[onion2k]

If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data[1]. People believe the web works the same way - when they visit someDomain.com they, entirely reasonably, accept they're sharing their data with someDomain but don't realise they're also sharing their data with whichever tracking/surveillance services someDomain has installed.

You're right that this is just how browsers and websites and the internet as a whole works, but what tech workers and tech companies are just recently discovering is that people don't actually like or trust how it works and aren't always willing to accept it. In Apple's case they can leverage that distrust to market their products.

[1] Today facial recognition and phone tracking means that you are 'sharing' that data with tracking companies, obviously.

[thomaskcr]

> If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data

You can literally buy that data. Either by targeting credit card transactions of people who shopped at a walmart via a broker or you can get more direct data (albeit probably more limited) from them directly here: https://www.walmartmedia.com.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

That's the entire problem! Every store doing this should have a mandatory seminar before every shopping visit that outlines every single data point they collect, names every company, intermediary, and consumer of the data they collect directly and clearly, one. by one. These parasitic and disturbing methods only thrive because they have not been brought into the light of day so every consumer can consciously choose what data they want to share at every point. Any other methods except complete informed consent are fraudulent, invasive, and should be illegal. The sheer greed and lack of any morals in ad tech is sickening.

[Mirioron]

>If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data.[1]

Isn't that exactly what membership cards for stores are for? Isn't credit card data also sold in a similar way? I find the credit card one to be a much bigger problem.