My browser should be working for me. Not silently giving other people information that I haven't chosen to give them yet.
*edit: and they also introduced another annoying layer of latency, and what looks like a boring textarea suddenly can't keep up with how fast I'm typing.
This week I was in a support chat with my cell provider. As usual, despite giving myself plenty of time it went longer than expected and I had to be on a work call. I typed in the box “I have another appointment starting momentarily; can we schedule a call with a rep tomorrow to pick this up then?”
I forgot to hit enter to send the message, and then was shocked when she replied to the message sitting in “draft”.
You better believe that studies are constantly done on shoppers using video cameras. Or heck, just managers using their own eyes to look at how shoppers behave.
Sending keystrokes from a form I haven’t submitted is like putting the camera inside the fitting room.
It's their property.
A website (or app or whatever) is downloaded to my machine and then executed. So all this stuff going on behind the scenes is doing so from my property, using my resources.
I wasn't referencing intellectual property. Re-phrased: "It's their premises."
For example using an adblocker on my PC while viewing a website is perfectly legal. Same with scripts that interfere with tracking.
Now, if I go to the physical store and remove posters and cameras, I bet that will lead to some more resistance.
Websites are just some data and code that their servers send to my user agent. Once it's in my computer, it's under my control. Executing code and rendering elements are privileges and they can be revoked in case of abuse. If it's important enough to me I'll reverse engineer the website and write my own code to do what I want with zero foreign code execution.
For market research no. The purpose is very important (which is why it's so key in legislation like GDPR)
1. https://jasonmurray.org/posts/2021/thisisunsafe/
WARNING: Make sure the risk is fully understood. Someone may be attempting to impersonate the site or steal your personal information. If trying to stop data collection and exfiltration, delegating trust of all certificates to others may result in "tech" companies, such as Google, combining personal information with metadata surreptitiously collectied over an encrypted connection so that it cannot be seen or blocked, in order to sell advertising or advertising services.
2.
In the past Google has settled suits brought against it under the Wiretap Act. Some these cases are still ongoing. Google has not gotten the decisions it wants regarding its alleged violation of wiretaping statutes. Courts have allowed them. As early as 2013, where Gmail was the basis for the complaint, a court refused to dismiss all wiretapping claims. About four months ago, Google was fined $971,000 for discovery misconduct in one of these ongoing cases.
https://epic.org/privacy/gmail/Gmail-Order-09-26-13.pdf
Google claimed Gmail users have "no expectation of privacy".
https://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/googlemotion06131...
Scanning people's WiFi networks
https://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/...
https://www.wired.com/2011/06/google-wiretap-breach/
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2489385/google-seeks-s...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joffe_v._Google,_Inc.
Chrome, Google Analytics and Google Ad Manager
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2020cv...
https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/4a3sd8nnn/california-north...
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgpomedokpd/...