[xyst]

If the service is free, you are the product.

I wonder how many “partners” Google or Microsoft have? Their legalese probably doesn’t say it explicitly and probably use some loop hole through a data broker.

Google -> data broker (1) -> 1000 “partners” or affiliates

[MuffinFlavored]

I don't understand why it's such a big deal that "other companies have my data"

What data? Where I live? My phone number? My interests (that I typed in online)? What kind of products I like (that I scrolled slowly past/engaged with)?

Where does the narrative come that "I as a user deserve to use all of these platforms for free and I don't want them or any of their marketing partners to have 'data' on me"

Who cares? Why do people become so obsessed with protecting their 'data'? What makes you so special? They go through great lengths to avoid it. How does it affect your life knowing other companies have 'data' on you?

If you want insurance, insurance providers literally need data on you. Same for credit with banks/lenders. Same for renters/landlords, etc.

But we draw the line on "big tech" social media?... Why? Where is the negative harm?

[AlexandrB]

It's all fun and games until your data gets used against you. But by then it's too late.

There are many historical examples, but a great contemporary example is states using this data so they can prosecute you if your pregnancy ends[1]. In general private collection of data should be regarded the same as government collection of the same data, since all this data is subject to subpoena.

[1] https://www.thirdway.org/memo/the-new-front-in-the-battle-fo...

[LorenPechtel]

Yes--which is why you should never use your normal system for anything you don't want connected to you. Take precautions when virtually approaching an abortion clinic like you would take precautions when approaching a physical one.

I simply assume Big Data (government or not) will be aware of pretty much anything I do unless I use a separate browser and a VPN. Think of it as a public space--if someone cares to look, they can.

[acuozzo]

How does being selectively private work for deductions made by connecting several dots?

e.g.

1. Buying several pregnancy tests

2. Missing several periods in your menstruation tracking app

3. GPS data for having traveled to an OB/GYN

4. GPS data for having traveled to a planned parenthood

[fifteen1506]

It's far easier to be always private than having the cognitive burden of trying to discover when you want privacy.

Furthermore, you can't always have your day according to plan.

[pacifika]

Why should you have to do this? Doesn’t this overly impact the people who need this most but aren’t aware?

[nickpp]

I think we're only worried about our data in the hands of governments. So maybe we should make that illegal - but of course governments would never pass a law like that, against their own interest...

[bee_rider]

Spying on people is just generally creepy, I don’t know, but I bet if I was hanging around outside in your bushes with some binoculars, you’d have some entirely reasonable questions for me.

It is also bad to contribute to this ecosystem, you and I might be boring people with nothing to hide. But, there exist lots of vulnerable people out there, and we should not provide a market for services that make it easier to infer things about them.

Unfortunately it is hard to compete with “free*.” So, these spying companies have gained a dominant position in the market. It is, I think, generally accepted that it is fine to regulate entities with dominant market positions.

[gmd63]

It should be illegal to call it free when it, when sufficiently described, obviously comes with a cost

[tremon]

It's not a big deal if other companies have your data. You're free not to value your private life, but please don't extrapolate to other people.

What data? Where I live? My phone number?

Which people you interact with, and which people you'd go to great lengths for to help them. Where you sleep, and at what time you wake up. When you're at home, and when it's safe to ransack your house. What your pressure points are for manipulation. What route your children use to go to school. What ransom money you'd be able to pay out-of-pocket.

[nickpp]

Let me get this straight: you're afraid people would rob/kidnap you or your children using data stored by the Big Tech?!

Any instance when this actually happened? Would't it be easier to just watch your house for a week from a parked car, wireless camera let on some wall?

[stemlord]

"I have nothing to hide" is one form of what is known as "privacy nihilism" which is how we end up losing our right to privacy in the long run.

[pacifika]

As you exploratory search for medical symptoms for a friend or a pet and your life / car insurance renewal is affected by risk factors derived from the selling of your data.

When you visit a news publication and a third party does a soft credit check to categorise your session in user groups.

Actually there are application forms for this, there is no need to shoulder surf that.

[rchaud]

> My interests (that I typed in online)?

You don't have to type stuff into a Facebook.com input form for them to be able to use it for ad targeting. There are Facebook "share" buttons on most websites, and each of these is a tracking beacon that tells Facebook that User X visited so-and-so website. That X becomes an identifiable user if the user is logged into Facebook on the same browser at the time of the website visit.

[EasyMark]

Why don't they just advertise based on relevancy to search/topic/etc, instead they want to build a psychological profile on me. I can't stop them with a request or take down, so I do the next possible thing, make it as hard as possible to track me. I'm probably losing but it's still fun to try. Why do I owe random companies my life story? The whole "what do you have to hide?" and "think of the children!" has been used for centuries by authoritarians to control society.

