It's the isolating arm of capitalism drilling its elbow grease directly into your personal life.
Company A tracking my visits to Company A's website = OK
Company A using Google Analytics to track my visits (while also enabling Google to track me across multiple sites) = Not OK
EDIT: (replying here as we've reached max comment depth) - I was unaware that it is possible to use Google Analytics server-side only (is this true?) but I hope my original point is still clear, DIY tracking is fine.
You misunderstand. There have been several commentators here on HN saying that they are moving Google Analytics server side. They seem to think that people are only objecting to the cookie or the presence of the JS rather than objecting to the pervasive cross-site tracking.
You can also just host the ga.js file yourself. Or run a reverse proxy or any of a dozen other methods to collect data and pass it to GA. Using the standard 3rd party tag is just for convenience.
I'm pretty sure it's the same mechanism used for mobile/app non-browser tracking.
If you want to see a simplified version of what this log looks like, run 'python -m SimpleHTTPServer' and visit localhost:8000.
Ofcourse people can(and do) sell their server logs to 3. parties anyway...
I'm not in that particular market, but I know people who are and tbh more often than not I think it's an arms race the individual simply cannot win. Unless there's a conscious effort from browser-makers to actively counter tracking practices, you should assume everything you do on the web is public and can be tracked by multiple parties.
This can be as simple as hosting a copy of GA.js yourself but there are plenty of options like using the server-side API if you have GA enterprise or just using a reverse-proxy like Nginx with some rewriting logic.
3rd-party only means it's a different domain (with security usually implemented at the browser level) - it's not some magical wall of isolation.
That's unsettling.
The answers to this are twofold: Better national information security support* and regulation; Consumer action to chose vendors that demonstrate that they value personal privacy and prioritise information security.
* Which includes not deliberately, as a matter of policy, undermining security technologies and standards.
In a pure capitalist model it is okay if Facebook shares all your data with advertisers – if you don’t like Facebook, just vote with your money and go to Google+.
"Sweden's industry is overwhelmingly in private control; unlike some other industrialized Western countries, such as Austria, Italy or Finland, state owned enterprises were always of minor importance."
In fact I think I can make a strong argument that capitalism relies on property rights and therefore the rule of law, which tends to support individual rights in general including privacy.
Especially in the US the balance has been skewed since forever towards capitalism.
Historically, Social Market Economies evolved in countries where the population was supportive of socialist and communist uprisings, but the ruling class tried to keep the economy, and implemented the same benefits as in a socialist system in the existing market economy (See Bismarck’s Social Welfare model in Germany and the history of Bismarck vs. the Social Democrats on this).
We aren't there yet, but consider that Facebook wants to use your social network associations in your credit score[2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/facebo...
I don't get often surprised by all that dystopian stuff, because I assume we already are quite fucked, but this one did surprise me. That's just crazy.
To be clear, I believe there is some disagreement as if this is one or multiple programs in China, but that doesn't really matter; we need to defend against the establishment of this kind of program regardless.
The trick where positive reinforcement is used to trick people into wanting to participate is utterly terrifying... because it will work. It's obvious that it will work, because it is effectively the weaponization of "high school clique"-style tribalism and carefully re-framed self interest.
But a state sponsored gamified social network where the incentives are all designed by the ruling class, and the penalties have the force of law, is pretty darn awful.
Hopefully the affected citizens prove to be as unpredictable and hard to control as others have in the past, because that's really their only hope.
It sounds like the system does not currently use politics and such, but the government would like to combine it with the existing citizen tracking system which is employer based.
And a BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186
I think the US system is fairly insidious as well and has more government influence than it might seem (look into "redlining" for instance and the role the government played). Creditors can know quite a bit about your private life (particularly if you significantly outside the mainstream) and I don't think it is that uncommon for individuals to share credit scores. In any case, I think it is worth considering how "social trust systems" work everywhere and not just in the worst imagininable case. It is harder to think about in the less obviously centralized cases.
European living in the US here. How do these systems assess recent immigrants who have no credit history in the US?
You will probably have to pay a rate premium unless you go through a lender such as a credit union that you have an existing relationship with. Your provable income will be your biggest asset.
As a non-US citizen, it makes sense that you will be perceived as a higher risk of absconding since you could leave the country permanently at any time.
Look at ways to establish at least some credit history sooner rather than later, as this will make things easier in the future. For example, even if you do not need a store credit card, you might get one and charge routine purchases and pay the full about each month. This avoids any extra costs and builds credit history.