[jstummbillig]

> I know what I look like in a shop. I know what the clerk knows about me.

Just be clear, we are still exactly talking about a website owner tracking what somebody looked at and passing said information on by utilizing unique phone numbers in case they call? Because I can't help but feel like we escalated this thing a notch to vent on pent-up feelings about privacy in general (which we might actually agree on, but yeah, different scope)

[harry8]

And you're completely aware of that and you know what the person selling to you knows about your actions just like you do in a shop?

No? Ok then. It's one example of many of secret and deceptive surveillance. If you want to be angrier about worse ones please feel free...

As an aside, there have been plenty of things from which we defend ourselves from salesmen. Both ethical and not dating from well before Berners-Lee thought "I can use markup to make a documentation system with this new-fangled tcp/ip thing on unix machines right here at CERN!" Some of us are naturally better equipped to defend against all the techniques than others. Arming con-people grifting from the gullible with additional personal information to use as secret ammunition along side psychological manipulation seems wrong to me. The continuum goes all the way from "no such thing as a bad sale" through all selling is wrong. That's where I sit on that continuum. YMMV.

[jstummbillig]

Is me being completely aware of something the linchpin around which we are going to judge if somebody is interacting ethically with me? Because I can see how that would complicate things. Ethically speaking.

Also I am 100% certain I am not completely aware of what a clerk knows about my actions when I enter their shop. Unless I pessimistically assume "potentially everything", including my exact identity because I live around there somewhere.