Originally Posted By: Ethan1
Originally Posted By: CKN
Not sure what difference this makes in everyone's life. I hear there is a sale on tin foil hats.
You would seem to think your life is doomed if some advertising information got in to someone's hands and they tried to sell you something. And you have the option of declining their goods/services........
Well, let's see. Google has your search and browsing history, your youtube history, possibly your email history if you use gmail, possibly your location and phone call history if you use Android.
Windows 10 monitors you and contains ads. In fact, some tech authorities have unironically labelled it spyware.
Televisions now listen for your voice commands, but the terms of service warn that all conversations will be transmitted to the tv manufacturer for analysis. (That is how the TVs worked in 1984, BTW.)
Obviously Amazon Alexa devices do the same thing, but people use them willingly.
Siri and other smartphone "assistants" do the same thing - your conversations are stored.
Most cars have navigation nowadays, which keeps track of where you have driven. You can see this for yourself when you install your car's smartphone app. The authorities can track and disable your car by court order.
Congress has recently allowed ISPs to sell everyone's browsing history.
The Facebook app uses your location to recommend friends based on who you have spent time with.
Many young people are hooking up through the Tinder app, so there is a company out there with a database of who they've all been with.
It has been demonstrated that there are smartphone apps which listen for ultrasonic signals in ads, so as to correlate your phone with an ad you saw at a certain time or place; you see, the ultimate goal is to merge your advertising profiles.
It's fine if you don't care about your privacy. The proximate goal of these advertising efforts is simply to figure out how much you're willing to pay for any given product. This is very apparent at Amazon's brick-and-mortar stores, where there are no pricetags - everything is priced dynamically, on your smartphone, via the Amazon app, based on the profile Amazon has built on you.
I have nothing to hide what so ever. Just got back from a road trip. My Facebook page said "Check in from Blank City" let your friends know where you are. I get ads in Facebook-based on my browsing history. It's doesn't affect my life one bit.
If I was worried about privacy-I would have a VPN-or just stay off Facebook and THE NET entirely. As far as ads are concerned-if I browsed it-obviously I have interest. I may or may not click on the Facebook ad. I know when I land on certain other forums-those ads at the bottom of the page are targeted at me. SO WHAT!
I know there are privacy freaks out there-who think they need to keep their life a secret-for what ever reasons.
I have an Amazon "Alexa" so there is a record of my Pandora music I listen too-again, won't change my life.
While I am aware and don't disagree with your observations-it is my contention it doesn't affect our daily lives.
We are not alone.....