Surveillance capitalism.

[DBT]

Who posited any such idea?



Full of straw.

As is the idea that you necessarily lose ALL your privacy ‘rights’ in a public space.

As with everything I write, read it again please. You’re 0 for three now.

And the range of commercial transactions and markets so far discussed doesn’t seem to have gotten far past being toothpaste-related, for some reason. Monetising (ie capitalising) data by selling it to political lobbyists and parties or to businesses with political agendas and influences might be considered relevant

Goddamn it. 0 for 4.

in which area I think we are potentially getting further away from ‘good actors’ and possibly in an area becoming rife with propaganda and misinformation.

Fucking hell. 0 for fucking 5. Seriously, what the fuck?

It’s bad enough I got grandpa DBT wailing about how “talkies” will ruin pictures without you completely missing everything I’ve already very carefully and exhaustively laid out in your bizarre zeal to burst into a room like a precocious fat kid and stuff binary straw.

At no point did I argue marketers are “necessarily good actors”; at no point did I argue that people being manipulated into doing something harmful to them is a good idea; at no point did I argue that the “scope, subtlety and scale of the data collection and end uses is irrelevant” (the exact opposite in fact); I said that when you walk into the public space you axiomatically lose privacy—except for your thoughts—because what you do in public can be seen by the fucking public HENCE THE WORD PUBLIC; I repeatedly went “far past” toothpaste by specifically delineating the use of the same knife for political reasons, noting EXPLICITLY that it is there where the throat slitting occurs, i.e., “getting further away from ‘good actors’ and possibly in an area becoming rife with propaganda and misinformation;” nor did I argue that “capitalism is not in some way, possibly even closely, tied up in that” (I argued the false equivocation of surveillance).

And it isn’t “monetizing (i.e., capitalising) data by selling it to political lobbyists...etc.”. You don’t get to slip another false equivalence of “monetizing” with “capitalising” to try and shoe horn in Capitalism. The government doesn’t BUY the data from Google. Politicians and lobbyists don’t BUY the data from Facebook.

Congratulations. You literally got every single thing wrong in one post.

Your manner and attitude needs work.

 

[ruby sparks]

You don’t get to slip another false equivalence of “monetizing” with “capitalising” to try and shoe horn in Capitalism. The government doesn’t BUY the data from Google. Politicians and lobbyists don’t BUY the data from Facebook

Here are the data brokers quietly buying and selling your personal information
https://www.fastcompany.com/9031080...-buying-and-selling-your-personal-information

"i360 works across industry lines to bring unique data, technology, and analytics solutions to help our clients win, whether in politics or business."
https://www.i-360.com/

i360 is apparently owned by the Koch Brothers.

Koch Brothers Are Watching You: And New Documents Reveal Just How Much They Know
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2018/1...-new-documents-reveal-just-how-much-they-know

"New documents uncovered by the Center for Media and Democracy show that the billionaire Koch brothers have developed detailed personality profiles on 89 percent of the U.S. population, and are using those profiles to launch an unprecedented private propaganda offensive to advance Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms."

"i360's client list reflects that data superiority. The country's most notorious and effective political spenders, like the National Rifle Association, use the platform to identify and influence voters, as do Republican party committees, and U.S. House and Senate campaigns."

It seems big data is being bought and sold, by big player capitalists, and is likely increasingly being subsequently used for targeted political propaganda and in some cases misinformation and even lies, on an unprecedented scale.

If you actually, really think I'm having to even slightly 'shoe horn' either Capitalism or Politics (or the potent admixture of both that is especially prevalent in places like the USA) into the big data or surveillance issue, and if you actually, really think that politicians or lobbyists themselves necessarily need to purchase the data directly from google or facebook, for it to nevertheless be an issue of serious concern very relevant to the OP, then I hope that for your part you can manage to squeeze your arguments, like brown toothpaste, back from whence they came, into the rear orifice of the donkey costume they'll be wearing for your upcoming Christmas Naivety play.

And if you largely agree with me, as I think you probably do, then why on earth say rubbish like I'm trying to shoe horn Capitalism into the OP topic? Are you just being obtuse? That's so unlike you.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You were in fact producing walls of text

No, I was producing "walls" of legitimate counter arguments that continue to go unaddressed.

There never was a comparison to be made between a seventies storekeeper with a pencil keeping and an eye on customers, and the capacity to gather information in this day and age.

A vague hyperbolic assertion contradicted by your own source:

Your online habits can reveal aspects of your personality, such as whether you are outgoing, environmentally conscious, politically conservative or enjoy travel in Africa.

