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vpShane

Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized’ ads

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perplexity-ceo-says-its-br...

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A web browser which tracks everything you do and you have to pay for the privilege…

It's kind of wild how the west draws this distinction:

If China does it while being responsible and taking into account cost/benefits on overall human well being, it's Creepy Big Brother Communism.

If the US does it and charges money for it (or makes it 'free' by selling your personal info to untrustworthy companies / selling you junk you don't need) it's an innovative futuristic privilege.

Cold War propaganda was incredibly effective through generations.

edit: changed "If China does it for free" to "If China does it" since it had some distracting assumptions

no one in this thread is calling the tracking in this innovative. Additionally the government doesn't do anything for "free", if you make 200k a year you are paying $8k/mo or $10/hour just to live in the USA.

> no one in this thread is calling the tracking in this innovative

I didn't say otherwise. But clearly Perplexity (and Google etc) feels there is a market fit for this, so I'm referring to those customers and whatever future customers might come. This is also nothing new. See: basically all existing social media and its consequences.

> Additionally the government doesn't do anything for "free"

I reworded this since it wasn't the point, and had some assumptions made about usage.

I think it's worth pointing out that in China it is the government doing it, whereas in the US it is private companies (in this particular context).

Um, obviously? You seem to have missed the point.

People ought to be most interested in the final outcome of each example.

Yeah. However wild some of the "America is the land of the free, China is a hellhole" takes are, there is a difference between a tracking system designed to try to sell you holidays and a tracking system used to identify political dissidents.

> there is a difference between a tracking system designed to try to sell you holidays and a tracking system used to identify political dissidents

I have a feeling this assumption will age poorly.

Why? People are openly dissident in the US.

On the HN front page today:

U.S. will review social media for foreign student visa applications

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44524749

History tells us it won't stop here.

Background checks on visa applicants is a farcry from digital surveillance to identify political dissidents. Although, I would agree with the notion that the US government has been increasingly becoming a surveillance state, but not nearly as pervasive as China.

Can you give an example of what China produces for free to the benefit of overall human well being, as well as instances of people calling Comet "an innovative futuristic privilege?"

https://old.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1lvoi0x/theres_a...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38242135-ai-superpowers

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523917

Are you unable to articulate your own response? These links don't do anything to help you.

They point people who are interested to the information without me having to spoon feed it to them. If you're not interested, don't click.

This is the equivalent of being on stage at a debate, putting a book on the podium and leaving.

The reason the live debate format isn't taken seriously by intellectuals is because it's not a competition in the pursuit of truth but in deception and theatrics.

Continue making excuses to not investigate the thing you clearly don't want to hear.

This reads like the onion

It's the same website (techcrunch) that OP posted too, but if you watch any of Perplexity CEO's interviews, it's clear as day.

This makes me rethink their subscription I have. So we just have to assume any search we do on perplexity is tracked like hunting dogs ?

Ah. Well this explains why they didn't go with the pitch that AI can be a sufficient adblocker, which strikes me as the obvious use of AI.

Just pitching to VCs...why would any person want that?

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