Data privacy is all the rage and people want to have an internet where companies need permission to sell your data and where you can use the FREE service without letting them tell advertisers what you actually like.

There are only 2 possible models for the internet

  1. A free internet where websites, browsers and search engines make money by selling your data to companies who want to sell their products to users.

  2. A subscription based internet where you companies don’t use your data but charge a fee to use a specific website, browser or search engine.

I can guarantee that all these people complaining about “muh privacy” would not like having a paywall restricted internet.

  • razorcandy@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    You could argue that users agree to exchange their data for convenience and free services when they accept the terms of service and create an account with a company that collects and sells user data. So it’s true that there is a degree of personal accountability there.

    However, sometimes you’re required to have an account with one of these services for something like work or school. And sometimes you can even be tracked when you visit websites without creating an account based on your device ID, settings, IP address, browser specifications, maybe even facial recognition used on a photo of you someone else uploaded. Technically you can avoid this by not accepting those jobs or attending those schools, or not visiting any websites at all, but how practical is that in modern life?

    I think your average user isn’t well-informed about the extent of data collection and how easy it is to de-anonymize data by cross referencing it, and businesses both take advantage of that ignorance/apathy towards privacy and downplay the extent of how they use it. I support more *transparency* around data collection and sharing policies.