4 ms·

> On the downside, some deep pocketed businesses subsidize everyone else's content consumption in exchange for some of their attention It's more than that. You

by pyre 12y ago

> On the downside, some deep pocketed businesses subsidize everyone else's content consumption in exchange for some of their attention It's more than that. You subsidize by giving up your privacy as these ad companies profile you via tracking as much of your web history as they can.

blutoot 12y ago
As far as I am concerned (and I suspect it applies to many others), giving up my privacy to a machine that generates customized ads (or even risking losing it to third parties for more ads without my consent) is a much smaller price to pay than the inconvenience of going through paywalls and stuff. This is true especially when there's no guarantee that the article/post/whatever-content being accessed is gonna be of super-high quality. These things have been well captured through theories like Privacy Calculus [0] which basically posit that privacy concerns can often be trumped by the benefits of sharing resulting in a net positive utility. [0] http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=privacy+calculus&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C33&as_sdtp= http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=privacy+calculus&b...
arjie 12y ago
Presumably if you have tolls on every service, you're spending at each location you're interested in. Presumably if you're doing this over the Internet, you're doing this with a credit card. Now you've just decided to give the credit card companies some nice information. In fact, this information is even more specific: it's the list of things you're actually willing to pay to use. So then we're going to decide to change cash (not credit) for Bitcoin (and hope that guy doesn't sell the address to a marketer) and use that everywhere. So the question then is who you want to be tracked by.
- edent 12y ago
  Not really. Your ISP could - for example - see which sites you are visiting and then make a payout on your behalf, aggregated with all its other users.
  - mquirion 12y ago
    And then the ISP just sells the data in a marketing profile. See also: What Verizon already does.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Flattr does this. You pay Flattr once a month, and they pay each site once a month. They just count up how much each user owes each site and makes a lump charge/payment.
- izacus 12y ago
  Except the small difference, where credit card companies are required to uphold privacy in much greater extent than some random SF startup ever will.
  - girvo 12y ago
    Are they really? Because IIRC various credit rating companies will sell your data to nearly anyone. In fact, a dark web group sold on legitimately purchased data from one of the largest credit rating companies in the world last year. I don't think these companies care about your privacy anywhere near as much as you'd think, and I don't think it's a net positive to rely on them.
  - nl 12y ago
    Credit card companies are probably the worst, most cynical violators of consumer privacy. They have been selling data on peoples spending as well as their personal details to companies like Acxiom for years before Google or Facebook were even created. There are almost no requirements in the US for them to "uphold privacy". Most privacy actions (by the FTC etc) concentrate on "online privacy", which is of course only one segment of what the CC companies deal with. Read [1],[2],[3]. Surprise, surprise: the default narrative of Google and Facebook being the aggressive upstarts pushing the boundaries on what is allowed is almost completely untrue. The credit companies and data brokers have been doing things that Google and Facebook wouldn't dream of doing for years. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-offers-a-peek-behind-the-curtain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-off... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quiet-giant-of-consumer-database-marketing.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quie... http://www.zdnet.com/global-consumer-data-broker-plans-to-reveal-your-data-7000013828/ http://www.zdnet.com/global-consumer-data-broker-plans-to-re... [3]
troels 12y ago
That's a side effect rather than an essential part of the model. You would lose privacy with other models too. E.g. micropayment systems would know as much about your spending habits as Google knows about your browsing habits today.
- mquirion 12y ago
  Yeah. Your grocery stores have known more about you than anyone for decades. And it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon, frankly.
  - miles932 12y ago
    They have the data, but trust me, they don't know.
imgabe 12y ago
If they had tolls and paywalls everywhere, do you think they still wouldn't track you to profile your interests for advertisers anyway? Your privacy is gone in either case. At least in this case you don't have to pay.

by pyre 12y ago

blutoot 12y ago

As far as I am concerned (and I suspect it applies to many others), giving up my privacy to a machine that generates customized ads (or even risking losing it to third parties for more ads without my consent) is a much smaller price to pay than the inconvenience of going through paywalls and stuff. This is true especially when there's no guarantee that the article/post/whatever-content being accessed is gonna be of super-high quality. These things have been well captured through theories like Privacy Calculus [0] which basically posit that privacy concerns can often be trumped by the benefits of sharing resulting in a net positive utility. [0] http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=privacy+calculus&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C33&as_sdtp= http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=privacy+calculus&b...

arjie 12y ago

Presumably if you have tolls on every service, you're spending at each location you're interested in. Presumably if you're doing this over the Internet, you're doing this with a credit card. Now you've just decided to give the credit card companies some nice information. In fact, this information is even more specific: it's the list of things you're actually willing to pay to use. So then we're going to decide to change cash (not credit) for Bitcoin (and hope that guy doesn't sell the address to a marketer) and use that everywhere. So the question then is who you want to be tracked by.

edent 12y ago
Not really. Your ISP could - for example - see which sites you are visiting and then make a payout on your behalf, aggregated with all its other users.
- mquirion 12y ago
  And then the ISP just sells the data in a marketing profile. See also: What Verizon already does.
- sp332 12y ago
  Flattr does this. You pay Flattr once a month, and they pay each site once a month. They just count up how much each user owes each site and makes a lump charge/payment.
izacus 12y ago
Except the small difference, where credit card companies are required to uphold privacy in much greater extent than some random SF startup ever will.
- girvo 12y ago
  Are they really? Because IIRC various credit rating companies will sell your data to nearly anyone. In fact, a dark web group sold on legitimately purchased data from one of the largest credit rating companies in the world last year. I don't think these companies care about your privacy anywhere near as much as you'd think, and I don't think it's a net positive to rely on them.
- nl 12y ago
  Credit card companies are probably the worst, most cynical violators of consumer privacy. They have been selling data on peoples spending as well as their personal details to companies like Acxiom for years before Google or Facebook were even created. There are almost no requirements in the US for them to "uphold privacy". Most privacy actions (by the FTC etc) concentrate on "online privacy", which is of course only one segment of what the CC companies deal with. Read [1],[2],[3]. Surprise, surprise: the default narrative of Google and Facebook being the aggressive upstarts pushing the boundaries on what is allowed is almost completely untrue. The credit companies and data brokers have been doing things that Google and Facebook wouldn't dream of doing for years. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-offers-a-peek-behind-the-curtain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-off... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quiet-giant-of-consumer-database-marketing.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quie... http://www.zdnet.com/global-consumer-data-broker-plans-to-reveal-your-data-7000013828/ http://www.zdnet.com/global-consumer-data-broker-plans-to-re... [3]

troels 12y ago

That's a side effect rather than an essential part of the model. You would lose privacy with other models too. E.g. micropayment systems would know as much about your spending habits as Google knows about your browsing habits today.

mquirion 12y ago
Yeah. Your grocery stores have known more about you than anyone for decades. And it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon, frankly.
- miles932 12y ago
  They have the data, but trust me, they don't know.

imgabe 12y ago

If they had tolls and paywalls everywhere, do you think they still wouldn't track you to profile your interests for advertisers anyway? Your privacy is gone in either case. At least in this case you don't have to pay.