[u32480932048]

It's even weirder when people seemingly forget their self-preservation instincts to go on the internet and simp for Big Tech.

C'mon, y'all, Elon Musk, The Zuck, Henry Kissinger - these people work very hard to give us the lifestyle we want. The least we can do is give them a little of our data, if not our money. Right? Right?

I, for one, am honored that my every interaction is stored in some datacenter in northern Utah. It just makes me feel safe at night.

[nickpp]

> give us the lifestyle we want

Actually, they do. Companies and their employees all over the world are giving us the products and services we want. In exchange we're freely giving them our money and/or some "data".

When offered the choice, it seems most people would rather pay with their data. We've been told for years now this is not good for us, but I am still waiting to see the downsides - all I get are some personalised ads.

[georgeplusplus]

>>> all I get are some personalised ads.

It’s hard to notice because the effects are insidious and very slow.

What does happen is they sell your data to companies or foreign governments that have absolutely zero interest in you or your families welfare and use it to craft policy to further entrench themselves.

If you are waiting for evidence that is extremely black and white and personalized like an attack that simply is not gonna happen.

Take tiktok for example

Tiktok gathers data on US demographics to steer discussion and politics or sow discourse. Watching tiktok videos you probably aren’t thinking, wow China really wants to see the west fall. Only if you understand their foreign policy would you connect the dots. rest assured they are using everything available to them to do so.

[nickpp]

> What does happen is they sell your data to companies

I don't know, more personalized ads?!

> foreign governments

> Take tiktok for example

TikTok's is a foreign government operation.

> steer discussion and politics or sow discourse

I am still waiting for proof they can actually do that. I remember all the scandal around Cambridge Analytica but then nobody said anything anymore when it turned out they weren't able to do what they boasted they could.

Yes, we should be afraid of governments getting our data and using it against us. But they have many other ways of getting the data and they don't exactly obey laws - they are above the law by definition. So I don't see how laws against private companies can help here.

[georgeplusplus]

Small nitpick Tiktok is a private company that serves a foreign government operation.

Why would they resort to breaking the law when they are getting the data legally? Doesn’t make sense

[lazide]

Insurance companies and the like don't need these backdoor data brokers (at least for legit needs), because they can just go through legit channels. What legitimate need would a bank or insurance broker have for your IP address history, or secret fine geolocation history, or browsing history, or product interest?

Plenty of illegitimate reasons though, eh?

The data brokers being discussed are huge problem because companies (and nations) use this information - both individually, and in aggregate - to work against your and our interests, and into theirs. This data is valuable because it is NOT going through legitimate, constrained channels.

And even if you think 'nothing bad could happen' with the current administration, what if Trump wins again? Because that is not a zero probability event.

And that is without counting that Russia and China are of course using these same data brokers for their purposes right now, and will do so during the coming elections too. They would be fools not to, they'll just get better at not getting caught like they did last time.

This isn't hypothetical slippery slope stuff either - this is the norm now.

These brokers are for the low-quality-but-useful-directionally 'protected' data which legit channels aren't allowed to have for very good reasons. There aren't 300+ 'big tech' entities.

Like religious/political affiliations (a Jew? Muslim? Democrat in a Red state, Conservative in a Blue one), gender/sex/whatever (LGBTQ or not - both are hot button right now depending on where you live), porn browsing habits, illegal-drug-site-habits, trying-to-get-an-abortion browsing, do-you-have-a-girlfriend on the side location data, or are-you-working-during-work-hours browsing data, etc.

These things can and do get people targeted and/or killed, depending on where they live and their personal situation. If you don't have to worry about it, congrats - but a large portion (probably most) of society does or will at some point.

The low data quality is just as likely to get you personally targeted too for something you aren't, and good luck disproving it, since the folks looking at the data aren't really supposed to even have it to begin with.

In many cases it is as 'benign' as getting you to pay for something you otherwise wouldn't, even if you can't afford it.

In others, it is directing targeted propaganda at you to influence your core political beliefs, incite rage, manipulate emotions and behaviors, and influence your personal and professional activities in ways that are often against your individual interests. In many cases, against our societies interests too.

Hell, at one point on Youtube I clicked on some random video and got targeted with a super manipulative female voiced 'do girls laugh at you because your dick is too small?' ad.

I've also seen 'Girlfriend, your makeup is ugly and that is why guys think you're a Ho, buy our product' ads too.

That wording is not hyperbole either. The voice acting was even more impressively manipulative.

