Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Personal Privacy in a Surveillance World -- How Important is it?

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-await-the-shitstorm dept.

martyb writes:

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:

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?

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Personal Privacy in a Surveillance World -- How Important is it? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 119 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @02:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @02:56AM (#182772)
    NPR (National Public Radio) posted May 8, 2015, broadcast May 13, 2015:
    Being A Loyal Auto Insurance Customer Can Cost You [npr.org]

    Summary: Insurance companies use tracking data to determine if you ( meaning YOU specifically; not the editorial "you" in general ) will likely shop around for a better deal with another provider if they raise your premium rates beyond a certain point. Thus using personal tracking data to maximize the amount of money they can get from each individual. Getting "loyalty" discounts is a sham; if you stay with them you get 10% discount, but they raise your rates 25%. If you shop around (web and phone) then they will not raise your rates, or at least not raise them as much to prevent you from switching to another provider.

    Given that it is likely all the other providers of any service currently do likewise, or will do so in the near future, I think now is the time to actually write scripts/plugins/apps to continuously surf during device idle time all the webpages of providers of services I use.