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Spending money actually just guarantees you can be tracked, because now you're logging into the same account day after day, and worse you've tied that account t
by gpm 6y ago
Spending money actually just guarantees you can be tracked, because now you're logging into the same account day after day, and worse you've tied that account to a credit card.
The only way for the average person to browse the web privately is to not pay. Theoretically this might be solved with the right form of digital tokens, but you're going to need anonymous payments (not bitcoin, but monero), and some form of cryptography system that tells the website that you have paid without telling them which person you are that paid. Practically no one does the former, no one does the latter, and the latter would be really difficult to implement if you want to stop people from sharing their accounts with the world at large.
- sokoloff 6y agoIf the web standard was such that the site generated a token (a request for payment) and the browser sent the authorization to pay referencing that token to a centralized authority (that you trusted), then you’d only be being tracked via this method by the group that can already track you by disbursing your funds.
- gpm 6y agoThe site can track me across visits by the fact that I always have the same token? I don't trust the centralized authority to not track me, money based centralized authorities engage in extensive tracking. The people disbursing my funds cannot currently track me, because there are currently no funds being disbursed.
- sokoloff 6y agoYou as the user don't ever give the site a token. The site gives you a token. You then (via the browser) authorize your micropayment platform to pay that token. They pay them. They can track what you're paying (but because they had to pay anyway, that information was already present). The site can't [via this information channel] track you.
- gpm 6y agoAh, so this only works on "pay per page load"? You're right, I agree that that could work in the sense of preventing the site tracking me via payment information. I don't think that's as likely a business model as "pay per month", but ok. It still comes with the previously mentioned problem of the payment provider tracking me. It also comes with the problem that that sounds really latency inducing. > but because they had to pay anyway, that information was already present Already since when? When I wasn't paying that information wasn't present.
- sokoloff 6y agoSince the time in the future if this became a standard.