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Julien Voisin blogs:
Today, I updated my Firefox, and had a new icon on my toolbar: pocket. I took at quick look at the ToS and privacy policy; here is my tl;dr:
Read it Later, Inc. is collecting a lot of intimate information and is tracking you.
When you share something through Pocket with a friend, the emails contains spying material using malware-like techniques to track your friends.
They are sharing those information with trusted third parties (Could be anyone they are doing business with.).
The policy might change, and it's your responsibility to check Pocket's website to see if it has.
[...] The Pocket implementation is not an extension (while it was available as an extension), it's implemented in Firefox. You can not remove it, only disable it, by going in about:config, since this option is not available in the preferences menu.
What the hell is pocket? on Mozilla's site:
The Pocket for Firefox button lets you save web pages and videos to Pocket in just one click. Pocket strips away clutter and saves the page in a clean, distraction-free view and lets you access them on the go through the Pocket app. All you need is a free account, an Internet connection and the Pocket button.
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @06:53PM
I am seriously losing faith in the interwebs. The utility is constantly being reduced. When I search to find help for a problem, all I get are links to ads or retail sites offering a deal on the thing I have a problem with (google, duck-duck-go, whatever) The signal to noise ratio is plummeting overall. And almost everything is spyware. It took less than twenty years to go from useful to crap.
Sigh... what next?
If I was a bazzillionaire, I'd fund a router-to-router based web that bypasses all ISPs and makes it difficult for governments to control. Then I'd be arrested cause terrorists. Isn't democracy wonderful - it gives us the freedom to see everything turn to shit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheMessageNotTheMessenger on Monday July 13 2015, @07:15PM
Welcome to the free market, where everything is targeted at the lowest common denominator.
If you're not that, well, sucks cuz you're in the minority.
Hello! :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @08:56PM
Mod all these posts up. I think the Internet is dead, at least, how I used to understand it.
It's about like Cable TV for me --500 channels and nothing on.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday July 14 2015, @02:41AM
I feel the same way; I search for info on something and mostly what I get from any search engine is reviews on something that you can buy, that might be related to what I searched on; or outright sales based sites.
it seems that the almighty dollar is all that matters to most of humanity. this really depresses me. search for information to learn, to grow, to become more creative, to build things - and all the engines want to do is tell you how to spend MORE money on worthless china junk.
I do remember when google had a great search engine. or, wait. maybe they NEVER did and it was just that the web was mostly signal and not heavy in noise. now that its oversaturated with 'salesman', its hard for search engines to actually function well.
google results are no better than anyone else's, at this point. either they gave up trying or they gave up and just see dollar signs and nothing else.
either way, its not a very good thing to say about the state of humanity. it seems that anytime we create something good, we always ALWAYS turn it into something evil.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:53AM
Like the words of an old Eagles' song: "Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye."
I think that any attempt at creating a search engine will be undermined by the profiteers seeding the search results by finding weaknesses in the system. At one time, it was just creating lots of links to their site. Now they are more sophisticated. Either way, we lose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @10:40AM
I Agree