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Tracking has become so bad that it seems like users have to spend money (more bandwidth) to protect themselves from it. Crazy and sad to see where we've come :

Tracking has become so bad that it seems like users have to spend money (more bandwidth) to protect themselves from it. Crazy and sad to see where we've come :\

foepys 6y ago
Nobody would accept interconnected face scanners in every building they walk into but online it's somehow okay.
- shaan7 6y ago
  You know what is surprising? A lot of people will easily accept those face scanners too :/
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    A lot of people accept that which is beyond their control. That doesn't mean they are Ok with it, just that they don't know how to do anything about it or often that it's even happening.
    - franga2000 6y ago
      Wasn't there an article about paying with your face around here just a bit ago? People clearly don't just tolerate this, but embrace it. Only people from places where it's too late to go back (like China) are aware of the dangers of these systems, but they can hardly warn the rest of us and when they do, we generally don't listen as "something like that surely wouldn't happen in my free country". It would seem that people only get slightly spooked when a government does something that could impact their privacy (even when it actually doesn't - see the recent covid tracking app backlash in basically every country) but when private companies do it, they eat it up hapily.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        > People clearly don't just tolerate this, but embrace it. If there were an opt-in way of doing this, it wouldn't bother me. Similarly with online tracking, if it were opt in only, it wouldn't bother me. What is frustrating is the lack of transparency or ability to control who and where my data is collected.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        > Wasn't there an article about paying with your face around here just a bit ago? There's not much risk to 'pay with your face' for Apple/Google/Samsung pay given it's all on-device biometrics that never leave the phone, but a similar situation is when Google paid $5 to people willing to submit their face to help with facial recognition training in the then-upcoming Pixel 4 phone. https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/google-pixel-4-usd-5-face-data-scanning-confirmation-2077344 https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/google-pixel-4-usd-5-f...
        franga2000 6y ago
        It wasn't about that, it was about cameras and screens mounted on kiosks that you would just look at and make a hand gesture to pay. Not sure who was doing the processing, but it certainly wasn't anything the users owned/controlled.
- notyourwork 6y ago
  Amazon Go disagrees with you. We're moving that direction and I think the pace will accelerate.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Nobody would accept interconnected face scanners in every building they walk into but online it's somehow okay. There are cars with license plate scanners that wardrive the world. They scan plates in shopping centers, businesses, and even apartment buildings so on the off chance law enforcement, repo businesses, or anyone who wants to know where your car is parked can track you. People accept that. Or rather, most are blissfully unaware that it happens. If your grocery store added face tracking to their existing security cameras, would you even know it? Would you know if they sold that data?
  - upofadown 6y ago
    People accept that in the USA. Privacy laws in most countries make the free interchange of such information illegal
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      Fair point. The Wild West mentality in the US kind of sucks when technology allows even small businesses the ability to screw over large numbers of people.
      - novaRom 6y ago
        Even worse: foreign powers get that ability to screw whole country.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > Or rather, most are blissfully unaware that it happens. That is the problem.
- vaduz 6y ago
  Maybe not yet, but neither did we arrive at the current state where e.g. London has an estimated 691k registered CCTV cameras [0] (and many hundreds of thousands more unregistered, as you don't need to register ones that point only at your own property) in a day. Note that a lot of those are already interconnected and linked to recognition systems: TfL and various borough council cameras in particular as part of anti-"serious crime" initiative are an example [1]. Private exercise of the same technology is merely deterred, but not stopped by GDPR (especially now that UK is "happily gone" from "EU overregulation"...). And of course that ignores China which has cities that have both more total(Beijing, Shanghai) and more per-kilopop (Taiyuan, Wuxi) cameras than London. [0] https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-london/ https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-lo... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/business/london-police-facial-recognition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/business/london-police-fa...
wejick 6y ago
Which one more annoying for you between today's tracker and early 2000ish popup on top IE? Or remember adware on windows XP and how many antivirus tools advertised to eradicate that. * they're hilarious comparison but I found it amusing.

