it's the means by which they make them relevant.
No one would be cool if Facebook sent agents to your home each night to rifle through your drawers to learn about you and "tailor ads to you and make them more relevant".
That's the problem, the data-collecting and spying.
It is not too surprising that companies who can profit from it push the data collection as far as they can. It is more surprising/troubling how the people in general seem to either have completely capitulated due to the generalization of the data collection... or fail to understand the implications it can have.
Thankfully some people in EU courts still think that privacy is a right.
I suppose twitter knows nothing about me and shows me stupid gaming ads all the time. I click on them exactly 0 times. Show me something relevant to what I see on HN and probably will even find it useful.
If I can’t block all ads, at least show me something useful.
Not sure why we need a bizarre analogy here? The actual premise is straightforward and doesn't need abstraction.
every share button on the internet is basically a tracking pixel. who asked for that? nevermind network effects. nevermind intrusive, subversive attempts at tracking like the SDK shenangians. nevermind contact book uploads.
no, they're not invading your home. Gathering information about you from friends who DID let them in? Rifling through your garbage? A chase car to surveil your movements? Perhaps those are more apt comparisons.
Facebook is combining the information they have with information from data collection companies like Datalogix, Acxiom, Epsilon, and BlueKai
...
way more than you'd think, including race, gender, economic status, buying habits, and more
https://lifehacker.com/how-facebook-uses-your-data-to-target... (2013)
They're not selling personally identifiable information. They're selling generalized group info on categories people fall into for targeted ads.
I don't understand how this is a privacy violation or unethical. Especially given Facebook isn't hiding what it's doing, they're open about what they're doing. I assume the customers are informed and are consenting to this in exchange for free use of Facebook's services.
I think it was wrong for Ubuntu to sell user data to Amazon because their users weren't informed. Some people choose Linux for privacy reasons and that trust was violated.
No one who values privacy would willingly use Facebook. Facebook doesn't hide what it does, it's a consensual sharing of information. They even have a big button on their site inviting their users to try targeted ads. Everything they do is in the open.
When they start correlating with external payments sources they are
In any case even if they are I still don't care because they're not tracking me. Know why - it's easy, I just don't use Facebook. People who complain about Facebook collecting their information all the while continuing to use Facebook are not victims - they're just complainers.
If stopping it is as simple as logging off forever and people can't even do that, I can only assume that they consent.
People who want the government to step in to prevent something they could prevent by hitting a log off button...I don't even know what to say about that.
Besides even the criticisms don't make sense - eg complaining that they won't say what info they have while at the same time complaining about video tracking. How do you know they have that if you don't know what they have?
Talk to people who have downloaded Facebook or Instagram to their phones? They're tracking you.
Have someone take a picture of you, even incidentally in the background in public, and post it to Facebook? They're tracking you.
They're literally shameless stalkers who suck up as much data as possible through every possible avenue to do entity resolution to track individuals to the degree they possibly can.
This is mass, corporatized surveillance, and we shouldn't suffer it.
I would agree this is a big deal if it's true but I haven't seen evidence of it being true.
The rest of your arguments ignore the human choice aspect. Facebook didn't come pre-installed on my phone, I don't think it came pre-installed on anyone's.
At the end of the day using Facebook is a choice. Nobody has to have Facebook. I get by fine without it, without instagram, WhatsApp any of it. These are things people willigly choose to use and give their info to.
I think your arguments have weight only if their users are unaware of Facebook selling data to advertisers. You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that in 2023. I mean it's not just a choice it's an informed choice.
A step further- associating this entity with your identity is trivial with access to additional information. For example, a tagged photo or contact info uploaded by the friend or family member who uses the same networks or devices you do.
Maybe you have yourself sufficiently shielded and have excellent OPSEC. Can you reasonably expect the same from everyone else? Does not having the expertise to be as savvy as you justify being exploited?
Second more importantly privacy seems to be a watchword for tech people. Maybe people claim to care about the sort of privacy you are talking about when asked but their actions speak different. People use Facebook, google maps, leave location data on on their phones. Obviously people don't value privacy as much as they do having access to certain tech. Sad but that's the world, privacy seems to be a thing of the past.
We can all opt out by not using these services. To the extent that we don't there must be some extent to which we accept and consent to this tracking.
I care because I'm afraid of my government and want to keep myself secure from them. I also realize that's not the average person. My preference for privacy means not using Facebook it doesn't mean I get to control how Facebook does business or how people choose to use it.
My view is that ultimately people have to be responsible for the tech that they use and how they use it. We can't just pass along that responsibility to government or business.
But through democracy, they can elect politicians that can create laws to give authorities tools to assert leverage. This is what we see in action here.