What reasons are there for being concerned about companies like google and meta etc collecting data and tracking me?

Please understandnim asking this question from a genuine place. I dont want the quora answer, i want the tech savvy, security expert minds of my fellow lemmings. If thats ok?

What happens to this data? What can/do they do with it? and why are so many people concerned about google tracking them?

Do i as an average user need to be concerned?

If so, What sorts of things can i do to avoid being tracked? Preferably without too much comprimise.

ImplyingImplications,

People don’t realize how much data is collected, how it’s analyzed to determine things about you, and how it’s given out to nearly anyone. Here are some concerning examples that hopefully speak for themselves.

Data from fitness app Strava was used to locate secret US military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq by some random guy on Twitter. He did this by pointing out people running in squares in the middle of the desert. Imagine what America’s enemies could do with this information that this company will sell to anyone.

Ad company Xandr allows you to target audiences with labels like “Recently purchased a pregnancy test”, “Has a large gambling debt”, and “Has depression”. Once again, this is freely available for anyone to purchase. These tracking companies find out things that are very personal to you and then sell that info to people who might not have your best interests in mind.

Last but not least. Governments and law enforcement can access this information at any time for any purpose. Do you really want the government and police agencies to have a database of people grouped by their religious and political beliefs or their sexual orientation?

Hopefully you can see why the information being collected and given out to anyone is concerning. As to how to avoid it, I’m not sure there is any way besides government regulation. Maybe someone else has some answers!

tpihkal,

I just don’t use the internet, can’t track me if I ain’t on it!

slazer2au,

Oh you sweet summer child. You have no idea how much tracking goes on.

Rhoeri,
@Rhoeri@lemmy.world avatar

…. They said, on the internet.

Blamemeta,

Thats the joke

SharkAttak,
SharkAttak avatar

Guys I don't know why, but I feel it's a lie.

foggy,

If your friends have Facebook, and they share contacts on their phone, and they communicate with you Facebook has a shadow profile for your phone number. They still track you even without the app or an account.

tpihkal,

The only Facebook I use is a telephone book!

TrenchcoatFullofBats,

Joke’s on Facebook, all my friends are either Amish or live in anarcho-syndicalist communes

(Rumspringa can be a problem tho)

Adulated_Aspersion,

You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes…

registrert,
@registrert@lemmy.sambands.net avatar

Yes, that’s why I have two phone numbers. One with an official work number that I give to friends and business partners - Its basically a requirement to have a public phone number if one runs a company where I live, so no hiding there anyways. And then I have a separate number I never give out, for data only.

Oh, you tried to call me but I didn’t pick up? Sorry, I was busy/tired/generic excuse. But if you get on Element I’ll give you my private account. Think of it as a backstage pass, you’ll get in when nobody else does. You’ll be special.

Kindergarten level psychology that works surprisingly well.

phillaholic,

Are they both attached to smartphones? Location data can be pulled essentially equating the two numbers. If both devices always are in the same spot it’s the same person etc

registrert,
@registrert@lemmy.sambands.net avatar

Different tools for different threats. I’m not trying to hide from state-level actors and phone data is illegal to sell where I live.

And if I were, surely I wouldn’t talk about it on an open forum. In such a hypothetical scenario I wouldn’t even bring a cellphone, no matter if it’s a smartphone or a plain ol’ Nokia from the last millennium.

phillaholic,

My point is they probably know both are you. I have two phones too, it just depends on what your goal is. If it’s not to be tracked by the Google, Microsoft, and Metas of the world you’re probably failing.

registrert,
@registrert@lemmy.sambands.net avatar

How can Google, Meta and Microsoft corrolate two phones where one is completely devoid of any Google Play blobs if they don’t have access to location and triangulation data from the cell towers?

phillaholic,

If you somehow have made sure every app you use doesn’t have a meta tracker in it then maybe. Although then you get into the territory of being so unique by blocking everything that you become identifiable that way.

registrert,
@registrert@lemmy.sambands.net avatar

I use custom operating system on my phone and router. I analyze packets, firewalls apps and block known tracking system on DNS level since I run my own In/Out VPN.

I have don’t understand what you’re talking about. Maybe I’m just not on your level.

