Imagine letting a stranger into your home. She/he carries a camera and perhaps a microphone. The stranger makes some promises about the content she/he might collect, but somehow those promises are unfulfilled. Who would be surprised?

These devices are called out in "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism". I can understand my mum not getting it. But Greg the software engineer? He shouldn't be surprised. Aside from software bugs, there's always the human element. Humans are far from foolproof.

For better or worse, privacy takes work. You want convenience? Then made privacy isn't your thing? Otherwise, grab a broom (to clean your floors) and stop letting (surveillance Capitalism) strangers into your life.

Yes, that sounds harsh. But The Truth can and does hurt sometimes.

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

> That add-on works great. On firefox. On a desktop. Of a computer I own. That's not exactly covering a significant portion of my use cases.

That is why you should be happy about GDPR as it covers all your use-cases.

GDPR is actually great but no one reads it and only listens some scaremongering by companies that are hurt by it. The problem of mass surveillance and abuse of personal data is also huge. But again no one thinks about it outside some cookies and ads.

Enjoy watching about GDPR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-stjktAu-7k (best done presentation that I was able to find on internet, you might notice in first few minutes that is not about you having access to PII but about using PII)

And reading about privacy and business abuse of it: https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr... (you will love Pokemon part).

There are more, but those two are best sources I am aware of to get you up to speed.

Then we can talk again.

Just remember, Google is the company that has surveillance on people more than the others. And they use what the capture.

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

Reading the book is definitely recommended. A lot of people have an intuitive feeling of how things have gotten out of control but she places the developments in context [0]. She is quite clear that "breaking up" is not a solution as it will merely create a cluster of replicas. She is basically arguing for banning the business model underpinning surveillance capitalism. There are many reviews out there, find one from a source you trust. This Harvard Business Review podcast has a summary interview ~30 min [1]

I don't think the issue of controlling information flow (which is a political hot potato) has much to do with the legitimacy or not of this business model. E.g., Newspapers are obviously controlling flow, may have biases from sponsors, advertisers etc but they do not create user profiles by collecting all the private data they can get access to, they do not modify news shown based on profiles and (in any democracy) there is a wide variety of them and you can always choose which one to read.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

[1] https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/06/surveillance-capitalism

Facebook and Google. Money. No way.

Those two companies are having absolutely no trust from my side, they have abused the trust so often, that they no loger know what the term means. I dont care what they do, I dont care how usefull their "gifts" are. Just NO.

They have seriously flawed internet and human society as it was (is) and there is just no way I will let them into my finance. One is goverment, something completely different is survailance capitalism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw and there is a book that I would put in schools for mandatory reading: https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...)

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." ("Beware of Danaans bringing the gift", reference to Trojan horse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeo_Danaos_et_dona_ferentes)

p.s.: people downvoting, you just dont understand what you are against with. Educate yourself, please, this is no longer the time of cheering for your favorite coorporation, the things have gone over the edge.

Mass surveillance (legal and illegal) already exists in many western democracies. They are just done for purposes other than healthcare.

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

Or some of us have obsession about unhealthy distopia that is at the end of facebook road.

May I recomend you a book? https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

Or, if books are not your thing, maybe watch Black Mirror - Nosedive (S03E01).

You need to understand that some people are older than facebook and have seen the tranformation of human society since the Facebook came.

The competition was what made those services better. Now there is situation where is almost no competition. Which is killing the possibility to get even better services.

Google has gone its way to the mega corporation where nothing else matters but money. And they are moving into direction where this money is comming from worse possible sources.

Regarding "true evil", to some people google IS true evil. And based of their conduct in last 5 years it is hard to argue.

If you want some insight, read: https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

> Do you remember how terrible email was before Gmail? How awful MapQuest was before Google maps?

No? There was nothing wrong with email without g. I am still using it and having my own mail server. And now you have OpenStreetMaps, I don't use Google Maps, when I want map, I want MAP, not map&ads&suggestions&search&reviews,..

This is an important, carefully researched book, one which everyone who is working with the Internet should read. The portrait of today's reality (and our future reality) is disquieting. https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...

This article reviews Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...). A worthwhile and detailed analysis of modern social computer systems and the issues associated with survveillance. The question is, do the benefits justify the costs.

The author of the paper, Shoshana Zuboff, is also coming out with a book soon:

"The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power"

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Surveillance-Capitalism-Future-Fr...