[PAR35]

It’s not the purchases being tracked that I object to - Walmarts have facial recognition on their self check registers, and they tie that and your credit card to track the purchases. It’s the location tracking when I’m outside the stores that I object to. Google tracks me, my phone provider tracks me; not much I can do about that except take the battery out of my phone. Waze tracks my location, but that’s legitimate - they need to know where I am so they can serve up traffic conditions and speed trap locations.

Look at the permissions on your apps. How many of them that require it really need your location tracked, or your contact list to sell to third parties? Access to your microphone?

[Responsibility2nd]

Tech savvy people know this and the ways around it.

[Myrddin]

Even more insidious is the hot microphone in your cellphone. My wife and I drive up to Idaho Falls once a week for shopping and lunch. It's an hour drive, so we have time to talk. Open up Facebook or Google and there are ads targeting the topic of conversation. Ads for things you never included in search terms. I've never allowed device like Amazon's Echo or Alexa in my household, but the capability has been slipped into cell phones. My employer forbids cell phones in parts of the company premises for exactly that reason. No FitBit or similar tech as well.