Just because you are fine with being stalked and sold by private corporations does not mean everyone else is and should be more or less forced to endure it.
No one is following you around. It's more like you keep sending letters to advertising companies. You are going to them, they aren't coming to you. If you go to Hacker News there is no way for them to follow you here.
You aren't being sold to private cooperations. Facts about the universe which relate to you are being collected. If you learn George Washington was born in 1732 on Wikipedia do you think Wikipedia sold you George Washington? These are just facts that exist in the corpus of knowledge about the world and the people who live on it.
Is it okay that one can pay data giants to put false social media posts in front of millions of select people that have been heavily profiled to be statistically more likely to believe such postings and change their voting behavior as a result?
Is it okay that the DMV makes millions yearly bulk selling demographics, home addresses, and emails to political candidates and adtech companies?
Is it okay that the payment processing service used by your pharmacy and grocery store sells purchasing data to insurance companies? Surely they will never use this data to raise your rates, right?
Is okay for third parties like cell phone providers and credit card companies to collect information about who goes to the abortion clinic and sell that information to people that might wish to see them face murder charges in a death penalty state?
Will they do similar if gay marriage is targeted again?
Is it okay that Apple gave the CCP access to their Chinese servers allowing them to more easily track down and imprison/kill Uyghur muslims?
What about for journalists covering war crimes? Should they just accept that they will be tracked everywhere and killed for doing their job?
It takes someone incredibly privileged to be dismissive of the serious risks mass data collection represents to the vulnerable. Just remember the location, browsing, and purchasing data you give up casually today can be used to target you later when political landscapes change.
Those of us who are privileged have an absolute obligation to pursue and normalize data privacy for those whose lives depend on it.
>Is it okay that one can pay data giants to put false social media posts in front of millions of select people that have been heavily profiled to be statistically more likely to believe such postings and change their voting behavior as a result?
Yes, I believe it is okay for people to talk with other people about political issues to strengthen or change their opinion. It's a good strategy to focus on talking to people who are most likely to convert to avoid wasting your time with people who firmly hold the opposite opinion.
>Is it okay that the DMV makes millions yearly bulk selling demographics, home addresses, and emails to political candidates and adtech companies?
Yes, it allows my tax dollars to be spent on other things.
>Is it okay that the payment processing service used by your pharmacy and grocery store sells purchasing data to insurance companies? Surely they will never use this data to raise your rates, right?
Yes, if people who buy bananas and live alone are more likely to slip and fall then I see it as fine for an insurance company to raise the rate. Typically the more data an insurance company has, the more accurate they can predict the probability of a payout. If someone is trying to hide data that causes an insurance agency to underestimate this probability I would consider that as fraud.
>Is okay for third parties like cell phone providers and credit card companies to collect information about who goes to the abortion clinic and sell that information to people that might wish to see them face murder charges in a death penalty state?
Yes. I think it would be unethical not to report a serious crime. Are people really going to surprised pikachu face when they are caught for doing a crime.
>Will they do similar if gay marriage is targeted again?
I don't understand how that applies.
>Is it okay that Apple gave the CCP access to their Chinese servers allowing them to more easily track down and imprison/kill Uyghur muslims?
Yes, it's okay to help a government enforce their laws.
>What about for journalists covering war crimes? Should they just accept that they will be tracked everywhere and killed for doing their job?
I don't know enough on how their job works to answer.
>Just remember the location, browsing, and purchasing data you give up casually today can be used to target you later when political landscapes change.
Where I live new laws can't retroactively punish for actions done before the law passed.
>Those of us who are privileged have an absolute obligation to pursue and normalize data privacy for those whose lives depend on it.
I believe all information should be free and I believe criminals should be unable to escape punishment.
You seem to be seriously saying you trust all governments and corporations to always penalize, imprison, and murder the correct people and we should give them as much data as possible to make them efficient in doing so.
I honestly can not tell if you are a troll or a psychopath.
You aren't being sold to private cooperations. Facts about the universe which relate to you are being collected. If you learn George Washington was born in 1732 on Wikipedia do you think Wikipedia sold you George Washington? These are just facts that exist in the corpus of knowledge about the world and the people who live on it.