Sites selling your data aren't evil
Everyone makes so much fuzz about their data being exploited beyond damnation! How right are they, really?
Let's say you want to make a trip and Facebook picks up on it, so you're constantly shown ads for flight companies. Has your privacy been violated? Uh, no. You haven't become an assassination target, you're being shown ads. Advertisers don't know who you are. Your name and location aren't being randomly dispatched. Your profile is not being compromised. That's not how it works.
You have a profile on Facebook, which has places for ads. It has to understand what ad to show you to maximize profit. They track you and realize you might be going to Las Vegas soon enough, maybe because you said that to your best friend over FB's messenger. That's when it's algorithm decides to serve flight company ads.
After coming to this conclusion, it will look up all of the available advertisements related to FB's needs, pick some of the best fitting rectangular offers and send them to your screen. That's how the magic happened, and this is when you realize the advertisers themselves never even heard of you. They have an ad, which FB takes and pops up.
Your privacy hasn't been broken. But that doesn't mean everything is perfectly safe. If someone's a moron who wanted to group up with, say, jew haters, Facebook post boosting might just be the thing they need. A tool can be used for ill intents, and it's our responsibility to demand workarounds to prevent such misusage.
I encourage everyone who wants to let them know you feel insecure with because of how their tools can be misused. Let them know what you think: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/268228883256323
Thank you for reading!
Its not the monetising of other people's content without compensation that is evil. That's just an unsustainable business model.
Even the fact that their algorithms try to addict people to wasting time on their platforms is a morally dubious business practice, not real evil.
The real evil bit is the way they misuse their huge power to destroy online freedom (and thus freedom generally) by censoring their competitors (eg the Crypto Ad Ban) and political viewpoints that vary from their very narrow one (especially conservative & libertarians but also alternate left wing viewpoints).
That's why JPB Liberty is enabling everyone in Crypto to claim damages against them by Joining the Class Action against the Crypto Ad Ban.
Its anonymous, no win no fee and you even got bonus tokens for signing up.
You're completely right. That's why I've already joined you when I first saw your post months ago about how We're suing Facebook & Google for $300 Billion! - Want a part of the action? and I'm glad you get the opportunity to talk about it in my post. All that I'm saying here is the data selling by itself isn't evil.
Thanks. You are quite right.
Yes they are
Not all of them. The data selling doesn't make them evil. I have no problem with, say, unroll.me.
its just remove subscription but they still have your data
Which makes zero difference except for what ad I'm getting. It's what I'm talking about in this post. Not to mention it's on their terms of service, so it's the user's problem for not reading it. Unroll.me even highlights this.
that's why there are lots of sites providing temp data for securing your personal data
"Advertisers don't know who you are" - You are wrong. Of course, they do know. Yes, they do not know the name but they know who you are based on your activity. Advertisers do not necessarily need to know your name to target a specific person or group of people. I may not remember your name next time I visit steemit, but I may remember "Sites selling your data" which is enough for me to know you on Steemit if needed.
Nah, in that situation, you wouldn't be the advertiser, you would be the platform serving ads, like FB or Google. The advertisers merely hand over their ads to get served. Moreover, the tracking algorithm would not see me as a "person", but as a target, My real identity is completely irrelevant to this system.
Wallmart never gets my information. It is not them who decide to show me something. Google/etc does. Wallmart just trusts Google will do what's best for them.
It's not really the site's but the one's who buy it might have bad intension's not everyone is bad but you never know these day's.
Exactly. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns, just like an ad service, are just a tool.
From your point of view I understand that if you are an honest person who has nothing murky to hide, basically what you are receiving is a service that can give you benefits in saving time and money.
Yes, exactly. The bad side is the same service can also be used by murky people who have something to hide.
Asi mismo, de eso me suelo dar cuenta y es algo realmente asombroso, tienen una manera de capturar y brindar a los usuarios lo que están necesitando en el momento, del lado positivo creo que eso ayuda bastante . Gracias por Compartir
Si, es verdad. Es una tecnología increíble.
Excellent post.
I always knew that we're not completely safe online.
My point was how our data being sold for ads targeting isn't dangerous, but yeah we're never safe, both online and offline.
nice
Thanks.
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