Thank you for the interaction, but I don’t think either of us will gain any more from this discussion.

phillaholic,

Here’s what I’m talking about eff.org/…/every-browser-unique-results-fom-panopt…

registrert,
@registrert@lemmy.sambands.net avatar

I’m aware of browser based tracking and have taken precautions to stop this. I fail to see how this is related to correlating two separate systems.

This continued conversation is wasting both ours time. I’m happy to discuss a different topic with you at another time, but posting links I evaluate to be completely irrelevant and perhaps even ignorant to the topic will only lead to conflict no matter who is right.

I wish you a good day.

Kerandir,

Interesting, where can I buy the info? Maybe I find something on my boss…

Professorozone,

I watch a YouTube channel called The Hated One. He explains a lot about how to stay safe on the net. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like it’s possible to be completely safe and to be even a little bit safe is a HUGE PITA.

Strobelt,

I remember reading something about a guy that went so hard at being anonymous that the FBI almost arrested him since it looked like he was doing something criminal to want all this anonimity.

I couldn’t find the source now

Professorozone,

Catch 22, man.

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

I'm sure there is a LOT of additional information about "what you can do", but here are some very simple starting points. You can do these today if you want.

  1. Only use Firefox with uBlock Origin installed/active for web browsing.
  2. Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). https://protonvpn.com is considered one of the best.
  3. Turn off location services on your phone (this will probably be controversial but I think it makes a lot of sense).

For more, subscribe to @privacy and read and support eff.org

Best wishes!

charonn0,
@charonn0@startrek.website avatar

It’s not for your personal privacy, or to spare you personal embarrassment. But rather because large-scale demographic data collection is dangerous.

The Nazis used such collections to locate Jews. America used such collections to locate Japanese-Americans. The Rwanda genocide was facilitated by tribal affiliation being printed on ID cards. In none of these cases were the data collected for the nefarious purposes it was eventually used for.

Information is a form of knowledge, knowledge is power, and power in the wrong hands is dangerous.

vikinghoarder,

My worst imagination is labelling you and selling your label to the companies they supply to, and how wrongly those companies can use that data, example: google search “prostate cancer” or searching for symptons associated with prostate cancer - label telling probable prostate cancer developing with this user - insurance companies denying insurance to you or making it too expensive. Now extrapolate this to what your searches probably tell about you or your state, and multiply by the websites you visit, the time you spend reading article/tweet/forum/post about a certain subject, where and how you comment those articles, etc, and being labeled according to their perceived likes/hates/problems about yourself.

kpaniz,

This. I remember that one video by LTT where he tried searching for a flight and he got a way higher price on the standard browser compared to the one with no personal accounts/cookies.

If I use search engines, be it to find opinions on a topic or as you said an insurance, I want those sorted by factors like the date it’s been created and maybe the reputability of the source. Not what the algorithm thinks I want to see or I should see in “its” opinion.

Steeve,

That doesn’t happen. These companies don’t sell user data and never have, they make money by being the only ones with your data through targeted advertisements. It’s not in their interest to sell it.

magikarpet,

My worst imagination is a nefarious entity using our data to determine if we are a threat or try and categorize people for some kind of psyop manipulation.

Something like Captain America Winter Soldier but more realistic. Even things like Cambridge Analytica show it is not that far fetched.

While social media companies and amazon may not have the desire to do those things, they sure make it easier for others by greedily collecting the data.

Amends1782,

Here’s a good example why you should care

gizmodo.com/signal-tried-to-run-the-most-honest-f…

Kage520,

I think the best example is for women. Imagine they can figure out, with 95% accuracy or something, that you are pregnant, that could be valuable data.

Now imagine you are a woman at a large corporation who just got pregnant, but aren’t telling anyone yet. Too early. Your corporation buys a batch of data and discovers there is a 95% chance you are pregnant. They don’t want to pay for maternity leave or make reasonable accomodations during pregnancy or pumping breast milk. They fire you for “unrelated reasons”, before you ever tell them you are pregnant.

Nothing illegal happened there really. You never told them so you have no way to prove they fired you for that.

Fleur__,
@Fleur__@lemmy.world avatar

Isn’t that illegal though

FontMasterFlex,

how so?

Blackmist,

Only if you have the funds to prove it.

realharo, (edited )

This is very unlikely, because if they did it to more than a handful of people, the pattern would become immediately obvious.

