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And by the way, he also suggests in his blog post that Ghostery and Adblock Plus might as well sell browser histories as WOT does. There might be even more.
by moppl 10y ago
And by the way, he also suggests in his blog post that Ghostery and Adblock Plus might as well sell browser histories as WOT does. There might be even more.
- FuNe 10y agoReminds me of the old saying. "When the service is free the product is you."
- blub 10y agoLateley there's a trend to dismiss the above saying (i.e. if it's free you are the product) in a casual manner. Reality isn't influenced by such dismissals or wishful thinking however. If a company's financial interests aren't aligned with the general interests of its customers, then it will trample over the interests of its customers. Google, Facebook, any company that's selling advertising are not only not your friends, but they're screwing you over.
- admax88q 10y agoMy issue with that saying is that it prejudices people against Free (as in libre) Software. Free Software is free, and you aren't the product when you use it. In most cases its the only software that actually puts the user first. Saying "If it's free, you are the product" tells people that the only way to get good software is to pay money for it. When in reality lots of payed software harvests your data just as much.
- paulryanrogers 10y agoIME free and open software does tend toward abandonment or some form of monetization over time. Just ran into this with Synergy recently.
- denzil_correa 10y agoI just stick with EFF Privacy Badger. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
- aroch 10y agoGhostery allows you to OPT IN to sending your browsing data [1], which may be sold as part of services offered by their parent company to improve ad ROI for their customers. They also tell you that they're collecting the request data [2]. I think knowingly sharing your data (with a positive affirmation) is significantly different than having your data collected and sold without your knowledge [1] http://imgur.com/a/ugglB http://imgur.com/a/ugglB [2] https://www.ghostery.com/support/faq/ghostery-add-on/What-data-does-Ghostery-collect/ https://www.ghostery.com/support/faq/ghostery-add-on/What-da...
- qznc 10y agoThe problem is not the selling of browsing data. WOT tells you openly that they do it. The problem is that the data is not anonymized enough. The question is, if this is actually possible.
- rndgermandude 10y agoGhostery yes. Regarding AdBlock Plus he is complaining about the Acceptable Ads "feature", not that ABP is collecting and/or selling user data