Multiple machines, multiple OSs, narrowing apps?

Posted by Dr Andus
Jun 23, 2019 at 08:32 PM

jaslar wrote:
>It happened in February (see
>https://thenextweb.com/google/2019/02/05/google-has-quietly-dropped-ban-on-personally-identifiable-web-tracking/).
>Google is also revising software to block Chrome ad-blocking extensions.
>(https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/14/17011266/google-chrome-ad-blocker-features).

Thanks for this. I missed the first bit of news. Yes, that’s troubling.

As for the ad-block plans, I’m hoping that clever people will be able to provide some tools to circumvent that, just like uBlock Origin guy or that Google come to their senses and stand down on this.

I’m aware that I made a deal with the devil. But as long as I’m able to block out all advertising, I don’t mind if Google analyses my patterns and monetises it in exchange for the services that I do like to use.

But if I’m unable to block the ads, the deal is off.

>The questions that worry me: (1) through the adoption of our cheap
>subscriptions and devices, do we hand over every click, driven ever more
>precisely to our deepest preferences (by a scattershot of images)
>((linked to sales)). (((linked to us, specifically)))? Yes. We do. (2)
>who has access to that information? Answer to this one: anyone with a
>warrant. Any third party commercial partners, unknown to us. Hackers.
>(3) Who can get a warrant? Local practice varies. But an officer of the
>court does not necessarily mean judicial review. (4) Has this personally
>identifiable information been misused by law enforcement, or by those
>unnamed third parties? Oy. Maybe this is a new thread.
> >But those two news items seem to be driving the heightened concern about
>privacy in the Googleverse.

These questions seem to be valid for most OS’s, and especially for mobile phones, and particularly for users of Facebook-type social network services, so I don’t think it’s just a Google-related issue. This is the brave new world we’re finding ourselves now, unfortunately.