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I'm about to give up.
On the one hand, I see countless people get loyalty cards and enjoy discounts on their purchases. They connect with friends on Facebook and Twitter. They use apps on android or apple smartphones to give them turn-by-turn directions, find out where their friends are, or find places of interest. Their e-mail is "in the cloud" where they can get to it from multiple places. They use services like dropbox to share files. They get their news on-line and read e-books. I could go on and on.
On the other hand, I see opportunities for tracking and profiling in every one of those activities. So much so that it seems like one would be under constant observation and surveillance. We are just data points to be sliced and diced and marketed to — a society of consumers rather than customers.
So, I've got a major "ick factor" knowing about these practices and yet I'm hard-pressed to explain any negative consequences to otherwise intelligent people. "I don't do anything that's THAT interesting." "I've done nothing wrong, so I don't worry about it." "I like getting the bonuses and discounts."
Yet, I see companies expend great amounts of money implementing tracking mechanisms such as cookies, super-cookies, clear gifs, as well as huge databases of purchases, travels, and interests. I don't believe they are doing this for purely philanthropic reasons.
In no particular order, I include these for consideration:
- "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu
- "If you are not paying for it, you are the product."
- Joel on Software - Strategy Letter V: Commoditize your Complement
- Using Metadata to find Paul Revere
I use a variety of Addons while browsing the web using Pale Moon: a custom HOSTS file, Self-Destructing Cookies, Ad-Block Plus, Ghostery, NoScript, Better Privacy, Flashblock, and Ref Control. I have a firewall and use anti-virus products. "In real life" I prefer to use cash over charge cards for my purchases. I have no loyalty cards.
What say you Soylentils? Am I being unreasonably paranoid? Or not paranoid enough? What dangers, really, are there? Why not sign up for all those loyalty cards and social apps? What privacy protections do YOU use?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Bogsnoticus on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:18PM
It's when you break out the tinfoil hat that it starts to become unhealthy.
I have multiple email accounts, and online pseudonyms, some of which share the same signup email account, some which do not. I use multiple browsers with different addons that run on different screen at different resolutions, as the size of the viewing window can get logged. Use different VPNs at different times, and other times I don't. Once I run up a new system, takes me about an hour to set things up the way I like it, and then I'm good to go.
I only have 1 loyalty card, and thats for a games shop, where I buy everything in cash, and that is linked to one of my email accounts with a german service provider, and under a different name to my real one. The only things i buy using EFTPOS (no C/card) are groceries and fuel, and even then that is only within my local area. If out of town, it gets paid for by cash.
I'm not really doing it to avoid scrutiny, mainly so that those who do want to track me have to work hard to get their grubby hands on all of my (meta)data. I know it's happening, and to fully avoid it, it's too much hard work, and will eventually cause me to break out the aforementioned tinfoil hat.
The little bit of work I do now to avoid it, is mainly to be a pain in the arse to those that do the tracking. Make them do more work tracking me, than what I have to do to avoid it.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:36PM
FTFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @04:53PM
And, THAT is a healthy attitude. You know you can't avoid surveillance, but you CAN maybe manipulate the surveillance a little bit.