You think you are in control, you are just a guinea pig......(-: (1 Viewer)

[buttons]

Stayed with some friends at the weekend, their son is a big bod in computer game creation for one of the largest producers. What he told me about the way the industry robs you of all your personal information and the way you think until it can predict and control your every move, it is quite frightening....Linking the type of Facebook friends you have with your interest and Google entries with how you spend your money with the web sites you visit with the games you play with your attitude to how you pay for things etc etc etc.
We are all just pawns in their world class chess game.....

 

[Mr Ed]

And the comments you make on websites ref political views.

 

[pyro]

for controversy again? Makes a welcome change from the usual Brexit and politics I suppose

This is not news, Google, Apple, WhatsApp, FaceBook, Mozilla, Snapchat, etc have all been exploiting or even flogging off personal data for years, analytics are big business. And very often, the returns from the resultant enhanced ad revenue help to fund the service.

Consider Mozilla's Firefox, it was funded largely by Google in return for exclusivity as their search engine. $330M a year, according to this report, and that wasn't enough for them. The cost of using Google's own browser, Chrome, is the access they gain to your personal data. Throw in Google's "free" email service, which is routinely scanned for key words and ad linked, and anyone who thinks their privacy isn't compromised at every level needs to think again. Companies such as Flurry make a fortune out of selling your private data to the highest bidder.

What do you think Amazon will be doing with all that Alexa data? You can be sure that Google will be doing the same, although with a core business of search technology and advertising, their use will compromise your personal data even more

I am not defending the practice, any more than I condone the use of an ad blocker such as the eponymous adblock plus, who effectively blackmail sites into being on their exclusion whitelist, so that they can then force their ads to users. And in fairness, MHF uses display advertising, and this helps to keep subscription costs down.

This is the internet, there's no such thing as a free lunch

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[pappajohn]

But think where we'd be without web browsers, or even the internet.
Spending hours and money ringing suppliers looking for that elusive part.
Waiting in for the postman or courier to deliver sometime in the next few days as no tracking info available.
Spending hours in a library trying to find info on a subject.
No motorhomefun to keep you occupied.
The list goes on and having your details sold on is annoying but a small price to pay in my book.
As long as you have good security there should be nothing to fear.

 

[chaser]

Stayed with some friends at the weekend, their son is a big bod in computer game creation for one of the largest producers. What he told me about the way the industry robs you of all your personal information and the way you think until it can predict and control your every move, it is quite frightening....Linking the type of Facebook friends you have with your interest and Google entries with how you spend your money with the web sites you visit with the games you play with your attitude to how you pay for things etc etc etc.
We are all just pawns in their world class chess game.....

Best thing is not get mixed up with google and Facebook, sorted

 

[EX51SSS]

I think this little sign is pretty apt.

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[Kool Kroozer]

Bordering Conspiracy Buttons be careful

 

[buttons]

Funny, my ex has started playing a game on her phone, it is free but required a facebook account to registrar. All free ho ho...it has now identified her personality profile and is recommending for her to add other players to her facebook friends. She says these new friends appear to have so much in common and they are at the same level of play as she is...etc etc I wouldn't mind but she only joined facebook to register the game. It is a tangled web we weave.....

 

[EX51SSS]

Solution
Don't join Faceache, Twatter and other apparent 'Social Media ' sites.

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[DBK]

Oh, we can certainly include Brexit in this discussion! It is only now surfacing but some of the tactics very successfully used by President Trump's team were also used by part of the Leave campaign. Specifically, the use of targeted advertising, including on FB and direct messaging.
The way it works is they identify individuals who are the most likely to be influenced to vote in a particular way. This might be done on demographics (a certain age bracket, ethnic background, living in particular towns, for example) plus of course people who have been identified because they might have looked at a certain website once and no doubt many other ways of identifying likely people who are worth influencing.
Once identified these people are targeted with political messages and what some people are finding a little worrying is there is no scrutiny of these messages.
Compare this with the case when the Leavers stuck the slogan about £350M a week to the EU. It wasn't really true but at least everyone could see it and comment, and so that's fair really. But when you have messages being sent to those likely to be sympathetic to the message, where is the scrutiny and balance?
An example which might help explain what I am no doubt struggling to explain, is the issue of how you would keep the common folk off your private beach? You could put a sign up saying "Keep Off. Private" but it would be much more effective if you put a sign saying "Warning! Shark seen in water!"
And here's the rub - it doesn't really matter if there ever was a shark. The message still works.
The Information Commissioner fined one group £50K for sending out texts, which drew the reaction from their wealthy backer of "Whatever".
The issue is using these methods a large part of the campaign is invisible and all sorts of promises and half-truths might be being spread and not being challenged. There are those who would like to regulate it but I doubt that is practical. It will no doubt just become more widespread and if all sides use it I suppose that gives a sort of balance.

 

[Langtoftlad]

As long as I'm aware that my meta data is being collated, I'm not too bothered that big business knows I bought a pack of fishfingers, or that I spend ridiculous amounts of time on MHF... all it really means is adverts will be more relevant.
Yes advertising works to a degree but I don't think these data mining agencies, nor their customers are as clever as they think they are, or that my info is as valuable as they think it is.

 

[buttons]

Solution
Don't join Faceache, Twatter and other apparent 'Social Media ' sites.

Me neither EX...

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[hilldweller]

We are all just pawns in their world class chess game.....

Took you a while to work that out. All the clues are there for you, all the adverts that follow you around from site to site.

 

[pyro]

Solution
Don't join Faceache, Twatter and other apparent 'Social Media ' sites.

The perfect solution, perhaps...

Don't get those store "loyalty" cards, enter "free" draws, withhold your details (as best you can) on electoral registers, get your home deleted from Google earth, sign up for the TPS, employ a VPN, use USB based browsers with TOR, use Hushmail or HideMyAss and follow that paranoid tin hat brigade into their imagined anonymity, but you'll end up shining like a beacon to anyone who really wants to find you and attracting more attention from people wondering why you care so much about making yourself "invisible".

Especially given that your local authority almost certainly know which route you take to go shopping or to work (ANPR & regular CCTV), when your home is empty, where your kids go to school, what car you drive, where you live, your bank details, your relationship with others who live in the house, your credit rating, your declared religion, how you votes, any social or police problems, and so forth.

To put it into context, who really cares if your local Sainsbury's knows that you routinely buy a certain brand of cat food?

Sometimes "hiding in plain view" works a lot better. It's a mantra that intelligence services have been teaching people for decades. Being one of the fish perceived to be swimming in the same shoal reduces your analytic profile. Sometimes

From looking at the Grauniad, personal data put up for auction realised £288. https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/apr/22/how-much-is-personal-data-worth. Why give it away for free?

 

[buttons]

As long as I'm aware that my meta data is being collated, I'm not too bothered that big business knows I bought a pack of fishfingers, or that I spend ridiculous amounts of time on MHF... all it really means is adverts will be more relevant.
Yes advertising works to a degree but I don't think these data mining agencies, nor their customers are as clever as they think they are, or that my info is as valuable as they think it is.

I think you are underestimating the power of the baddies complex algorithms...

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[buttons]

Took you a while to work that out. All the clues are there for you, all the adverts that follow you around from site to site.

Pairing you to a supplier hd is but a minor part of what is going on inside these algorithms. Beware...

 

[buttons]

And the comments you make on websites ref political views.

It is all done to confuse big brother MrED some might think from my posts that I am a leaver. When my true beliefs are........

 

[pyro]

It is all done to confuse big brother MrED some might think from my posts that I am a leaver. When my true beliefs are........

You are not the Messiah, you are a very naughty boy

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