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I've finally come to the conclusion that user tracking is generally a poor practices and should be regulated. As a web developer, I didn't see it as a big prob

I've finally come to the conclusion that user tracking is generally a poor practices and should be regulated. As a web developer, I didn't see it as a big problem. We always do it to maximize ad revenue, find out where users leave to increase conversion rate, and simply to improve UX. But even when the intent is to improve UX, tracking is inappripriate. Imagine if a robot vacuum recorded videos of your home and uploaded them so that bunch of ML engineers can see and use it to improve the algorithm. Or the videos of your car's camera (both of inside and outside). I mean, I'm not surprised if this is already happening, but it's a disturbing thought and should be regulated. We can certainly develop functional services without tracking users.

oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
Advertising is the big gotcha here. What I think we need is for more and more companies to own their advertising rather than farming it out to third parties. We'd get better advertising AND it would be less intrusive.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  It just scales better to have web intern paste in a GA code snippet into their website and that's that - you get revenue and web analytics all in one. If you have to set up your own server (or at least your own subdomain that points to a GA server IP) then it's more likely to go wrong. I'm sure it'll happen, though.
thumbuddy 3y ago
It's almost certainly happening.
sethammons 3y ago
> Imagine if a robot vacuum recorded videos of your home and uploaded them so that bunch of ML engineers can see and use it to improve the algorithm. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i... Yup, happing. Recent news on a lady whose vacuum took a pic of her on the toilet being leaked.
spython 3y ago
"Any reason why my Xiaomi Robot Vacuum uploads 11.5GB of data per month to the internet?" https://www.reddit.com/r/Xiaomi/comments/9tgyrg/any_reason_why_my_xiaomi_robot_vacuum_uploads/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Xiaomi/comments/9tgyrg/any_reason_w...
thissitesucks0 3y ago
[flagged]
tensor 3y ago
Except you are not in your home. You are in an app, a commercial property. Imagine trying to say that grocery stores are not allowed to have security cameras, or track what isles are most busy, or count the the number of each item sold. All these things are under attack. I agree that cross-site tracking for ad purposes is bad, but this obsession with privacy goes too far. If you run around outside naked sorry you don't get to demand no one look. There are private spaces and non-private spaces, and I don't believe in eliminating non-private spaces. edit: and to clarify, an app on your home computer controlling your lights or appliances, that should be a private space with opt-in usage tracking for UX improvement, a server on the internet that you are interacting with, that is not a private space. While you shouldn't be allowed to track across servers, yes I believe the server owner should has every right to anonymously track the views and areas of the website that people spend time on, and certainly they have every right to track purchases and do analytics on them.
jahewson 3y ago
> Imagine if a robot vacuum recorded videos of your home and uploaded them so that bunch of ML engineers can see and use it to improve the algorithm No need to imagine, they do: https://homesupport.irobot.com/s/article/964 https://homesupport.irobot.com/s/article/964

oneeyedpigeon 3y ago

Advertising is the big gotcha here. What I think we need is for more and more companies to own their advertising rather than farming it out to third parties. We'd get better advertising AND it would be less intrusive.

robertlagrant 3y ago
It just scales better to have web intern paste in a GA code snippet into their website and that's that - you get revenue and web analytics all in one. If you have to set up your own server (or at least your own subdomain that points to a GA server IP) then it's more likely to go wrong. I'm sure it'll happen, though.

thumbuddy 3y ago

It's almost certainly happening.

sethammons 3y ago

> Imagine if a robot vacuum recorded videos of your home and uploaded them so that bunch of ML engineers can see and use it to improve the algorithm. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i... Yup, happing. Recent news on a lady whose vacuum took a pic of her on the toilet being leaked.

spython 3y ago

"Any reason why my Xiaomi Robot Vacuum uploads 11.5GB of data per month to the internet?" https://www.reddit.com/r/Xiaomi/comments/9tgyrg/any_reason_why_my_xiaomi_robot_vacuum_uploads/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Xiaomi/comments/9tgyrg/any_reason_w...

thissitesucks0 3y ago

[flagged]

tensor 3y ago

Except you are not in your home. You are in an app, a commercial property. Imagine trying to say that grocery stores are not allowed to have security cameras, or track what isles are most busy, or count the the number of each item sold. All these things are under attack. I agree that cross-site tracking for ad purposes is bad, but this obsession with privacy goes too far. If you run around outside naked sorry you don't get to demand no one look. There are private spaces and non-private spaces, and I don't believe in eliminating non-private spaces. edit: and to clarify, an app on your home computer controlling your lights or appliances, that should be a private space with opt-in usage tracking for UX improvement, a server on the internet that you are interacting with, that is not a private space. While you shouldn't be allowed to track across servers, yes I believe the server owner should has every right to anonymously track the views and areas of the website that people spend time on, and certainly they have every right to track purchases and do analytics on them.

jahewson 3y ago

> Imagine if a robot vacuum recorded videos of your home and uploaded them so that bunch of ML engineers can see and use it to improve the algorithm No need to imagine, they do: https://homesupport.irobot.com/s/article/964 https://homesupport.irobot.com/s/article/964