5 ms·

Who's "we"? I don't mind it. I want advertisers to give me more relevant advertising.

• dspillett 4y ago
  Depends how you define relevant. Since actively trying to block stalky advertising behaviours I've had more interesting adverts (by “interesting” I mean new-to-me, not the “do you want another one of the thing you've already bought all you need of for a while” types). Things are relevant enough if, for instance, I get running related adverts while reading an article about other runners or browsing shoes. In my experience the stalky behaviour doesn't improve the advertising relevance from my PoV, so the fact it means that all that derived information, some of it definitely PII, is out there so should anyone be able to hack into it they could use it for fraudulent purposes (identity theft, spear-fishing my contacts, …), makes the situation lose-lose for me. It is worse for other people, as they have information that advertisers like to derive that might be extra sensitive. Being white, male, cis, middle-class, ete, with a life not interesting enough for there to be much to convincingly blackmail or threaten me about, living in western Europe, I'm pretty safe, but this can't be said for others especially in certain parts of the world (scarily religious ruled countries with bad records on individual rights, like Qatar and America to give two examples).
  • xapata 4y ago
    I think you're conflating two different kinds of surveillance. The article is incrementing a counter to track the number of unique visitors. If one is worried about blackmail or violence, especially from a government, then one should take precautions beyond complaining about the prevalence of browser cookies. Modern life, carrying a mobile internet device with GPS service, using a credit card, and going to places with security cameras, presents a variety of surveillance methods.
    • dspillett 4y ago
      I was replying to the, well, the comment I replied to, rather than the counter method that started the thread. That post was anecdata about not minding being tracked, mine was anecdata regarding why I prefer we would not be. > especially from a government Where I to live in a regime like I mentioned above, I'd be as worried about vigilantism as much as government action. > presents a variety of surveillance methods. Fair point, but I see a difference between choosing to take a risk and companies trying to follow me around whether I want them to it not. Maybe it is my monkey brain that grew up noticeably before such tech was ubiquitous, said brain having been taught that being followed was at best a bit creepy!
      • xapata 4y ago
        I used to follow the "I should keep everything private!" mantra that so many software engineers keep. Then I took a gig in advertising and realized how much information companies have despite my privacy efforts and learned to "love the bomb" so to speak. To fight the problems posed by ubiquitous corporate and government surveillance, I suggest ubiquitous public surveillance. Like streamers do, but everywhere, all the time, publicly broadcasted. If I get disappeared, at least it'll be televised. > vigilantism There's a difference between being embedded in a supportive community, afraid of violence from outsiders, and being embedded in an antagonistic society, afraid of violence from insiders. In the former, ubiquitous public surveillance might help. In the latter, I think there is nothing to do but emigrate.
• mschuster91 4y ago
  I don't want any unsolicited advertising - and I wish our societies would decide to outright ban advertising: Outdoor advertising is a nuisance for the eyes, radio and TV advertising is annoying AF (particularly as it tends to be mixed at a much greater loudness than the program running, my conspiracy theory is that this is done so people are forced to hear it when they go to the loo), paper advertising (e.g. in newspapers, flyers or postal spam) is a waste of paper and online advertising is an insane danger for privacy and a vector for distribution of malware. Ideally, we'd have independent consumer protection entities, either government or private (e.g. German Stiftung Warentest), that would get products from companies to rank and test, so consumers could make actually informed decisions instead of being lured by hyped up advertising claims.
  • xapata 4y ago
    At the margin, it's very hard to tell the difference between advertisements and other media. Today I listened to an enjoyable podcast with 5 speakers, 2 of whom are employed by the same company. During the episode, they discussed a product that those 2 worked on. Was this an advertisement? I think any ban like that would have a "I know it when I see it" standard, which isn't wonderful.
    • nottorp 4y ago
      HN is full lately of blog posts about $PROBLEM that end with "incidentally, we're a company that sells a product to solve $PROBLEM".
• throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
  we the normal people
  • xapata 4y ago
    Most of us think we're normal, I assume.