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Only govt action will work. That too concerted action by several national govts.

sneak 6y ago
Developing a browser (or forking the existing one) with comprehensive anti-tracking features would also work. There are a half-dozen plugins one can add to Ungoogled Chromium to browse the web in (relative) safety. It's not a nation-state level undertaking: six or seven figures. The problem really comes from apps, which are loaded to the gills with spyware.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  How can it do that when the server needs an IP address to send traffic to? Cookies just make it more convenient but there is fundamentally that "analog hole". You can Tor things up and obfuscate but if you can interact with them they can track you.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    > How can it do that when the server needs an IP address to send traffic to? https://github.com/bslassey/ip-blindness https://github.com/bslassey/ip-blindness
  - pabs3 6y ago
    The Tor Browser is a pretty comprehensive solution to that, especially in high security mode.
extropy 6y ago
The govt action is the shitty way out. This all is a classic there is not enough to go around situation. Govt regulation will make it more entrenched and "manageable". The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model. Something that satisfies seller's desire to promote their products and customers desire to feel respected and important. Preferably cutting out a middleman and reducing costs of doing business at the same time.
- hobs 6y ago
  As soon as you invent that you will be bought out or strong armed out, it is very rare for a new niche to be established wholesale.
- foobiter 6y ago
  There’s no business model better than exploitation, as evidenced by all of history. Nearly 100% of worker and consumer rights come from government regulation in some form.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model A fundamentally better business model already exists: make users into customers. Google should charge users directly for the services they use. Then they wouldn't need to resort to all these underhanded tactics to try to monetize their valuable services. They could just monetize them directly. Of course this is highly unlikely to happen now that everyone is conditioned to expect valuable services like Google's to be available for "free". But they're not free and never have been: the only question is how we pay the costs. Right now we pay those costs with our personal data and our attention, plus the time and effort we have to spend to try to push back against our personal data being monetized and our attention being incessantly competed for by advertisers. I would gladly pay in money to make those non-monetary costs go away. Perhaps I am an outlier and not many people would. But that just means we pay the costs in other ways that end up being even more costly than the direct money costs would be.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Fundamentally better for whom? Do you think Google has never considered that business model? I think it’s much more likely that they’ve put a considerable amount of effort and research into it, and concluded that their current business model will let them extract the most money from their products. That’s why we need regulation. Under these market conditions, Google’s business model does appear to be the best for them.
    - 6y ago
po1nt 6y ago
Do you remember Snowden story?
izacus 6y ago
>Only govt action will work. That too concerted action by several national govts. Any government action will be a compromise by necessity. Which is why I think EFF doesn't really push for it - even GDPR doesn't ban targeted advertising in full.

Developing a browser (or forking the existing one) with comprehensive anti-tracking features would also work. There are a half-dozen plugins one can add to Ungoogled Chromium to browse the web in (relative) safety. It's not a nation-state level undertaking: six or seven figures. The problem really comes from apps, which are loaded to the gills with spyware.

Nasrudith 6y ago
How can it do that when the server needs an IP address to send traffic to? Cookies just make it more convenient but there is fundamentally that "analog hole". You can Tor things up and obfuscate but if you can interact with them they can track you.
- jefftk 6y ago
  > How can it do that when the server needs an IP address to send traffic to? https://github.com/bslassey/ip-blindness https://github.com/bslassey/ip-blindness
- pabs3 6y ago
  The Tor Browser is a pretty comprehensive solution to that, especially in high security mode.

extropy 6y ago

The govt action is the shitty way out. This all is a classic there is not enough to go around situation. Govt regulation will make it more entrenched and "manageable". The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model. Something that satisfies seller's desire to promote their products and customers desire to feel respected and important. Preferably cutting out a middleman and reducing costs of doing business at the same time.

hobs 6y ago
As soon as you invent that you will be bought out or strong armed out, it is very rare for a new niche to be established wholesale.
foobiter 6y ago
There’s no business model better than exploitation, as evidenced by all of history. Nearly 100% of worker and consumer rights come from government regulation in some form.
pdonis 6y ago
> The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model A fundamentally better business model already exists: make users into customers. Google should charge users directly for the services they use. Then they wouldn't need to resort to all these underhanded tactics to try to monetize their valuable services. They could just monetize them directly. Of course this is highly unlikely to happen now that everyone is conditioned to expect valuable services like Google's to be available for "free". But they're not free and never have been: the only question is how we pay the costs. Right now we pay those costs with our personal data and our attention, plus the time and effort we have to spend to try to push back against our personal data being monetized and our attention being incessantly competed for by advertisers. I would gladly pay in money to make those non-monetary costs go away. Perhaps I am an outlier and not many people would. But that just means we pay the costs in other ways that end up being even more costly than the direct money costs would be.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Fundamentally better for whom? Do you think Google has never considered that business model? I think it’s much more likely that they’ve put a considerable amount of effort and research into it, and concluded that their current business model will let them extract the most money from their products. That’s why we need regulation. Under these market conditions, Google’s business model does appear to be the best for them.
  - 6y ago

po1nt 6y ago

Do you remember Snowden story?

izacus 6y ago

>Only govt action will work. That too concerted action by several national govts. Any government action will be a compromise by necessity. Which is why I think EFF doesn't really push for it - even GDPR doesn't ban targeted advertising in full.