Sound familiar? Here, let me wade through the impenetrable "walls of text" that so befuddle you on a text-oriented discussion site for where I pointed out the exact same thing:

As I already pointed out, I can tell--yes, just by judging your book cover--at least a dozen different demographically identifying indicators about you and your likely buying habits. Again, where do you think the whole concept of target marketing comes from?

You are a certain age; a certain skin tone; have a certain accent; wear certain clothing, shoes, jewelry, tailored coats or tattered linens; are of a certain educational background evident in the way you speak, what words you choose, the grammar; how you carry yourself can tell me if you're sick or healthy; your weight can tell me if you're a man with a voracious appetite or a bird's constitution; the way you avoid eye contact or come up confident and direct; are you married, do you have kids and what ages and genders are they; whether you pay in large bills or small change; what items you look at, pick up, ignore; whether or not you respond in particular to a sale or discount or simply ignore those items and pay top dollar; and most importantly of all, what you buy on a regular basis, only sporadically and what you steadfastly avoid.

I can do ALL of those things in my head--and just by being a halfway decent store owner who pays attention to his customer base--and keep a running assessment on an individual basis and on a more general demographic basis (with a simple fucking pencil if not, once again, just in my head) that gives me a good sense of my entire customer base; i.e., percentages of women to men that shop with me; their relative age groups; their marital/family status; items most often purchased in bulk as opposed to speciality items; etc; etc; etc.

So why does the fact that it can be done on a computer as opposed to on paper--same fucking result mind you; a scattershot best guess at predictive choice--cause you to irrationally trigger?

A shopkeeper with a pencil who doesn't even know the names of his customers doesn't even rate when it comes to acquisition of private information.

And there's your boogeyman again. "Private." Except that the information we're talking about in regard to marketing is NOT private. There is literally nothing you are doing online that is identical to what you do in any other public space. Well, at least in regard to shopping. You are looking at items; bypassing others; responding to discounts (or not); in the men's section; in the woman's section; looking at shoes; looking at food items; etc., etc., etc.

And you are more than likely paying with a credit card, but sure, you could just pay cash. That won't change the fact that your habits can reveal aspects of your personality, such as whether you are outgoing, environmentally conscious, politically conservative or enjoy travel in Africa.

Again, all ANY shopkeeper needs to do is pay attention to you to make an educated guess about you for the purposes of selling you their shit.

Well, gee, you mean, from BAD ACTORS? So the knife that can cut a cake can ALSO be used to slit a throat just like I’ve been repeating over and over and over again?

Dismissing the risks does not address the issue.

Irony. Big fan. As I have gone to great lengths to explain--and YOU have done nothing to address--the ISSUE is bad actors and how they will fuck you no matter what. Why? Because they are BAD ACTORS.

The ISSUE is cake eaters vs throat slitters. BOTH use a knife, yet you are only focusing on the cake eaters while holding the knife up in wonder and amazement like you've never seen a knife before.

As to laws in place regarding service providers as it relates to marketing, they already exist. In regard to throat slitters on the level of governments, once again, they do not exist. Governments can compel any service provider to give them whatever information they require.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Your manner and attitude needs work.

Your ignorance, sophistry and reliance on cheap bullshit like that and "walls of text" are beyond redemption.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You don’t get to slip another false equivalence of “monetizing” with “capitalising” to try and shoe horn in Capitalism. The government doesn’t BUY the data from Google. Politicians and lobbyists don’t BUY the data from Facebook

Here are the data brokers quietly buying and selling your personal information
https://www.fastcompany.com/9031080...-buying-and-selling-your-personal-information

If you're not going to read what I write, at least read what you post (my bold):

The Vermont law only covers third-party data firms–those trafficking in the data of people with whom they have no relationship–as opposed to “first-party” data holders like Amazon, Facebook, or Google, which collect their own enormous piles of detailed data directly from users.

By buying or licensing data or scraping public records, third-party data companies can assemble thousands of attributes each for billions of people. For decades, companies could buy up lists of magazines subscribers to build targeted advertising audiences. These days, if you use a smartphone or a credit card, it’s not difficult for a company to determine if you’ve just gone through a break-up, if you’re pregnant or trying to lose weight, whether you’re an extrovert, what medicine you take, where you’ve been, and even how you swipe and tap on your smartphone.
...
Piles of personal data are flowing to political consultants attempting to influence your vote (like Cambridge Analytica) and to government agencies pursuing non-violent criminal suspects (like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

As I linked to in my own quote above--in regard to the Cambridge Analytica scandal--they didn't buy anything from Facebook; they did exactly what I've been talking about in regard to public spaces. They "scraped" (or "harvested") Facebook for information that millions of people willingly give up on an hourly basis:

The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal was a major political scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of peoples' Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political advertising purposes....The illicit harvesting of personal data by Cambridge Analytica was first reported in December 2015 by Harry Davies, a journalist for The Guardian. He reported that Cambridge Analytica was working for United States Senator Ted Cruz using data harvested from millions of people's Facebook accounts without their consent.

