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I clear all cookies up to 5 minutes after I've closed a site. I get asked to give my life away everytime I open youtube with no way to just block the request as

by gizdan 5y ago

I clear all cookies up to 5 minutes after I've closed a site. I get asked to give my life away everytime I open youtube with no way to just block the request as it used to be possible. To make matters worse, I am unable to select that I don't want to be tracked because when I select "Agree", it simply goes to YouTube, when I select to opt out it goes to Google's tracking servers which are blocked across my home network because I don't want to be tracked. So I'm left with no choice to press agree, or alternatively I can simply use an alternative backend.

mgraczyk 5y ago
Ok but just try not doing that and maybe you'll find that life is way better?
- gizdan 5y ago
  I'll do that once websites stop tracking me. I guess that's never.
Freak_NL 5y ago
Not to mention the extra cognitive load in dealing with all these opt-outs and configurable cookie settings. Everyone one of them is different, everyone of them is located somewhere else, and there is no sensible way to simply say to websites, with a single checkbox in your browser: I don't want to be tracked. Well there was of course; the do-not-track header. So now we fight back with ad-blockers and other privacy preserving tricks (like clearing cookies) to keep our sanity and make our compiled profiles a lot less valuable (although Google will probably still profit from it by pretending I do see ads and are influenced).
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  Personally it's very convenient for me, because I never have to opt out of anything. Nothing bad has ever happened to me and as a person who knows how the targeted ads business works, I'm confident in saying that nothing ever will. It's seriously liberating and worth considering.
  - spiderice 5y ago
    If you think "nothing bad has happened to me personally due to aggressive tracking measures" is at all a reasonable argument, then I can only assume you are incredibly ignorant on the implications of it. I don't despise tracking because I'm afraid Google is interested in me personally. But the implications at a societal level are ENOURMOUS. When you have data on one person, you can sell them ads. When you have data on everybody, you can change elections, culture, and widespread opinions as you see fit. Even if that isn't being abused today (which it probably is) the fact the Google has the capability of doing that one day is scary enough that we absolutely shouldn't let the practice continue.
    - mgraczyk 5y ago
      Do you have an example? IMO the benefits massively outweigh the downsides. Swaying elections has been done historically with newspaper and television. Fox news is still far, far more influential than Facebook for political opinion. Why is this different?

by gizdan 5y ago

mgraczyk 5y ago

Ok but just try not doing that and maybe you'll find that life is way better?

gizdan 5y ago
I'll do that once websites stop tracking me. I guess that's never.

Freak_NL 5y ago

Not to mention the extra cognitive load in dealing with all these opt-outs and configurable cookie settings. Everyone one of them is different, everyone of them is located somewhere else, and there is no sensible way to simply say to websites, with a single checkbox in your browser: I don't want to be tracked. Well there was of course; the do-not-track header. So now we fight back with ad-blockers and other privacy preserving tricks (like clearing cookies) to keep our sanity and make our compiled profiles a lot less valuable (although Google will probably still profit from it by pretending I do see ads and are influenced).

mgraczyk 5y ago
Personally it's very convenient for me, because I never have to opt out of anything. Nothing bad has ever happened to me and as a person who knows how the targeted ads business works, I'm confident in saying that nothing ever will. It's seriously liberating and worth considering.
- spiderice 5y ago
  If you think "nothing bad has happened to me personally due to aggressive tracking measures" is at all a reasonable argument, then I can only assume you are incredibly ignorant on the implications of it. I don't despise tracking because I'm afraid Google is interested in me personally. But the implications at a societal level are ENOURMOUS. When you have data on one person, you can sell them ads. When you have data on everybody, you can change elections, culture, and widespread opinions as you see fit. Even if that isn't being abused today (which it probably is) the fact the Google has the capability of doing that one day is scary enough that we absolutely shouldn't let the practice continue.
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    Do you have an example? IMO the benefits massively outweigh the downsides. Swaying elections has been done historically with newspaper and television. Fox news is still far, far more influential than Facebook for political opinion. Why is this different?