[kylevedder]

I wholesale reject the following:

1) Big tech colluded with government, and got nice advantages for their participation with the surveillance system -- they're getting raked over the coals at dog and pony show anti trust hearings.

2) completely immoral act of gathering very private information without consent -- you literally gave these websites this information, and there's legal privacy policies that no one reads describing how it's used. If you don't want them to have your info, simply don't give it to them.

3) Authoritarianism can creep up on you -- ok and? The fact that Google's ad auctions are more efficient isn't going to cause authoritarianism.

4) Could it be that you can not understand the harms because you actively took part in creating this reality? -- lmao no

[pclmulqdq]

1) The antitrust hearings are literally dog and pony shows. Nothing has come of them, except slightly increased lobbying spending by Google and Amazon.

2) Other people give it to them, not just you. I tried for years to keep my face off Facebook, and finally made a page to take control of my "shadow profile" because people kept putting it there. Companies often give it to them too, through data brokers.

3) Google's ad auction technology will make authoritarian government much more efficient, the same way IBM's census technology did in the 1930's and 1940's.

[mixmastamyk]

Upton Sinclair would be proud. Try using a smartphone today, which is becoming more and more required, without giving up PII.

- Our school district requires our kids to do business with Google, there is no way around around it without significant pain. They don't have another option.

- Last week my attempt at buying concert tickets was refused because I would not disclose my phone number and Ticketmaster no longer allows other options. A small thing but they add up.

- More and more restaurants won't accept cash.

- DMV is selling our information, ADP is selling our paycheck information.

The idea that we have "every choice in the matter" is already silly and getting falser by the day.

[fsflover]

> If you don't want them to have your info, simply don't give it to them.

Did you hear about Facebook's shadow profiles?