Iow, they did exactly what I have been talking about this whole time; the equivalent of watching customers as they move through the store and making note of what you pick up, what you put down, what you buy, what you don't buy; what clothes you're wearing; how you carry yourself; whether you pay in big bills or small change; are you educated, worldly or a red-neck bum; etc., etc., etc.

The publisher of your piece--FastCompany--even noted they do it too:

(Browser cookies and trackers are a major part of this infrastructure, and like many websites, Fast Company’s site relies on them in order to serve content and ads. To curtail that tracking, you can use a web browser with tracker-blocking software.)

In regard to i360 and the Koch Brothers--no doubt throat slitters--they too harvested data, not bought it. Note:






And, btw, note the bit you missed in your own quote from the Koch brothers article (my bold):

New documents uncovered by the Center for Media and Democracy show that the billionaire Koch brothers have developed detailed personality profiles on 89 percent of the U.S. population, and are using those profiles to launch an unprecedented private propaganda offensive to advance Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms.

Which didn't work out that well for them, did it. Russia conducted a far more massive information warfare campaign, but even that campaign could only move the needle a miniscule amount. It just happens that in regard to our anachronistic EC-based system, that miniscule move was enough, but the reason it was effective at all was because it was clandestine. You didn't know that the shit you were liking and sharing and otherwise being inundated with was part of a massive, coordinated propaganda warfare machine.

What the Koch brothers--and, yes, Dems as well--do with the information they have harvested from public records and other means of gathering such data (surveys, deeds, general estimates of neighborhood home values; etc, iow, the exact same shit I've been talking about from post one) is use it to send politically-based messages that, by law, must disclose that fact so if they are not doing so, then they are bad actors in violation of existing laws.

Which has fuck-all to do with marketers and companies using service provider marketing tools to advertise their products!

ONCE AGAIN AND FOR AULD LANG SYNE, YOU ARE ANGRY AT THE THROAT SLITTERS, BUT FOCUSING ON THE CAKE EATERS.

Why? Because you get annoyed by having to click "delete" in your junk email folder?

It seems big data is being bought and sold

Not in the manner you and DBT are misconstruing. The only data that can be bought or sold is data that has been legally consented to, unless, once again, we're talking about black market bad actors. If you haven't seen such a disclaimer--most commonly referred to as a confidentiality agreement--then you're fucking blind as they must be provided by every service provider so that you can consent to exactly what information of yours you will allow them to sell.

The vast majority of the data you're talking about, however, is right out there open in the public square freely given by millions of instagram idiots and soccer moms on Facebook. For the most part--the legal part--what these people are doing is collecting ("harvesting" "scraping") all of that benign idiocy that narcissists just LOVE to live out loud with on all of these social media platforms (the non-private nature of which is literally in the fucking name of the medium), just like has been done by marketers for literally centuries and in the same manner as I have been pointing out. Just by being attentive to all the shit people do in public squares.

Which leaves us, ONCE AGAIN at the REAL issue, which is BAD ACTORS and what to do about them.

If you are walking through the town square, then you are in the public space and I can observe your behavior all I want and make notes about what you buy and how you're dressed and what food you eat, etc., etc., etc. You can't stop me from doing that. That's what it means to be in a PUBLIC SPACE.

The only argument that could be made is cyber stalking, except that, unless there is some quantifiable harm being done to you as a result of that stalking--and not merely me being attentive to what is happening around me in the public square and using my observations to give you a 10% discount--it's not criminal activity.

ESPECIALLY if, under the TOS, you are AGREEING to let me do it.

You are well within your rights to NOT agree to TOS. But, AGAIN governments aren't required to agree to your NOT agreeing. Private businesses are, but governments are not.

Cake eaters or throat slitters.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your manner and attitude needs work.

Which in no way rebuts his argument.

 

[ruby sparks]

If you're not going to read what I write, at least read what you post (my bold):

The Vermont law only covers third-party data firms–those trafficking in the data of people with whom they have no relationship–as opposed to “first-party” data holders like Amazon, Facebook, or Google, which collect their own enormous piles of detailed data directly from users.

