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> "I nominally pay for these services..." you give them all that valuable personal and private data and then also pay them? why are you so resigned to this? th

> "I nominally pay for these services..." you give them all that valuable personal and private data and then also pay them? why are you so resigned to this? the tradeoff for knowing everything about you gives you what, a few less taps on your phone? people ignored or minimized it then, but their direction was abundantly clear by 2004 or so: search -> adwords -> adsense -> gmail ---> all-your-data-everywhere (gmail seemed cool at the time until the realization of where all this was going). how is it that so many people are just now waking up to the dangers of google (and facebook, incidentally)?

pdimitar 8y ago
If something is convenient for people and saves them time, they are willing to close their eyes about lost privacy. Until it directly bites them of course -- which won't happen to most of us. It's just how we tick. And a lot of marketing strategies are based on those specifics.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
Is it really that hard to understand? What's the concrete harm so far? I've been using Google for a couple decades, and I can't really articulate a specific way that I've been harmed. Yes, I realize that there's the potential for harm from a leak or something like that, but it's hardly surprising that the abstract notion of possible harm isn't super compelling to the average user when they're currently getting useful services for "free".
- clairity 8y ago
  you're rationalizing, i.e., looking the other way to avoid cognitive dissonance. but part of why we have such big brains is to anticipate the future, not simply accept events as they occur. what might the future you say? should we ignore that gas leak in the kitchen because it hasn't killed anyone yet? it's important to expose this kind of mis-rationalization, especially when tiny individual harms accumulate otherwise silently to become population-level dangers (e.g., measles).
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    This word, I don't think it means what you think it means. > should we ignore that gas leak in the kitchen because it hasn't killed anyone yet? No, but it's hard to see how using personal data to sell ads is going to cause a harm anywhere near as bad as a person dying.
    - clairity 8y ago
      > "...using personal data to sell ads..." again with the misdirection. look the other way if you like, but you're letting google choose the information you access and believe (even with ads). if you don't understand the power therein, maybe you should study more of your namesake.
      - TulliusCicero 8y ago
        It's not misdirection, nor is it looking the other way; I simply don't have a problem with it. You seem to have a bit of trouble with language there. There's no current concrete harm, and the potential for serious harm just looks unlikely to occur.
    - 50656E6973 8y ago
      >it's hard to see how using personal data to sell ads is going to cause a harm anywhere near as bad as a person dying No need for imagination, simply read history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
      - krapp 8y ago
        To be fair, none of that involved selling ads.
        50656E6973 8y ago
        It involved the mass collection of personal information (what Google does in order to sell ads), which was then weaponized and used for purposes other than originally implied
- Liquix 8y ago
  The 'concrete harm' part comes into play when a corporation or nation-state weaponizes this data in order to sell you a product, influence your thoughts on a political matter, or otherwise manipulate you. If you're of the opinion that this is not problematic on a fabric-of-society level, could you please explain why?

pdimitar 8y ago

If something is convenient for people and saves them time, they are willing to close their eyes about lost privacy. Until it directly bites them of course -- which won't happen to most of us. It's just how we tick. And a lot of marketing strategies are based on those specifics.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

Is it really that hard to understand? What's the concrete harm so far? I've been using Google for a couple decades, and I can't really articulate a specific way that I've been harmed. Yes, I realize that there's the potential for harm from a leak or something like that, but it's hardly surprising that the abstract notion of possible harm isn't super compelling to the average user when they're currently getting useful services for "free".

clairity 8y ago
you're rationalizing, i.e., looking the other way to avoid cognitive dissonance. but part of why we have such big brains is to anticipate the future, not simply accept events as they occur. what might the future you say? should we ignore that gas leak in the kitchen because it hasn't killed anyone yet? it's important to expose this kind of mis-rationalization, especially when tiny individual harms accumulate otherwise silently to become population-level dangers (e.g., measles).
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  This word, I don't think it means what you think it means. > should we ignore that gas leak in the kitchen because it hasn't killed anyone yet? No, but it's hard to see how using personal data to sell ads is going to cause a harm anywhere near as bad as a person dying.
  - clairity 8y ago
    > "...using personal data to sell ads..." again with the misdirection. look the other way if you like, but you're letting google choose the information you access and believe (even with ads). if you don't understand the power therein, maybe you should study more of your namesake.
    - TulliusCicero 8y ago
      It's not misdirection, nor is it looking the other way; I simply don't have a problem with it. You seem to have a bit of trouble with language there. There's no current concrete harm, and the potential for serious harm just looks unlikely to occur.
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    >it's hard to see how using personal data to sell ads is going to cause a harm anywhere near as bad as a person dying No need for imagination, simply read history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
    - krapp 8y ago
      To be fair, none of that involved selling ads.
      - 50656E6973 8y ago
        It involved the mass collection of personal information (what Google does in order to sell ads), which was then weaponized and used for purposes other than originally implied
Liquix 8y ago
The 'concrete harm' part comes into play when a corporation or nation-state weaponizes this data in order to sell you a product, influence your thoughts on a political matter, or otherwise manipulate you. If you're of the opinion that this is not problematic on a fabric-of-society level, could you please explain why?