I don’t know, man. I assume they have information they may find in a phonebook; data I voluntarily gave social media & networking such as my school or employment, demographics, relations, peers, & whatever they can glean from peers; my shopping preferences; rough geolocation from my IP address; my ISP, OS, web browser, content I’ve browsed. None of this information is particularly valuable to me. It would take incredible effort for me to code & host a search engine or social media site or the various other free web applications I use. I value those way more than my junk data that is worthless to me, so the trade-off is obvious.

The government has access to much more sensitive information about me: social security; government issued licenses & registrations; birth, education, tax, property, police, medical, telecommunication, financial records. Only the law & procedure prevents it from abusing that access.

Without online data brokers, anyone could gather much of the same, less sensitive information about me though plain observation, public surveillance, or interviews: only time & effort discourages them. Seems like a lack of perspective.

And while I understand that not everything is private, we have laws against gathering public data about people but only if you’re just one person.

That’s not why. The reason is nothing you wrote about fits the legal definition of stalking. A typical legal definition

A person commits the crime of stalking when the person either:

• engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts toward another person, including following the person without proper authority, under circumstances which demonstrate either an intent to place such other person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to such other person; or
• engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly communicates to another person under circumstances which demonstrate or communicate either an intent to place such other person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to such other person.

An element of the definition (circumstance) is sorely missing in your claims.

Stalking has less to do with information & more to do with (legal definition of) harassment. Simply gathering public data about someone isn’t a crime. Expectations of privacy in public are nonexistent. Your premise is dubious.

Nope: after the one-time costs (eg, shelf space) are paid, does it cost much to sustain?

Sustaining a web service has recurrent costs: at least power, network, maintenance or a data center subscription.

Indirect information is not a choice we have offline, either.

So shadow profiles come from either

• public information (not private by definition)
• information other users shared
• information 3rd parties got from each other or the former?

Seems like the problem here is information voluntarily given to someone & shared, ie, 2nd-hand information. Unless the information is sensitive (government ID, payment information, medical records, etc), can we reasonably expect society not to pick up information about us from our social network?

We can choose not to directly divulge our information, but even offline we never had serious expectations that others won’t disclose nonsensitive information they know about us or seen us do. Unless the information is legally protected offline, we never had a choice to control that offline, so we’re not owed that online, either.

But I should get a choice in who gets my information.

That choice is called not using their service.

After all, you consented to that website’s EULA that said they can sell that data to any other entity.

Exactly.

People who don’t care about data privacy don’t understand how much you can learn about someone just from ‘anonymized metadata’.

Some of us know.

Apart from identity theft safeguards, the fuss over data privacy of metadata that was never private and voluntary information (especially information that could be found in a phonebook or gathered from public observation) always seemed overblown & misguided. I know

• the internet wasn’t designed for privacy
• they have my internet address whenever I connect
• they can track my usage of their free service
• they have the information I provided
• they can coordinate with partners
• I’m consenting by using their free service

so why should I act surprised when they do what should be expected to offer that free service? People who do that strike me as a special kind of stupid: do they think the world just runs on magic?

Free shit in exchange for mostly worthless information & ads I ignore seems like an obvious bargain, but what do I know? Let’s stir everyone into a frenzy to bitch & moan about the ravages of targeted advertising.

You aren’t even right, either. Linux package manager repositories??

Open source gets income through sponsors, profit-earning partners, foundations of profitable interests whose success depends on it. Their continued earnings & livelihoods incentivize funding it.

No one’s success depends on services like lemmy, so there’s no compelling incentive for it.

If you can somehow arrange such a dependence for social media (of mostly garbage memes & idiotic opinions) to economically sustain itself, then you’re a genius & humanity will owe you a debt.

Torrenting clients and the act of torrenting?

Mostly piracy under constant legal threat unreliably distributing possibly unsafe content.

Depending on the charity of others for a service that doesn’t yield some obvious incentive to keep that going seems unsustainable. It wouldn’t surprise me for the system to strain with load & eventually fail. It already strains in my experience.

Freeloading while you can before the fediverse implodes?

Yup.

I understood sustainable implied in there.

Someone’s paying and the rest are freeloading: good luck sustaining that.

Credit cards and debit cards can be disabled at a whim. Prone to being fucked up by computer error

That’s the beauty

• if my card goes missing, I can lock it
• unauthorized charges can be reversed
• I’m alerted of any charge immediately.

Plus, they extend warranties on purchases & provide purchase protections.

don’t work when the internet is down, or during a disaster with no power.

Unless you carry around a large supply of cash at all times, you’ll be in the same bind withdrawing cash: ATMs & account ledgers run on power & networks.

Cash always goes through, though.

That’s a problem: anyone can use my cash without authorization. If they steal it, I have no way to disable it, and it’s more difficult to recover. If I lose it, it’s most likely gone.

Cash will always remain king.

Not in terms of security or recovery.

I could withdraw cash & carry it around, but then it won’t earn high interest.

More than maybe one. Some also accept deposits through stores. I’ve never used them or needed to.

It was easy to adapt away from cash, and I prefer the safeguards of credit & mobile pay.

Is that not the purpose of their ATM networks? Though I never use them, I read some offer deposits that way.

I’ve always direct deposited or scanned checks. If someone needs to send me cash, it’s always through some service like Zelle, ACH, or online bill pay.

I don’t like to carry cash. Cards, digital wallets, & ACH meet all my needs. I can see how that’s a PITA for those who do, though.

overdraft fee

Banks & brokers without those are common, especially online ones. I’ve switched to online ones & never had to think about them.

• They block overdrafts without charging a fee.
• Deposited cash often earns high interest rates.
• Large ATM networks or ATM fee refunds.
• Well documented policies.

They beat the credit union I had in every way, especially in the documentation (an unusual pain point with my credit union). Some guides

• online banks
• online brokers

Financial planning/advising services (perhaps through work) may offer good guidance, too.

Unless someone watched Borat or recognizes some Dune character (I haven’t & don’t), this context is shit, so I can’t?

Someone explain this bullshit?

Unless they state the risk & danger and support those claims with something concrete & rational (instead of leaving it to ungrounded speculation), it seems like peanuts. I like to set parameters around my anxiety & keep it real.

For decades, we had phonebooks publish names, addresses, phone numbers, and the sky didn’t fall.

alt text for accessibility?

clever

You use that word…

Because my precious data bellyachers & tinfoil hatters basically.

Am I the only one who wonders how to get this in Edge? I like my shit integrated.

photograph of monitor

Does OP know about screenshots (Print Screen key or WindowsKey-Shift-S which brings up Snipping Tool) or alt text? 🤦