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It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language. Facebook and others

It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language. Facebook and others use the word "ad" hoping people assume the definition is the old school television or print ad; "here's our thing buy it and it'll make you happier". Beyond whatever massage it had that advertisement only affected you if you turned to that page or watched it during your show. The content creator got paid to use some of their space/time to let an advertiser reach their audience. For Facebook (and Google and others) and "ad" means a content creator is not just selling their own space or time but they're selling their audience. To them an "ad" is a means to hoover up a vast amount of data on people. Because of their reach and the fact they run a social network the data amounts to tons of PII. There's little regulatory control over the collection, storage, or dissemination of this data. The person being surveilled has no meaningful way to control what data is collected or what's done with it. Even opt-ins don't provide meaningful data to someone to make an informed choice about "ads". Apple making some of the scope of their tracking clear is a step in the right direction for users. People shouldn't have to participate in a dystopian panopticon just to use an app or a website. If the apps or website somehow can't survive without surveillance that would give Stasi agents a boner they can fuck right off alongside Facebook.

shajznnckfke 6y ago
Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  For starters, it's not just browsing history but all of your activity on pages or in apps that use Facebook's spywa..."ads". This includes activity times, connections to other users, and even proximity to places or other people (Bluetooth beacons etc). This is all on top of the voluntary PII you might have fed directly into a Facebook profile or the shadow profile they helpfully created for you when your friend uploaded their contacts into Facebook. There's zero oversight of how that data is used or who it's sold to and what those buyers do with it. We've already seen a number of cases where this harvested data was sold to unscrupulous or outright criminal concerns. So it's not just Facebook using browsing history to sell you boxes of Tide. They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Facebook exacerbates this behavior by "advertisers" by using your dossier to stick you in a filter bubble while at the same time showing you content that maximizes "engagement" and nothing else. The dog wagging and gaslighting are not common knowledge or well understood by most people. Neither are the shadow profiles or the access of data by any organization that drove a dump truck full of money to Menlo Park. They're worse than the old school information brokers and credit reporting agencies because they feed all of your behavior into their graphs rather than just transaction history or public data.
  - bryan_w 6y ago
    > They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Where can I find one of these dossiers? Or at least a screenshot example of a dossier that someone bought from Facebook? Surely you wouldn't make a claim without seeing proof of this behavior happening. That would misinform people and your not trying to do that, right?
    - giantrobot 6y ago
      Who needs a screenshot? Look at your own[0]. Yeah I am[1] trying to misinform[2] people[3]. [0] https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/in... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-advertisers-data-brokers-car-dealerships https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/faceboo... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-ap...
      - shajznnckfke 6y ago
        Wait, you’re saying that Facebook allowing you to freely download your own data is selling dossiers? Complying with GDPR is wrongdoing, when Facebook does it?
        giantrobot 6y ago
        You're well aware that's not what I was saying. I was demonstrating the data Facebook makes available and what they build their Ad products out of.
        shajznnckfke 6y ago
        It sounds like Facebook is allowing advertisers who already have names and contact into for people (which is widely available info, so not too surprising that they have it), to target ads to those users. Is that what you meant by “selling dossiers”? That doesn’t sound like a dossier. I could see describing the user’s ability to download their own data as a dossier, but that’s just compliance with GDPR, not “selling dossiers”. I feel like there is some confusion happening here, where the data about yourself that you can download is being conflated with the name/contact info that the advertisers already have and use to buy ads, and these two separate things are being mixed together and described as “selling dossiers”. To be clear: GDPR data you can download about yourself includes the information about the advertisers who already had your contact info. Those advertisers don’t get a copy of the GDPR data portability document.

shajznnckfke 6y ago

Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?

rightbyte 6y ago
Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.
giantrobot 6y ago
For starters, it's not just browsing history but all of your activity on pages or in apps that use Facebook's spywa..."ads". This includes activity times, connections to other users, and even proximity to places or other people (Bluetooth beacons etc). This is all on top of the voluntary PII you might have fed directly into a Facebook profile or the shadow profile they helpfully created for you when your friend uploaded their contacts into Facebook. There's zero oversight of how that data is used or who it's sold to and what those buyers do with it. We've already seen a number of cases where this harvested data was sold to unscrupulous or outright criminal concerns. So it's not just Facebook using browsing history to sell you boxes of Tide. They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Facebook exacerbates this behavior by "advertisers" by using your dossier to stick you in a filter bubble while at the same time showing you content that maximizes "engagement" and nothing else. The dog wagging and gaslighting are not common knowledge or well understood by most people. Neither are the shadow profiles or the access of data by any organization that drove a dump truck full of money to Menlo Park. They're worse than the old school information brokers and credit reporting agencies because they feed all of your behavior into their graphs rather than just transaction history or public data.
- bryan_w 6y ago
  > They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Where can I find one of these dossiers? Or at least a screenshot example of a dossier that someone bought from Facebook? Surely you wouldn't make a claim without seeing proof of this behavior happening. That would misinform people and your not trying to do that, right?
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Who needs a screenshot? Look at your own[0]. Yeah I am[1] trying to misinform[2] people[3]. [0] https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/in... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-advertisers-data-brokers-car-dealerships https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/faceboo... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-ap...
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      Wait, you’re saying that Facebook allowing you to freely download your own data is selling dossiers? Complying with GDPR is wrongdoing, when Facebook does it?
      - giantrobot 6y ago
        You're well aware that's not what I was saying. I was demonstrating the data Facebook makes available and what they build their Ad products out of.
        shajznnckfke 6y ago
        It sounds like Facebook is allowing advertisers who already have names and contact into for people (which is widely available info, so not too surprising that they have it), to target ads to those users. Is that what you meant by “selling dossiers”? That doesn’t sound like a dossier. I could see describing the user’s ability to download their own data as a dossier, but that’s just compliance with GDPR, not “selling dossiers”. I feel like there is some confusion happening here, where the data about yourself that you can download is being conflated with the name/contact info that the advertisers already have and use to buy ads, and these two separate things are being mixed together and described as “selling dossiers”. To be clear: GDPR data you can download about yourself includes the information about the advertisers who already had your contact info. Those advertisers don’t get a copy of the GDPR data portability document.