Kage520,

Not necessarily. It doesn’t have to be pregnancy either. It could be because you are 95% sure a Democrat. Or union friendly. Or atheist.

AngryCommieKender,

Bundle the “undesirables” in mass layoffs to increase the obfuscation of why they were laid off. “The algorithm said these 10% had to go.”

Samsy,

It’s called microtargeting, all big tech companys are sorting people in groups, just by their use of the service. It starts with simple things, for example: cats or dogs? And this goes deeper to your religion or sexuality, politics etc. Created mostly for advertising it got used by political parties. Check the Cambridge analytical scandal. If you easily able to sort the people for your target you are able to manipulate your targeted people.

Newest scandal for microtargeting came from the EU-Commission with the chatcontrol.

Rokk,

Cambridge Analytica stuff though I think mostly revolved around them identifying more vulnerable users.

I don’t consider myself vulnerable to this stuff (I may consider grandparents and certain friends a bit more vulnerable) - should I still be worried about them having my personal data? I obviously would rather they don’t have my vulnerable relatives data so they aren’t manipulated, but for me personally does it matter?

doublenut,

You not considering yourself vulnerable to this stuff makes you exactly the type that is vulnerable to this stuff.

Professorozone,

That’s kind of silly really. Consider the example above where the woman gets fired for being pregnant. Now just pretend it was a man thing instead. What if you are diagnosed with a curable cancer, but your employer only sees oncology and fires you. What if they find out you go to a bar that is NEAR a gay bar and they just establish a policy that draws a radius around them? I can go on forever. You don’t have control over what makes you vulnerable.

Jourei,

I don’t like the idea that if history repeats itself, a powerful entity can force the data vaults open and see who they should send to the showers. I could be on the “correct” side at that time yet something I did or said last year has the system deem me unfit for the noble breed.

Thorny_Insight,

I think if people knew the extent to which these big-data algorithms can figure out things about you just based on the links you click and posts you upvote then they would be more concerned. If it was just that they knew my location, age and interests then I wouldn’t really care much but the reality is that they probably know stuff about me, that even I don’t.

I simply don’t like the fact that this database exists somewhere because it can come back to bite me one day. Just imagine what a fascistic government could use data like this for. Or maybe not even that, but remember how we first didn’t have chatGPT and no one thought we would for years but then it just appeared and now it’s there. Well what if tomorrow someone comes up with an equally fun tool that you can put any person’s name into and it’ll give you access to all this data. I want my page on that app to be very brief and inconsistent.

I’m perfectly aware that it’s impossible to use the internet and not leave any tracks at all, but I want to make sure that my tracks are incredibly difficult to follow and preferably that they don’t lead anywhere.

hahattpro,

Do you want to leave trace in your live, or will you disappear without a trace :v

…

JewGoblin,

I used to care, but I gave in

mysoulishome,
@mysoulishome@lemmy.world avatar

This whole thread makes me want to quit using the internet right now…

SHamblingSHapes,

The US and UK have both used data from period trackers to spy on women and monitor for “suspicious” miscarriages.

Rentlar,

Governments in free, democratic countries are not supposed to spy on you without a probable suspicion of wrongdoing. Government agencies around the world get around that by “purchasing information” collected by private firms and use it to gain probable suspicion whenever they feel like.

Brekky,

Why would the uk care??

SHamblingSHapes,

Some people hate women with control over their own bodies.

Lycist,

An example of this I use on occasion is:

You date someone years ago and no longer are. You've moved on, but that person then goes and commits a heinous crime. The police decide that since you dated years ago, and that record of your personal info is stored on some database they have somewhere, they no-knock warrant into your house, and shoot you dead in your own bed (Brianna Taylor - Louisville KY.) because they think there's a possibility he was there.

TheWiseAlaundo,

This example is pretty good. I’m stealin’ it.

griefreeze,

Breonna Taylor*

ALERT,
@ALERT@sh.itjust.works avatar

All my life I give up all my data to any product of any company I use. I accept all cookies to track me, send auto-reports and telemetry, try to join all beta products and gladly report bugs that occur. I use one nickname everywhere it is available, my home address and phone number and all social network pages are easily googlable, all my profiles are public. I always say what I think. I’m from Kyiv, Ukraine, and I have never had a single negative occasion due to my Internet behavior. AMA.

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