Add to this tidbit that Google and FB have obeyed their masters in China on a variety of anti-freedom requests, and you have an industrial-government complex that is truly a threat to mankind.
I despise Google, but am forced to use it.
I hate it.
“permissionless data collection”
AKA theft.
The real problem here is that because these systems are in place by virtue of industry its nothing for the US gov to co-opt it and monitor you.
If they were just collecting data, like how many ice-creams I eat a week, that would be one thing. Its not though, its online habits and political views and also marketable information which they didn’t pay me for.
Because all of that is built into the infrastructure its also an avenue for bigger brother to monitor speech and behavior. When that’s innocuous who cares, when I start a political movement to gather followers to win elections against establishment? Then the Government might care. And what court will stop it?
Google is evil. I have been boycotting them for years. Almost every major website has google Java spy applets on them, that record every item you look at, and how long you look at it.
With some sites, (like even here at FR) you can (with the right browser settings) still use the site while blocking the google bots. But the trend is to not show you anything until you allow google to log your activities.
I recently quit shopping at one of my favorite websites, (Midway USA), one where I spent thousands of dollars a year for the last 10+ years, because they now won´t show you ANYTHING unless you allow google to watch and record.
I wrote to them to let them know that I wouldn’t be buying from them anymore as long as they require Google bots to run. No reply, despite me having been a good and loyal customer since they first started in the mailorder business 30+ years ago when they pretty much only sold brass.
Collect all the data on me you want. It won’t do any good. There is nothing Google or any other entity can do to get me to change my preferences in vehicles, food, drink, etc.
Informative
Thanks
A new tagline, after slight modification.
Bump
Ping for Android List.