By buying or licensing data or scraping public records, third-party data companies can assemble thousands of attributes each for billions of people. For decades, companies could buy up lists of magazines subscribers to build targeted advertising audiences. These days, if you use a smartphone or a credit card, it’s not difficult for a company to determine if you’ve just gone through a break-up, if you’re pregnant or trying to lose weight, whether you’re an extrovert, what medicine you take, where you’ve been, and even how you swipe and tap on your smartphone.
...
Piles of personal data are flowing to political consultants attempting to influence your vote (like Cambridge Analytica) and to government agencies pursuing non-violent criminal suspects (like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

As I linked to in my own quote above--in regard to the Cambridge Analytica scandal--they didn't buy anything from Facebook; they did exactly what I've been talking about in regard to public spaces. They "scraped" (or "harvested") Facebook for information that millions of people willingly give up on an hourly basis:

The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal was a major political scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of peoples' Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political advertising purposes....The illicit harvesting of personal data by Cambridge Analytica was first reported in December 2015 by Harry Davies, a journalist for The Guardian. He reported that Cambridge Analytica was working for United States Senator Ted Cruz using data harvested from millions of people's Facebook accounts without their consent.

Iow, they did exactly what I have been talking about this whole time; the equivalent of watching customers as they move through the store and making note of what you pick up, what you put down, what you buy, what you don't buy; what clothes you're wearing; how you carry yourself; whether you pay in big bills or small change; are you educated, worldly or a red-neck bum; etc., etc., etc.

The publisher of your piece--FastCompany--even noted they do it too:

(Browser cookies and trackers are a major part of this infrastructure, and like many websites, Fast Company’s site relies on them in order to serve content and ads. To curtail that tracking, you can use a web browser with tracker-blocking software.)

In regard to i360 and the Koch Brothers--no doubt throat slitters--they too harvested data, not bought it. Note:

View attachment 25131
View attachment 25132
View attachment 25133
View attachment 25134

And, btw, note the bit you missed in your own quote from the Koch brothers article (my bold):

New documents uncovered by the Center for Media and Democracy show that the billionaire Koch brothers have developed detailed personality profiles on 89 percent of the U.S. population, and are using those profiles to launch an unprecedented private propaganda offensive to advance Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms.

Which didn't work out that well for them, did it. Russia conducted a far more massive information warfare campaign, but even that campaign could only move the needle a miniscule amount. It just happens that in regard to our anachronistic EC-based system, that miniscule move was enough, but the reason it was effective at all was because it was clandestine. You didn't know that the shit you were liking and sharing and otherwise being inundated with was part of a massive, coordinated propaganda warfare machine.

What the Koch brothers--and, yes, Dems as well--do with the information they have harvested from public records and other means of gathering such data (surveys, deeds, general estimates of neighborhood home values; etc, iow, the exact same shit I've been talking about from post one) is use it to send politically-based messages that, by law, must disclose that fact so if they are not doing so, then they are bad actors in violation of existing laws.

Which has fuck-all to do with marketers and companies using service provider marketing tools to advertise their products!

ONCE AGAIN AND FOR AULD LANG SYNE, YOU ARE ANGRY AT THE THROAT SLITTERS, BUT FOCUSING ON THE CAKE EATERS.

Why? Because you get annoyed by having to click "delete" in your junk email folder?

It seems big data is being bought and sold

Not in the manner you and DBT are misconstruing. The only data that can be bought or sold is data that has been legally consented to, unless, once again, we're talking about black market bad actors. If you haven't seen such a disclaimer--most commonly referred to as a confidentiality agreement--then you're fucking blind as they must be provided by every service provider so that you can consent to exactly what information of yours you will allow them to sell.

The vast majority of the data you're talking about, however, is right out there open in the public square freely given by millions of instagram idiots and soccer moms on Facebook. For the most part--the legal part--what these people are doing is collecting ("harvesting" "scraping") all of that benign idiocy that narcissists just LOVE to live out loud with on all of these social media platforms (the non-private nature of which is literally in the fucking name of the medium), just like has been done by marketers for literally centuries and in the same manner as I have been pointing out. Just by being attentive to all the shit people do in public squares.

Which leaves us, ONCE AGAIN at the REAL issue, which is BAD ACTORS and what to do about them.

If you are walking through the town square, then you are in the public space and I can observe your behavior all I want and make notes about what you buy and how you're dressed and what food you eat, etc., etc., etc. You can't stop me from doing that. That's what it means to be in a PUBLIC SPACE.

