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You reckon Hulu, Netflix, et al, are just sitting on all the user data you are giving them, totally respecting it... definitly not monetizing from it? When was

• function_seven 7y ago
  Yeah, I realized I'd see this reply as soon as I submitted the comment. Of course they're selling my data. I wish they didn't. And to circle back to the original comment I replied to: They don't have to. A business can be run providing entertainment without granular user tracking. HBO and Showtime did it back when they were just add-ons to cable packages. What OG commenter was implying, is that the Internet will be worse without 3rd-party cookies and tracking. I can't disagree strongly enough.
• Nextgrid 7y ago
  It's one thing where a business is using data you provide them to make better decisions, just like a store would use sales numbers to decide how much of an item they should stock up. The problem here is when data is collected by third-parties I do not know, do not trust, and do not need. They collect data for their benefit without providing me anything of value, only ads aka spam. Online ads are also nothing like print or TV ads. The latter has a barrier to entry and some minimum criteria they must meet like the laws on what's allowed to be broadcasted and they are at the discretion of the publisher. This makes it less likely that a scam or malware would be promoted for example. Online? It's the Wild West, anyone can advertise anything (fake tech support numbers for example) for a few hundred bucks and targeting means they can make sure only the people most likely to fall for the scam would see the ad, while flying under the radar of anyone savvy enough to recognise it as a scam and report it.
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