[wpietri]

For sure. When people work in any industry long enough, it's easy to stop thinking about the basics. E.g., a retail butcher thinks of his work very differently than a cow or a vegan does.

When people work in advertising, they mostly forget that the core of their business is for-profit manipulation of people with little or no regard for truth or the people concerned. But I personally think that's kinda creepy, and only getting more so as it goes from broad manipulation of millions via mass media down to thousands, hundreds, or single individuals.

[reincoder]

That is a good point. I will try to add some additional points to your statement.

In the context of a butcher and a vegan we are not either of them, we would be someone who sell salt. Salt as an ingredient is used by vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters.

Salt is useful, and it is a complimentary item that makes the food taste better. But it is not a main feature of any dish. Salt plays an important and somewhat universally required item in any dish, but this is not the main feature of the dish you eat.

We are a data company. This IP metadata we sell is important to run a service that is connected to the internet. We are focused on serving cybersecurity as we are focused on other industries which includes adtech and sales intelligence.

IP metadata is used in threat intelligence, building firewalls, and attack surface management. On the other hand, when you are running a business at scale, you need to invest into understanding your target demographics. That is where largely adtech companies use our data. They need data and context to understand who their users are.

IP metadata helps to prevent cyberattacks to happen at a very early stage through firewall blocking. IP metadata, used through threat intelligence, can further strengthen firewalls to prevent future attacks. And IP metadata, can also be used in website personalization, adtech and sales intelligence etc.

We believe that every internet connected services for profit and non-profit alike, should have access to some security resilience, that is why we offer so many good quality free data.

[wpietri]

Huh. Ignoring the somewhat strained metaphor, you seem to be suggesting that you don't have moral responsibility for aiding the creepiness of professional manipulators because you also enable other things. I don't think that's true. But even if it were, it would only be so if it were a minimal, possibly negligible part of your business. What percentage of revenue would you say comes from adtech?

[reincoder]

I am happy to assist any business, organization or person to use our data. I enjoy talking with people and helping them with the technical and philosophical aspects of IP metadata.

If you progressively remove the layers of metadata associated with internet-connected devices one by one from GPS data (user-permitted action) → IP geolocation (IPinfo.io)→ IP address (ISP), and come to a system that is completely anonymous, you have the dark web.

The dark web represents an ecosystem that is completely devoid of ad tech because there is no identity, and the users are purely homogenous. The system itself is not widely adopted because internet participants need to feel secure from cyberattacks and harmful words. Traditional internet services do not exist there because they are getting bombarded with anonymous attacks, and they cannot provide any value to the customer because they don't even know who/what the user is.

IP metadata helps with running a business and serves as a way to protect yourself. There are organizations and users who actively utilize our services to check email headers, find the IP address, and lookup the IP metadata of those IP addresses. The data is utilized for recognizing spam and phishing emails. Conversely, our service is also used in adtech-driven cold emails and newsletter services.

IP metadata is required for a functioning and widely adopted internet.

[wpietri]

Look, I have no stake in this. I don't really care what you do. But if only for your own personal development, you should recognize what you're doing here in this conversation.

Can IP geolocation be used for positive things? Yes. We agree on that.

But it can also be used for things that can reasonably be seen as creepy and/or bad. Hopefully you can agree on that.

If you're going to sell your services to all comers, then you are going to be supporting and profiting from both good and bad things. And rather than spewing paragraphs about the good bits when somebody points out the bad bits, you should own what you're doing.

Think of it like selling guns. Are there legitimate defensive uses for them? Sure, ask anybody in Ukraine. But if a gun deal just focuses on how they "enjoy talking with people and helping them with the technical [...] aspects" while being "happy to assist "any business, organization, or person" to buy a gun, then they end up morally responsible for all the other uses guns have, too.

[chaps]

"I am happy to assist any business, organization or person to use our data."

..any? It makes me nervous that you actually mean that.