[autoexec]

They need it so that they can spy on you. It's not needed, but many companies are built on surveillance capitalism and an increasing number of companies are using that surveillance to gain a huge advantage over their customers. The more a company knows about you, the easier it is for them to take advantage of you.

There's a lot of money to be made exploiting the most intimate details of our lives. Nobody "needs" that money, but they sure don't want to leave it on the table when the government isn't going to stop them from violating our privacy and then stuffing their pockets with our cash.

[jart]

If there's a lot of money to be made, could you give some concrete examples with that have wide applicability? Ideally I'd like to hear something better than just selling it to an advertiser or data broker.

[surfingdino]

Mass surveillance. Paid for by your tax dollars.

[autoexec]

Examples on how companies and people can make more money by exploiting the massive amounts of private data being collected and sold? I guess that's fair. No company will tell you when they exploit your data to their advantage. It's hidden.

Prices can be set according to the data companies have on you and the assumptions they make using that same data. The price you're asked to pay for something when you shop online isn't always the same price your neighbor would be asked to pay for the exact same item. Lots of potential here too when restaurants don't publicly disclose their prices, but insist that you use a cell phone app or scan a QR code just to see a menu. Your prices don't have to be the same as the person in line behind you for the same foods. Physical retailers have been trying to get this going for a long time.

"For example, ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace, indicates that it could increase profits by 84% by experimenting with personalized prices" (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41272-019-00224-3)

Fast food chain Wendy's tried to move the needle closer to personalized pricing (aka discriminatory pricing) when they said they were moving to surge pricing and you'd never know how much a burger was going to cost you until you'd already waited in line at the drive through and were told what price you were getting. They backed down due to consumer backlash, but their desire to squeeze every last dime possible out of you by leveraging big data and algorithms is still there.

Hotel/airfare/travel industry has been doing this for a very long time already (https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mac-users-pa... and https://millionmilesecrets.com/guides/are-airlines-raising-y...)

Health insurance companies want your data so they can charge you more for not moving enough, or because people in your zip code were logged eating more fastfood, or because you've been spending too much on alcohol at the store.

https://www.propublica.org/article/health-insurers-are-vacuu...

https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital/insurer...

A lot of the tracking we see is explicitly trying to assess traits like intelligence, education level, and mental illnesses including dementia and bipolar disorder.

Here for example is a pizza shop that will "create a profile about you reflecting your preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes." You know, just normal pizza shop stuff! (https://pie-tap.com/privacy/)

Companies and scammers alike can easily target uneducated and low intelligence individuals, and machine learning algorithms can detect when bi-polar people are in a manic phase, or what time your ADHD meds usually start to wear off, or when someone with alzheimers starts sundowning and they can jump at those chances to hit people with ads, scams, and manipulations when they think their target is weakest/most confused/most impulsive. Even without a diagnosis your mental health is a huge business opportunity for the person willing to exploit it (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/28/suicide-hotline-sil...)

The data being collected on you is increasingly used for really big things like if you get a job, or if your rental lease agreement gets approved, but it's also used for really trivial things like determining how long to leave you on hold when you call a company (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-...)

Companies aren't collecting huge amounts of facts about you and your life because it's fun for them. They pay a lot of money to purchase, collect, store, maintain, backup, and scrutinize all that data, and they do it because it's making them money. Almost always, their increased profits come at your expense.

[jart]

All the things you mentioned, like discrimination, sound like ways that companies safeguard against losing money, not earning it like I asked. They all also sound like money losers to me in practice. For example, if someone refuses to hire me because they found out something unsavory about me from a data broker, then they're really only hurting themselves. If someone tries to charge me more because they think I can afford it, then they're going to lose my business or get bad PR on X once I realize I'm being treated unfairly. The best you could probably argue is that preventing corporations from having knowledge about people will protect the most vulnerable members of our society who can't fight or fend for themselves and are willing to tolerate being treated poorly.

[freejazz]

Sure, if it doesn't bother you personally, it must not actually be a social problem.

[autoexec]

> All the things you mentioned, like discrimination, sound like ways that companies safeguard against losing money, not earning it like I asked.

A distinction without a difference? A company that can raise their prices for you because they know (or think) that you can afford the price hike isn't safeguarding them, it's just screwing you out of money. How would you feel if you got an awesome 20% raise at work, only to find that the next day the top 10 things you most frequently buy at the store were all suddenly 20% more when you went to pay for them. Why shouldn't a loaf of bread cost a percentage of your total income?

> if someone refuses to hire me because they found out something unsavory about me from a data broker, then they're really only hurting themselves.

I could agree that it might not be smart for them to lose candidates based on random crap dug out of a background search, but it happens and however dumb it is for the company, you would still be out that job. They'll never tell you why you didn't get hired. You just get ghosted.

> If someone tries to charge me more because they think I can afford it, then they're going to lose my business or get bad PR on X once I realize I'm being treated unfairly.

All the recent inflation shows that companies can get away with arbitrarily raising prices a whole lot as long as they all do it around the same time. Have you been boycotting them all recently? I've gone out of my way to avoid eggs associated with Cal-Maine Foods over price gouging (https://www.newsweek.com/egg-producers-accused-price-gouging...) but it's not been easy. Not every brand I see in stores advertises itself as being related to them. Boycotts are growing more difficult thanks to the massive consolidation of our food industry (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/...).

Most of the time when you end up paying more because of big data you'll never be told that. All of this is almost totally hidden from consumers. You'll just be charged more or get a bill that seems higher and you won't be told why. You're very likely already paying more for some things because of big data. Same with store policies. You ask a store what their return policy and they'll tell you one thing while the next person who asks gets told something different. You can't feel cheated or even like you're being treated special because your good consumer score is so high because you don't even know there are multiple policies in effect depending on who asks.

I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people on twitter have complained about companies like comcast, at&t, tyson foods, facebook, 3m, monsanto, etc, but what has it accomplished? Many of the most wealthy and powerful companies in the US are also the most hated by the public. They don't have good reputations to protect. They just don't have to care if you like them or not.

> The best you could probably argue is that preventing corporations from having knowledge about people will protect the most vulnerable members of our society who can't fight or fend for themselves and are willing to tolerate being treated poorly.

It would protect all of us. No one can "fend for themselves" and everyone is being treated poorly. You have been being treated poorly already. You will continue to be treated poorly until it hurts a companies profits to treat you badly. Right now, they're not just getting away with it, they are looking for ways to screw you over even more than they are already and in new and innovative ways using resources unlike anything you'll ever have. It's highly asymmetric warfare where consumers are divided into buckets and ultimately conquered.

[jart]

> How would you feel if you got an awesome 20% raise at work, only to find that the next day the top 10 things you most frequently buy at the store were all suddenly 20% more when you went to pay for them.

This is how the California economy works and it's something that I like, because if I'm allowed to have more money, then I can use my brain to figure out a way to not be scammed out of it like everyone else.

As for the rest, I don't think indignant agitators online who stir up fear are really representative of public opinion. Yes corporations tend to be slimy, but that's because people are slimy. I don't want to live in a society that takes away my freedom just to prevent the worst of us from exploiting the weakest of us.

[freejazz]

>I don't want to live in a society that takes away my freedom just to prevent the worst of us from exploiting the weakest of us.

Well that's pretty antisocial in general. Sure, you have worded this in such a vague way that it doesn't really provide for meaningful discussion. But, I'd just as obtusely respond that the entire point of society is to prevent the worst of us from exploiting the weakest of us.

It just really seems besides the point to flaunt your own individualism as a response to social questions, as if the issue was whether or not you in particular felt it was appropriate for you.