The only argument that could be made is cyber stalking, except that, unless there is some quantifiable harm being done to you as a result of that stalking--and not merely me being attentive to what is happening around me in the public square and using my observations to give you a 10% discount--it's not criminal activity.

ESPECIALLY if, under the TOS, you are AGREEING to let me do it.

You are well within your rights to NOT agree to TOS. But, AGAIN governments aren't required to agree to your NOT agreeing. Private businesses are, but governments are not.

Cake eaters or throat slitters.

I have very little idea what that rant was meant to be about, or why you are artificially limiting the scope of the discussion, other than to back up the limited point you are making about only some aspects of this. And this weird claim about me focusing on the cake eaters seems like a complete straw man, since I’m not limiting my concerns in that fashion.

All I know is that you said that capitalism had to be shoe-horned into the issue, and that’s obviously untenable. So what if the Koch brothers don’t buy the data but only harvest it and sell it? It doesn’t mean there’s no worrying relationship between capitalism and big data, does it?

And I think it’s possible you are understating the privacy issue and the harvesting in any case. It’s not hard to find reports of personal data being harvested without consent and collected even if the user denies permissions.

For Example:

“Permission denied? Thousands of Android apps still collect critical data without consent.”

https://www.medianama.com/2019/07/223-permission-denied-thousands-of-android-apps-still-collect-critical-data-without-consent-study/

Here’s a suggestion, unless what that article basically says is incorrect, don’t bother to come back with an extensive and convoluted analysis of it that misses the essential point, because imo you’ve inexplicably been doing a heck of a lot of that sort of thing already.

 

[DBT]

Your manner and attitude needs work.

Which in no way rebuts his argument.

I was commenting on his manner and attitude. I had already pointed out the problems with his argument and supplied abundant information on the problems relating to unregulated gathering of personal information.

 

[DBT]

Your manner and attitude needs work.

Your ignorance, sophistry and reliance on cheap bullshit like that and "walls of text" are beyond redemption.

The fact is that you do produce walls of rambling text. Which means that is is virtually impossible to deal with everything you say and claim without producing even larger walls of text. Like it or not, that is a legitimate complaint.

As for sophistry, it is beyond ridiculous to post a picture of a pencil when it was pointed out that information gathering on the scale and scope that we now have prior to computerization and the internet. To even suggest that there is a comparison between a seventies storekeeper with a pencil and our world wide network of computers in terms of information gathering is staggering.

 

[DBT]

Not in the manner you and DBT are misconstruing. The only data that can be bought or sold is data that has been legally consented to, unless, once again, we're talking about black market bad actors.

Crock.

The average consumer has no idea of what information is being acquired about them or who has access to it. And for what benefit, personalized ads?

Marketeers can stick their personalized ads right where the sun doesn't shine.

Who Buys, Sells, and Barters My Personal Data?

The trade-off between the data you give and the services you get may or may not be worth it, but another breed of business amasses, analyzes, and sells your information without giving you anything at all: data brokers. These firms compile info from publicly available sources like property records, marriage licenses, and court cases. They may also gather your medical records, browsing history, social media connections, and online purchases. Depending on where you live, data brokers might even purchase your information from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Don’t have a driver’s license? Retail stores sell info to data brokers, too.

 

[KeepTalking]

Not in the manner you and DBT are misconstruing. The only data that can be bought or sold is data that has been legally consented to, unless, once again, we're talking about black market bad actors.

Crock.

The average consumer has no idea of what information is being acquired about them or who has access to it.

That may be correct, but what you are failing to realize is that that they had the ability to know what information is being acquired if they cared. Every lawful entity that acquired that information had to disclose that they were doing so, before doing so.

And for what benefit, personalized ads?

That is one of the benefits, yes. Other benefits include a website knowing who you are when you go back to it, so you don't have to provide the information over and over again, loyalty programs that provide discounts, and a lot of other things that you do not even have to think about while online, but would be quite an inconvenience for people if that information were not being collected. But the key is, you had/have the control. You can deny every TOS presented to you, if you don't think the convenience is worth it.

Marketeers can stick their personalized ads right where the sun doesn't shine.

I bet your local shop owners just love you.

Shop Owner: "Oh hi, DBT, good to see you today. I just got a shipment of X in, but not as much as I ordered, and they are selling like hotcakes. Anyway, I saved some for you because I knew you would be in today, and I know you really like X..."

