9 ms·

The irony you manufacture doesn't hold. Yes, these products are cheap (currently free) no small part due to the market aberration caused by the tracking and adv

The irony you manufacture doesn't hold. Yes, these products are cheap (currently free) no small part due to the market aberration caused by the tracking and advertising. But it's not certain that they would go away if advertising had to revert to a model less driven by privacy intrusion. I welcome the day such intrusions are rendered illegal or impractical, so that the market can price these offerings appropriately. Until then, why not use what exists?

danuker 5y ago
> such intrusions are rendered illegal or impractical The GDPR was an attempt. Guess what happened? Everyone implemented it in such a way as to appear compliant but not necessarily be compliant, and to cause maximum annoyance to the user. What the solution is here is to have an educated population and powerful privacy tools, like uBlock Origin. [1] But of course, the surveillance oligopoly is developing its own browser [2], specifically to maintain control and make it hard to implement such tools [3]. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium... [2] https://news.softpedia.com/news/google-chrome-microsoft-edge-keep-growing-firefox-is-the-main-victim-530701.shtml https://news.softpedia.com/news/google-chrome-microsoft-edge... [3] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338
- frabcus 5y ago
  Voluntary use of tools like uBlock Origin shows the way, ultimately though we need regulation to stop the arms race you refer to. You're right that GDPR hasn't been enforced strongly enough. It is actually quite a good law (imperfect, but pretty good). I donate money to NOYB (https://noyb.eu/en/our-detailed-concept https://noyb.eu/en/our-detailed-concept) to fight for enforcement of the law. Quality for consumers has only ever been truly won by regulation - all major economies heavily regulate all industries. The market didn't make food safe, regulation was needed (see history e.g. https://www.hygienie.org/a-brief-history-of-uk-food-safety-law https://www.hygienie.org/a-brief-history-of-uk-food-safety-l...).

danuker 5y ago

> such intrusions are rendered illegal or impractical The GDPR was an attempt. Guess what happened? Everyone implemented it in such a way as to appear compliant but not necessarily be compliant, and to cause maximum annoyance to the user. What the solution is here is to have an educated population and powerful privacy tools, like uBlock Origin. [1] But of course, the surveillance oligopoly is developing its own browser [2], specifically to maintain control and make it hard to implement such tools [3]. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium... [2] https://news.softpedia.com/news/google-chrome-microsoft-edge-keep-growing-firefox-is-the-main-victim-530701.shtml https://news.softpedia.com/news/google-chrome-microsoft-edge... [3] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338

frabcus 5y ago
Voluntary use of tools like uBlock Origin shows the way, ultimately though we need regulation to stop the arms race you refer to. You're right that GDPR hasn't been enforced strongly enough. It is actually quite a good law (imperfect, but pretty good). I donate money to NOYB (https://noyb.eu/en/our-detailed-concept https://noyb.eu/en/our-detailed-concept) to fight for enforcement of the law. Quality for consumers has only ever been truly won by regulation - all major economies heavily regulate all industries. The market didn't make food safe, regulation was needed (see history e.g. https://www.hygienie.org/a-brief-history-of-uk-food-safety-law https://www.hygienie.org/a-brief-history-of-uk-food-safety-l...).