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This information can be used to infer things about you, such as your sexual orientation, political positions, personality type, unhealthy behaviors and so on. T
by TelmoMenezes 10y ago
This information can be used to infer things about you, such as your sexual orientation, political positions, personality type, unhealthy behaviors and so on. Then machine learning algorithms can be used to deny you health insurance, credit or employment based on this data.
Or they can sell that data to other companies that will deny you any of these things. So better be careful with out you say, with which books you read, who your friends are and so on.
Or they can make deals with governments to reveal information about you, in exchange for regulatory favors.
Or maybe you're a robot with nothing to hide, but they can still make mistakes or wrong inferences and hurt you in the above ways.
And advertisement can be improved to bypass your cognitive defenses, or catch you at a vulnerable moment (all things that can be detected with enough data) and manipulate you into making decisions against your best interests.
In short, data disclosure can get you killed, poor and/or sick. If that was not the case, why would corporations be so secretive about their own stuff?
By the way, all of the above examples are not hypothetical. They are all based on things that are demonstrably already happening.
- blakeyrat 10y ago> By the way, all of the above examples are not hypothetical. Then you have some citations?
- TelmoMenezes 10y agohttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h... http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#4f7d970434c6 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe... http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attverizonsprint-are-paid-cash-by-nsa-for-your-private-communications/#678f3f5b1f15 http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attveri... http://gawker.com/5669316/is-facebook-outing-gay-users-to-advertisers http://gawker.com/5669316/is-facebook-outing-gay-users-to-ad... http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay-before-you-do.html http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay... http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/why-google-quit-china-and-why-its-heading-back/424482/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/why-go... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://bgr.com/2014/01/23/apple-targeted-ads-mood-based/ http://bgr.com/2014/01/23/apple-targeted-ads-mood-based/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/denied-for-that-loan-soon-you-may-thank-online-data-collection/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/denied-for-that-loan... http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704648604575620750998072986 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487046486045756207...
- blakeyrat 10y agoOk well I'm not going to read like 500 links posted with no context. The first one doesn't say anything about harm that I can see from my skimming, and the second one is the government paying the phone companies directly, which is concerning but it has nothing to do with tracking cookies or combining data sets. That's as far down as I went.
- benologist 10y agoEgyptian police use gay dating apps to identify 'criminals', tax dodgers are being identified by their lavish lifestyles on instagram. I don't think there was ever much doubt information can be used against you.
- blakeyrat 10y agoAnd Egyptian police are getting that data via. tracking cookies tied together? Or just going to the dating app companies directly? If you're trying to convince people, saying, "it makes it easier to catch tax dodgers" is unlikely to be very effective. Also, catching tax dodgers on Instagram doesn't require tying together cookie data, does it? I mean tell me if I'm wrong and it does.