DBT: "How dare you, you sonuvabitch?! Stick it where the sun don't shine, and mind your own goddamn business! You just forget everything you know about me, including my name, or I will never frequent your shop again."

 

[ruby sparks]

Just for the record, things like targeted ads and suchlike do not really bother me. I know they pop up because of my browsing history and I see getting them as part of the price for having the convenience of the internet. Unlike some people, I have never, as far as I am aware, been 'advertised at' because of something I've said either on the phone to a friend or while my phone is nearby, and that would be a bit disconcerting, but I'm not even sure that sort of thing actually happens or if it's an urban myth. Ditto tv's. I'm assuming they don't really harvest data that way. That would be getting further into Big Brother territory (and imo we're already part way there).

I might have some caveats about (a) a plethora of targeted advertising aimed at young or vulnerable people and (b) I'm not that keen, in principle, on sites I visit having permissions embedded in 'very small print' because I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect everyone to carefully read through extensive terms of service for every site they visit. I'm clicking on a lot of 'what we do with your data and you consent to it' pop-up boxes these days, for what I would call 'regular' sites, and I'm just assuming they are all in line with, for example, data protection laws.

What would actually bother me a bit is (c) my data being harvested when I have not consented to it (which according to stuff I've googled, and posted here, appears to happen) although to be fair I have not so far lost any sleep over this, and what would bother me a bit more is (d) my data and that of many millions of others being bought and sold and potentially used for dubious manipulations on a large scale by what we are calling here bad actors.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

All I know is that you said that capitalism had to be shoe-horned into the issue

No, I did not. I said YOU were trying to shoehorn capitalism in by falsely equating "monetizing" and "capitalising."

So what if the Koch brothers don’t buy the data but only harvest it and sell it?

They don't sell it. They evidently use it.

It doesn’t mean there’s no worrying relationship between capitalism and big data, does it?

Sigh. First of all, "worrying relationship" is hopelessly vague. Second, as always and with everything, it comes down to intent.

Picture the following simple scenarios. You are a store owner sitting in the town square wearing a white hat watching your fellow townsfolk go about their daily routines. You make note of who goes into which store and what packages--if any--they come out with. You make note of how many women as opposed to men; how many children; how they are all dressed; are they fat, skinny or athletic; how old are they; do they rush or slowly stroll; what kind of cars they drive, if at all; etc.

Iow, all of the data one could get just by being observant in the public square.

You do all of that because you want to get a better idea of what the townsfolk might want to buy in your store. Technically speaking, one could say you are conducting "surveillance," but that would be extremely disingenuous and deliberately misleading. All you are doing is being observant in order to provide what you hope to be a mutually beneficial service for the town. They get goods and services they want or need at a fair or even discounted price, and you get to feed your family and keep a roof over your heads.

DBT is seated next to you, only he's wearing a black hat. He is doing the exact same thing you are doing in regard to watching the townsfolk, only HIS intention is to use the information he's collecting for a very different purpose. He is going to use that information to to try to trick those townsfolk into doing something they otherwise may not want or need to do, or, at best, are indifferent to, were it not for the influence being asserted against them to get off their perch on a particular fence OR, something far worse, such as in the fevered nightmares of libertarian pedophiles, or the like.

DBT is conducting the kind of surveillance that most people associate that word with. Being spied on by "shadow" government agents (or just straight up CIA/FBI agents) that are out to "get" the little guy.

The Koch Brothers are wearing black hats. They aren't out to provide anything mutually beneficial; they are out solely to try to influence as many townsfolk as they can to do something that would be otherwise--i.e., without their influence--something the townsfolk would not want to do, or, at best, are indifferent to, but for a reason. It's not mutually beneficial; it's only beneficial to the Koch Brothers, essentially.

And because we don't live in a binary, black and white only world, there is also a third hat; a gray hat. In regard to government, that would mean doing more what the black hats are doing, but for the purposes of protecting against terrorists or other hard core harms. They're not out to influence anyone's ideology/behavior, they're out to look for certain spikes of behavior that could either be white, gray or black and therefore need to be further investigated.

In regard to marketing, that would mean doing what the black hats do only instead of trying to influence/change the townsfolk's ideology, the marketing gray hats are trying to influence/change the townsfolk's buying habits. You use Crest? Colgate is much better and has electrolytes!

