Jonsvt

I do think reading your mail for ads is another level of surveillance-based advertising. It is also quite personal.

Your statement below is both funny and misleading at the same time and I guess it is also why opt-in is often such a misleading term.

So you start with all pages that have ads, meaning most all pages that are tracked today. Then you add to that by "opt-in". Now, most sites are not built by hand. The tools they use may thus "opt-in" for them. Also, this method may make it harder to block the tracking, so you end up tracking more in practice, which is obviously why this is being introduced, as so many have chosen to use tracker blocking of some kind.

Your statement on "opt-in" really needs be reiterated. In many cases you are left with options like: do you want to use this product? Then you have to "opt-in". Great examples are Windows 10, that insists on you logging in with Microsoft. Similarly many products require you to "opt-in" to use them.

We need this to stop. Ban surveillance-based ads now!

I do not know which country you come from and maybe what you describe is correct in your country. I can say that it is not in my countries, Norway and Iceland and this has not been my experience running an international company either.

In any case, I think mixing the two is not helpful in any shape or form. What we need is to regulate what private companies can do. I think that is enough scope for this particular discussion and I think this is such an important matter that it needs to be addressed.

Google started as a search engine. Their results were accurate and there were no ads. Gradually they started doing ads on search results, related to the search itself. This was better than what many of the competitors at the time were doing, which was for paid searches to be at the top.

Gradually Google became more and more an ad company. In 2007 they bought DoubleClick that was one of the leading ad companies on the Internet. This was part of them moving towards providing ads not only on search results, but on sites as well. At the time most ads were site or context sensitive.

So Google has been making money off ads for a long time. More or less from the beginning. The big change, however, was the move to surveillance-based ads, where the ads depends not on the site or page you are viewing, but on the person viewing the ad. That is where it went all wrong.

I do not understand where you get the impression that the interest of business and state are aligned when it comes to data collection. I would say that in a lot of cases, it is rather the opposite. You seem to assume that the state always has access to the data collected. That is likely not true. There are laws that limit state´s use of data without cause. That seems to be missing for Big Tech, which is why we need regulation.

A few years ago the Norwegian Spy Chief was taking questions from the media. He actually pointed out that we should be more worried about the data collection of private companies than that of the Norwegian state. Their data collection was regulated and small in scope. Big tech data collection is seemingly neither.

Data collected by Big Tech can be misused by others. In many ways this is a significant security risk. Not just from data breaches, but also that people can be manipulated in groups. This is a significant problem and the easiest way to resolve it is to stop the tracking and ban surveillance-based ads.

Suddenly the tracking includes all sites and pages. That is not an improvement. Having an opt out or even an opt in is not the solution here. We have all seen how that works.

The tracking just has to stop. Google can generate plenty of revenue without tracking us. They were in fact making plenty before they moved from context sensitive ads to surveillance-based ads.

I guess the start of it gave that impression in particular. It is great you are giving so much of your salary to charity, but the fact that is the first thing you write as an explanation of why you do what you do does send a signal.

I also have a feeling you are trying to explain to yourself why the things Google is doing is not bad. So you twist things a bit here and there to make your point.

In any case, you are not in a position, I assume, to influence what Google does. Google is on a path that a lot of us do not like. We do not like being tracked and we do not like profiles being built on us. We want that to stop. You try to convince us it is not so bad, but the feeling I get is that you are just as much trying to convince yourself, but obviously I am not you, so this is just based on a feeling.

Feel free to read : https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge...

Really, FLOC is for me the ultimate betrayal. The browser is not supposed to make an ad profile based on the browsing history. It is just wrong.

Interesting read. Clearly you are struggling with your choice.

So in other words FLOC makes the browser spyware. Clearly the browser history is useful for the user. That is why it is there. The browser company has no right to take that history and turn it into an ad profile. It is just plain wrong.

These are not more private alternatives. This is just tracking using other methods. FLOC is tracking and it is in no way more private.

Clearly not allowing anyone to track is good for competition. Now there are certain companies that collect data from multiple sources. That gives them a benefit compared to others. But what I do not understand is how they can do it? How can you accept that your company spies on its users and collects data on them? How can you say it is OK?

FLOC is tracking in your browser. How is that not individual? Not that it matters. Tracking is wrong whether you are able to track an individual or not. This is not just about privacy.

I think this is one of the big misinformation being propagated. That somehow you would not be able to get GMail or other services if Google is not allowed to collect information. The reality is that Google did just fine before they did surveillance-based ads and they can do just fine when they stop doing them as well. There are other ad systems and Google can do just fine using normal ads.

That being said, there are great alternatives to GMail that you can use, both free and paid. FastMail, Proton Mail, Tutanote and Vivaldi.net mail are just a few options you might want to try out.

And some of them, such as Google, are working on FLOC... This has got to stop now.

The point is the FLOC is surveillance as well. You are still profiling users. This has got to stop.

https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge...

Yes, FLOC and similar technologies, are another way to track users, but this time in the browser. We really do not see that as being any better. In many ways it is really worse.

https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge...

I think you will find that there is a certain part of the population that has bought into the story that surveillance-based ads are somewhat needed for the Internet to work. It is just a story. We have seen from GDPR that you cannot leave any holes. Lets not do it this time.

This is not a question of leaks. The data is already in the wrong hands and actively being misused.

This is very much a recommended read for everyone.

Thanks. We aim to please. :)

There is a lot more cool stuff in the pipeline. :)

This is a priority for sure. We are getting there.

Thanks. That is what we are all about. We believe we all deserve to get a browser that can be made to work just right. Thus we have the motto : when in doubt, make it an option.

Thank you for your kind words about Vivaldi.

I was the co-founder of Opera and now co-founder of Vivaldi. A big part of the team is former Opera people. We are based in Norway and Iceland, mostly, with team members in a couple of other locations.

Glad you like our browser. We are working hard to continue to add really useful features, cool stuff and more flexibility. Our philosophy is that we all deserve a browser that works in the way we want it to. This means we listen to input and gradually add the features and options you want.

Cheers, Jon of Vivaldi