be clear, i'm not attempting to judge or disparage individual engineers at google. i'm sure most are mighty fine folks. but for the foreseeable future, google really has no choice in the matter, not until it finds a different massive market from which to derive revenues. it's the nature of the business. and in the meantime, it's also under assault from intelligence, paramilitary, corporate, and governmental organizations from across the globe. at least for americans, privacy and liberty are fundamental and inalienable rights. even though the consitution explicitly forbids only governmental interference in those rights, they apply more broadly to any entity, and particularly global corporations, attempting to exert power on individuals. and while inalienable, citizens still have a duty to be vigilant against such infringements. |