But a marketer's gray hat is still benign, particularly when you understand that nobody really needs toothpaste. It's an unnecessary product. All anyone needs to do for healthy oral hygiene is to simply bring a toothbrush and some floss with them wherever they go and then take ten seconds after every meal to brush and floss away any freshly formed food particles in the bathroom. That's pretty much it, so long as you remember to include your tongue. The paste was used (in ancient Egypt, btw) as a means to add an equally unnecessary abrasive and breath freshener (as the smell of your breath has more to do with your lungs and the fact that you didn't simply eliminate the food particles right after eating, so they stayed in your mouth and on your tongue and decayed throughout the day).

But, as has been amply demonstrated by billions of examples over the millennia, people are, in general, ignorant and they DON'T always do the simple thing that would solve their problems and that's why commerce was born.

You don't know how to pick an apple from a tree? I'll do it for you. You don't know that you just need to wipe away food particles after you eat and therefore your biological makeup is going to turn that rotting material into something toxic and disgusting? Here, try this paste I made with an abrasive to help scrape that now hardened plaque and with a minty flavor to try to cover up that now disgusting rotten smell.

Now, if you want to argue that people being manipulated into buying shit they don't actually need is equivalent to black hats trying to brainwash people into voting for Trump and therefore the whole thing falls under "capitalism" then fuck off. That's just insipid and once again shifts the focus off of the actual problem.

The distinction should be calling gray hat marketing "predatory capitalism" if you absolutely need to have more reasons to vilify capitalism qua capitalism, but what the Russians are doing is NOT "predatory capitalism" so why the fuck would you muddy those waters?

Hell, not even the Koch Brothers are engaging in "predatory capitalism" as they're also not trying to get you to buy something you don't really need except in the most tenuous of ways; they are trying to get you to "buy" their lies about man-made climate change in order to get you to vote for Republicans who are against legislating their concerns for not being "green energy" or the like.

Iow, they're trying to influence POLICIES that in turn would allow them to continue doing the detrimental things they are doing.

Again, putting that under the category of "Capitalism" for the sake of vilifying the category of Capitalism is to completely miss the point or dilute it to the point of idiocy and ironically just serves their purpose. Because then YOU are the ones shifting the focus off of what they are actually doing in order to fire salvos at an economic ideology that they are ALSO firing salvos at.

The Koch Brothers do not want a free market. They want to be in control of the market; to limit it and push out any competitors and corner the market and make people think that their poisons are cure-alls. They literally want the exact opposite of Capitalism and by falsely equating what they are doing with the knife--falsely equating cake eaters with sloat thritters--in this manner does their job just as surely as harvesting data and sending out their propaganda.

It's CAPITALISM'S FAULT! No, it's the KOCH BROTHERS' fault. So why the fuck are you doing their job for them by shifting the focus off of actual bad actors and onto a general economic concept through tenuous equivocation and sophistry? What the fuck is the point of that?

It’s not hard to find reports of personal data being harvested without consent and collected even if the user denies permissions.

Did anyone in the town square give explicit permission for you or DBT to sit on a park bench and observe their public behavior? No. This is why the issue hinges on the expectation of privacy and why it's extremely complicated, but there simply is no legitimate argument that can be made that says you--as a store owner--are forbidden from being observant; from you being forbidden to sit--in your white or even gray and possibly black hat--on that park bench in the town square observing the behavior of anyone else in the public space and then using that information--that data--to profile the town any way you wish.

Now, if you want to talk about Alexa and the fact that your phone's mic is always on and the apps are listening, by all means, but that ONCE AGAIN gets us back to INTENT.

And since there already are measures everyone can take--but don't, just like brushing and flossing--then we're even further out in the weeds of ignorance and half-cocked, ignorance-based righteous indignation that, once again, is bizarrely being focused OFF of the bad actors and onto some nebulous ideological that ironically serves people like the Koch Brothers' purpose.

So, speaking of intent, is that yours? To ironically help the Koch Brothers shift focus off of what they are actually doing?

It is NOT the collection of data--as that has been going on for millenia--it is how the data is being used. It is the INTENT that is the issue. Cake eaters vs. throat slitters.

Here’s a suggestion

You spend thirty years in professional marketing positions in New York and get your master's degree in it? Great, then you might actually learn something instead of what I have to put up with; suffering fools who think that being schooled in something they demonstrably do not understand is an insult.

 

[ruby sparks]

No, I did not. I said YOU were trying to shoehorn capitalism in by falsely equating "monetizing" and "capitalising." .

Whatever. Even if that's correct (and I note you have changed the wording slightly) it amounts to you saying much the same thing anyway. Basically, it's nonsense that capitalism needs to be shoe-horned into this. It's in it up to its neck, and probably further.

In any case, to monetise can mean to profit in/from business, so you seem to be splitting hairs again. I have no idea why.

