[ethbr0]

> The advent of smartphones, social media, search engines, pervasive online shopping are all absolute boons for surveillance entities

The only way to avoid this would have been to design the Internet as something Tor-like from the beginning, which would have been impractical from an efficiency standpoint.

[thoughtstheseus]

Yeah, today data is worth more than oil.

[tenebrisalietum]

I don't know why. How many different ways do companies have to look at me to understand I am broke?

[dotancohen]

It's not your money they are after. Some advertisers are interested in your money. Other advertisers are interested in influencing your opinion.

If you are in the US: Should you support Israel?

If you are in the UK: Should you vote to leave the EU?

If you are in Germany: Should you support US troops in Asia?

If you are in Australia: Should you support economic treaties with China?

Advertising techniques can sway you - and large portions of the population - into supporting or not supporting many facets of policy. If the Arab states want to destroy the Jewish state today, they would not send troops. They would fund influence of opinion of the American and European population.

Actually, they already do.

[yhoneycomb]

Not sure if it’s any worse than the pre-internet days, with print media making everyone believe that there was only one single truth. Nowadays you hear a lot more diversity of opinion rather than just ISRAEL GOOD (ie, Israel maybe isn’t the good guy here and their troops maybe shouldn’t be shooting kids in the street and sexually harassing Palestinian women).

[ethbr0]

You do hear more diversity of opinion, however, the average quality has certainly lowered.

Unfortunately, the average person's intelligence has remained constant.