[lifeisstillgood]

Forgive the grumpy old man approach here, but can't this all just stop.

The price of a TV (or almost any common product) is driven more by large scale factors (cost, competition, features and brand) than the latest 4 dollar shift because of some promotion in some channel somewhere.

We are optimising for the wrong things. Computers are supposed to be our agent in the digital realm, reaching out for us, in our best interests.

If we turn off all storage of personalised information completely and utterly, 95% of everything I ask can be answered from context (please show me cheap TVs).

Look, i don't object to the idea behind the sandbox (it's always been weird that browsers tell the server what fonts and other settings exist. I mean who ever optimised for that)

What bothers me is that it's a google id. Just let me have a few U2F ids - this is my shopping id, track it if you may. when I take it out of the slot stop tracking me.

I am sure I am feeling extra grumpy today, but when we stop tracking and trying to find ways to make me buy, and start finding ways to make my life better, that's when we have a digital revolution.

[hhjj]

Yes we need (again) an inversion of control. At first advertising links only tracked origin (website), so announcers could target right website to put links on it. But soon advertisers realized you could gain more granular information in using more active technology like cookies, gifs, flash, etc. So they began tracking users and their journey through all websites with all privacy problems it entails. I think in terms of privacy the only level acceptable is the one you have to deliberately have to engage with to start "tracking" (that means advertising content must be displayed alongside publisher content and not personalized nor tracked through advertising company if the user hasn't engaged with).

I also think that marketing/advertising is bad since it distorts value perception but i remain pragmatic and we can't ban all advertising that easily.

[lifeisstillgood]

I wanted to expand on this a bit.

If we are ever going to manage the flood of data out there we need digital agents acting on our behalf. The AI behind the facebook feed or the google ad tech is a very early beta of those agents - and "on our behalf" may seem a stretch. But that's not just a cheap snide remark - I think on our behalf is a fundamental issue of how they will be built and designed and regulated.

Richard Thaler has promoted Paternalistic Libertarianism - which seems to me a very good default setting for digital agents working on out behalf. It's not however that simple.

I hope we shall see a Medical approach to managing data - where everything is shaped by the best interests of the data subject. But there are three major world views - let's call them European, US and Chinese for over simplified ease.

The Us view is caveat emptor - one should be rugged individualist enough to be able to calculate the best co-pay arrangement and by extension work out ones preferred facebook privacy settings. If you get it wrong you will be prey for the payday loan industry.

The European view that by default it should be good for the individual (although as a Brit I should sneak in that the state gets to define good. And I suspect the Chinese view is it should be good for the confucian society - and the state may have some say in who is in and out of that.

As we are entering the new era of regulation of tech, these conflicting world views are becoming entangled - and we coders will be on that front line.

Choose a side - and be prepared for some very weird outcomes.