Apps watching you
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- abettertomorrow0
Yeah, but what have they got that is at all useful? The info that ad networks and other sites are able to collect right now boils down to a few demographic type metrics - things like home city, gender, age and maybe a couple others.
The one thing it's at all useful for is automated mass advertising - serve a male user from high income neighborhood this ad, serve a female from somewhere else a different one. It's just hard for me to imagine anyone using that kind of info in any actual threatening way even if they wanted to.
The more troubling part for me is the lack of awareness that this data, like you said, is being commercialized. But it's really easy to make all of this seem super ominous, when in fact there is actually a positive aspect to all of this, which is companies being able to offer completely free services to consumers.
- all well and good, just give me the option to purchase or notformed
- chilamont0
HA HAHA, WHAT IN TH FUCK DID YOU THINK THEY WERE DOING? lol OIT'S CALLED DATA MINING. THEY SELL THAT SHIT.
Surprised, no......
- Boz0
I agree Plash, however if you want all this technology to actually work properly for you, you do kind of have to give it as accurate information as possible, otherwise it becomes quite a bit less useful.
For example.. I always put 1/1 of some year close to my age for information on profiles but then if you need to use those, or my friends want to be reminded to send me best wishes they will send it on a wrong date.
There's tons of stuff like this in the new wave of information.
I really don't have any problems with sharing information about my tastes, ratings and so on to improve services but the issue here is that this information is being SOLD.
We knew this was happening.. everyone saw it.. but nobody made a stink about it.. huge majority of people wants to be a star, wants to post their idiotic thoughts and what they ate in the morning or that they are going for holiday or similar but nobody was worried about privacy..
Now when companies are selling their information or are not legally bound to only use your online habits and usage of a system to improve their own services not to resell that stuff to others, everybody is SHOCKED how everyone knows everything about them.
This is what pisses me off.. people are fucking idiots who don't question or think about anything.. if they thought about what they are supporting or doing and raised a stink BEFORE these issues even arise (and yes that sometimes means sacrificing the coolness factor of a service or a product because they are essentially leading to a bad practice that will get you later), nobody does.
That's why I previously mentioned Apple too.. people are supporting these ass wipes now as they are creating some REALLY bad precedents in business practices and how they control you as consumer and then, when people realize they can't switch to anything else cause they spent tons and tons of cash on content that they can only view on Apple's products and now can't stop giving money to Apple without losing all the money they spent previously, they'll be like "WTF, I can't do this?! Boo Apple! How did this happen! OMG!" but then it's too late, because they were imbeciles to begin with blinded by shininess of Apple's idiotically named products and technologies like "magical", "retina" etc etc.
So I don't really pay attention to anything like this when it comes to privacy. People get what they deserve.. as you said, the only choice now is for you to lie and put in false information to bypass your real information being spread out and that's about it really.
Hopefully I'll make a new startup where you will be able to share your information and likes and dislikes about different things anonymously and I'll make billions, but responsibly :)
- raf0
"I recently read an article regarding the security of so-called “scrubbed” data. Netflix or some other company wanted to employ a third party to analyze some of their customers’ patterns of purchase — but as a precaution they removed (scrubbed) the customers’ names off the data. So theoretically, the people being analyzed were now abstract entities. However, out of curiosity they hired another company, to see if any of those unidentified customers could possibly be re-identified. It turned out they could. Not due to a fault of the scrubbing, or some security or software malfunction, but because other data and patterns of customer and citizen behavior were available online, and correlating these with the patterns of the anonymous customers led to conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, the re-identification of many."
From "Internet Antichrist", an article by David Byrne
- abettertomorrow0
I'm sure it will all work out
- VikingKingEleven0
- People don't want to be informed. It is pretty pathetic.VikingKingEleven
- Boz0
people are dumb
they also keep supporting Apple and without realizing where that takes them just because of a few shiny products.. 5 years from now people will ask themselves "where did we go wrong with Apple" by allowing them to close shit up and blackmail you into having to buy their hardware to keep using your content..
But again.. people don't see it until it's too late and then they bitch and moan..
- Im no fanboy but these are both Apple & Android AppsShaney
- Shaney you seem to think that what you just added somehow undermines what Boz said. It doesn't.Horp
- Horp I don't seem to think anything or want to undermine anyone. In the context of this thread.Shaney
- In fact I agree with Boz on Apple generally, just not on the dat app thing. hth.Shaney
- raf0
- akrok0
^
boz and his hate for apple. hah.
so, who do you support. as you're so smart?
- abettertomorrow0
I think you can get a little too paranoid about this stuff. Once you realize how much companies track people it is a little surprising, and as raf points out the anonymity thing is kind of a joke.
But then you're left with...what? They know your general personal info (age, gender etc), and maybe a little about your buying habits....big fuckin deal. Same thing most people have posted on their Facebook page.
Is there some scenario you can imagine where this leads to anything all that bad happening to you, lol? Worst is that happens is maybe they'll serve you one banner ad instead of another one. Which would happen anyway:)
- moldero0
if we didn't consume, we would only be obstacles.
- abettertomorrow0
Its a nice article for providing the info, but in the grand scheme of things I have a hard time seeing app purchases as that great of a privacy threat.
After all, the exact same tracking process goes on for most sites you visit on the regular web. If someone is going to build a profile of you to advertise to (and companies do that for all of us, based on this info, which is of course "anonymous":), the regular internet is a much greater source of data than a few apps.
Try looking here for instance:
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia... Player/#SharedObjects/
These are all the sites that are tracking you for various reasons. All made possible by......Flash (sorry Boz:)
- abettertomorrow0
^
~/Library/ Preferences/ Macromedia/ Flash Player /#SharedObjects/
- on the Mac, PC is different folder somewhereabettertomorrow