If I could have gotten a recording of it, you would not be saying what you're saying right now.

And those are far from the only malicious ads out there. The entire population is being bombarded with them. Many of the political ads even have outright falsehoods in them.

I've also seen the ads and videos Trumpers get - from insane conspiracy theory to barely couched calls for political violence. I've had people try to connect with me on the political violence front in person twice in one area near California. And not in a 'hah, what nutjobs' kind of way, but in a 'hey man, you prepared for shit getting real?' serious kind of way. And yes, they had access to firearms.

I'm sure somewhere, someone is thinking up how to do a blackmail-styled 'we know you watch bestiality-granny-incest porn, pay up for our protection plan or we'll email the proof to your parents' ads, if they haven't already figured it out.

I also have an acquaintance in a conservative area all the sudden start learning how to speak Russian. She knows no Russians, and has no plans to visit Russia. If that doesn't raise red flags in this environment, you're not paying attention.

Personally, while manipulative dick size jabs or calls to doomsday conspiracy theories and violence are not anything that triggers more than an eyebrow raise from me, near as I can tell 95%~ of the population doesn't have the experience and whatever-else-you-call-it someone like me has to be able to just laugh and walk away. Or tell when they actually want something, vs when they are being manipulated to want something.

Those that can, probably paid in blood and treasure. I know I did. You probably don't want to know what it takes to get there, and it doesn't scale to the level of a society.

And with every platform actively fighting adblockers, and mobile ad blocking being... not good? This is not going to be pretty.

Population wise though, barring some kind of dictatorship (which would likely just make it worse), I guess we'll all have to figure it out, or be crushed. Or toss our phones in the trash, I guess.

Are you so insulated you don't see this harm happening?

If so, I recommend you hit up youtube or facebook in a clean browser and do some searching around. It won't take long for concerning things to start coming your way, regardless of what gender/sex/political affiliation you are, though I'd recommend going outside of your normal path so you can see the crazy in a clearer fashion. It's easy to get frog boiled if we don't change things up.

I have yet to go long in ANY direction though without getting whacked by something clearly manipulative.

And if you have seen these things, why would you not care about this?

Because it is an existential threat to everyone. Regardless of how tough any individual is at dealing with this, no man is an island. At least Nazi, USSR, and similar propaganda had to attempt to deal with population wide Overton window type constraints, so it could only be so aggressive.

These situations are closer to having your own NKVD 'friend' following you around all day with a detailed file from the Stasi.

It is already not going well for people's mental health or Society, and it will get worse.

[matrix87]

Yeah maybe some people like getting manipulated. What's wrong with that if they're having a good time?

[lazide]

How did that work out for Nazi Germany, or the USSR, or Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge, etc?

Everyone suffers (or succeeds, if it’s a good path) when enough people just go along for the ride.

No man is an island, or We’re all in this boat together - let’s not sink it.

[matrix87]

Who's better off, people who are more paranoid or people who are more trusting?

It's not an easy question

[lazide]

I’d argue ‘it depends on the times and the circumstances’.

There is no one right answer.

Several things however are clear - most people are NOT having a good time, this isn’t a hypothetical situation anymore, and there are real consequences building for everyone.

Could ‘yeah whatever who cares’ work out the best?

It’s not impossible. But I’d argue if you did a decent gut check the vast majority of people will not agree that’s going to happen in the current circumstances. It’s certainly what the polls are telling us.

There are far too many clear predators out and about, and they’re succeeding far too much.

The challenge is that the predators are successful because they’re getting so good at creating noise and bullshit and pushing peoples buttons - because of the data they have and everyone being overwhelmed.

[p_l]

AFAIK at least in case of Google, they used to closely guard that data, if only for business advantage.

As in, you could only benefit from it if you used Google product, you couldn't get brokerage/raw data.

No idea about Microsoft, but I don't know if they have their own ad arm like Google.

[tomoyoirl]

“We do not sell your personal information. It’s more of a rental.”

[p_l]

More like "You can pay us to use the personal information to get the ad to the groups you want. But we're not going to share the information, because it's our advantage over you"

[cbarrick]

Google has zero reason to share data with brokers.

It is much more valuable to them to prevent competitors from accessing that data.

[drrlvn]

I guess I’m Wikipedia’s product then.

[afavour]

Not quite, Wikipedia is a paid product. If you don’t pay someone else is covering the cost for you.

[oldkinglog]

This is quite a misleading comment IMO. You don't "pay" donations, you make them. There is no exchange and no debts are settled. And wikipedia isn't a "product" in the usual sense of a commercial product.