Tracking has become so bad that it seems like users have to spend money (more bandwidth) to protect themselves from it. Crazy and sad to see where we've come :\

foepys 6y ago

Nobody would accept interconnected face scanners in every building they walk into but online it's somehow okay.

shaan7 6y ago
You know what is surprising? A lot of people will easily accept those face scanners too :/
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  A lot of people accept that which is beyond their control. That doesn't mean they are Ok with it, just that they don't know how to do anything about it or often that it's even happening.
  - franga2000 6y ago
    Wasn't there an article about paying with your face around here just a bit ago? People clearly don't just tolerate this, but embrace it. Only people from places where it's too late to go back (like China) are aware of the dangers of these systems, but they can hardly warn the rest of us and when they do, we generally don't listen as "something like that surely wouldn't happen in my free country". It would seem that people only get slightly spooked when a government does something that could impact their privacy (even when it actually doesn't - see the recent covid tracking app backlash in basically every country) but when private companies do it, they eat it up hapily.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      > People clearly don't just tolerate this, but embrace it. If there were an opt-in way of doing this, it wouldn't bother me. Similarly with online tracking, if it were opt in only, it wouldn't bother me. What is frustrating is the lack of transparency or ability to control who and where my data is collected.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      > Wasn't there an article about paying with your face around here just a bit ago? There's not much risk to 'pay with your face' for Apple/Google/Samsung pay given it's all on-device biometrics that never leave the phone, but a similar situation is when Google paid $5 to people willing to submit their face to help with facial recognition training in the then-upcoming Pixel 4 phone. https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/google-pixel-4-usd-5-face-data-scanning-confirmation-2077344 https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/google-pixel-4-usd-5-f...
      - franga2000 6y ago
        It wasn't about that, it was about cameras and screens mounted on kiosks that you would just look at and make a hand gesture to pay. Not sure who was doing the processing, but it certainly wasn't anything the users owned/controlled.
notyourwork 6y ago
Amazon Go disagrees with you. We're moving that direction and I think the pace will accelerate.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Nobody would accept interconnected face scanners in every building they walk into but online it's somehow okay. There are cars with license plate scanners that wardrive the world. They scan plates in shopping centers, businesses, and even apartment buildings so on the off chance law enforcement, repo businesses, or anyone who wants to know where your car is parked can track you. People accept that. Or rather, most are blissfully unaware that it happens. If your grocery store added face tracking to their existing security cameras, would you even know it? Would you know if they sold that data?
- upofadown 6y ago
  People accept that in the USA. Privacy laws in most countries make the free interchange of such information illegal
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Fair point. The Wild West mentality in the US kind of sucks when technology allows even small businesses the ability to screw over large numbers of people.
    - novaRom 6y ago
      Even worse: foreign powers get that ability to screw whole country.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > Or rather, most are blissfully unaware that it happens. That is the problem.
vaduz 6y ago
Maybe not yet, but neither did we arrive at the current state where e.g. London has an estimated 691k registered CCTV cameras [0] (and many hundreds of thousands more unregistered, as you don't need to register ones that point only at your own property) in a day. Note that a lot of those are already interconnected and linked to recognition systems: TfL and various borough council cameras in particular as part of anti-"serious crime" initiative are an example [1]. Private exercise of the same technology is merely deterred, but not stopped by GDPR (especially now that UK is "happily gone" from "EU overregulation"...). And of course that ignores China which has cities that have both more total(Beijing, Shanghai) and more per-kilopop (Taiyuan, Wuxi) cameras than London. [0] https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-london/ https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-lo... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/business/london-police-facial-recognition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/business/london-police-fa...

wejick 6y ago

Which one more annoying for you between today's tracker and early 2000ish popup on top IE? Or remember adware on windows XP and how many antivirus tools advertised to eradicate that. * they're hilarious comparison but I found it amusing.