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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

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?

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?