Monetize: to make money from something.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/monetize

eg "The problem was how to monetize this kind of social networking site".

 

[ruby sparks]

It's CAPITALISM'S FAULT! No, it's the KOCH BROTHERS' fault. So why the fuck are you doing their job for them by shifting the focus off of actual bad actors and onto a general economic concept through tenuous equivocation and sophistry? What the fuck is the point of that?

That just makes no sense. It would, for example, seem to rule out terms such as 'toxic capitalism' for no good reason.

 

[ruby sparks]

Here’s a suggestion

You spend thirty years in professional marketing positions in New York and get your master's degree in it? Great, then you might actually learn something instead of what I have to put up with; suffering fools who think that being schooled in something they demonstrably do not understand is an insult.

But.....you post in pretty much the same manner on all topics, koy!

So I'm leaving my suggestion there for you to consider. Either you agree that the reports of unconsented-to data are correct, or they are dud reports. And if they're accurate and for some reason you don't have any problems with data being harvested without consent, then fine. We'd probably disagree. I think most people might be at least somewhat concerned though, probably because of where the data might potentially end up or what it might be used for.

 

[ruby sparks]

Now, if you want to talk about Alexa and the fact that your phone's mic is always on and the apps are listening, by all means, but that ONCE AGAIN gets us back to INTENT.

I never said otherwise, nor did I ever limit my concerns to receiving unwanted ads for toothpaste and the like. I clarified this a few posts ago, because it seemed to me you might have had the wrong idea.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

No, I did not. I said YOU were trying to shoehorn capitalism in by falsely equating "monetizing" and "capitalising."

Whatever.

sigh

Basically, it's nonsense that capitalism needs to be shoe-horned into this. It's in it up to its neck, and probably further.

The Koch Brothers thank you for that.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Either you agree that the reports of unconsented-to data are correct, or they are dud reports.

OR, they are missing the point that no one in the public square has explicitly consented to being observed by other people in the public square and thus there is a reason why the argument is actually about an expectation of privacy and how that gets defined in regard to thinking you're not in a public square because it's digital and your analogue self is in your underwear in the basement of your own home.

And if they're accurate and for some reason you don't have any problems with data being harvested without consent, then fine. We'd probably disagree.

I didn't give you explicit consent to harvest the data I've presented itt about my writing habits for you to make any judgement about me and yet:

But.....you post in pretty much the same manner on all topics, koy!

NOW do you get the point?

I think most people might be at least somewhat concerned though, probably because of where the data might potentially end up or what it might be used for.

And they are and that's why EVERY service provider has a TOS. It is on YOU, however, to actually read those things and police your own shit. Caveat emptor.

If you want to argue "caveat emptor" is somehow uniquely "Capitalist" in a bizarre shifting of focus onto Capitalism, have fun with that, but it doesn't change the fact that everything in life starts with personal responsibility. If you don't want to be observed so that no one can judge you, then don't walk out into the public square, but also know there are many ways you can disguise yourself and outsmart the marketers if that's what floats your boat.

What you can't do, however, no matter how badly you may want to, is avoid bad actors intent on framing you. That you can't do, short of what the extremist militia paranoiacs do and move off grid into the mountains or the like. Bad actors are bad actors. IF they are out to frame you, you're pretty much fucked no matter what you do.

But then, nobody is out to frame you. The MIGHT--and that's the ACLU's domain--but they aren't. They are out to influence you in various ways to get you to vote or think a different way, but that's nothing new. The technology is new, and we need to be made aware of how it works to influence you certainly (i.e., clandestinely), but that's a different matter.

The knife is the knife. No matter how sharp it gets, what matters is what it's USED for, which, again, goes to INTENT and the users, not the knife itself.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Now, if you want to talk about Alexa and the fact that your phone's mic is always on and the apps are listening, by all means, but that ONCE AGAIN gets us back to INTENT.

I never said otherwise

Great, then we can dispense with ALL the other pointless noise that DBT and you also included in your posts and focus on, for example, the Koch Brothers' intent. How do we stop it? It's not about Capitalism. Far from it. It's not about technology. That's just the knife they use to slit throats; the same knife you or I use to cut cake.

So, I'm wide open. How do we prevent bad actors from acting badly? Taking all knives away just means you can't cut your cake and they'll just find another way to slit your throat. Because that's what INTENT is about.

ETA: As I noted previously, the reason why the Russian onslaught is effective at all is because it is clandestine. That's not just my expert opinion on the matter; that's the same conclusion the entire intelligence community came to, as expressed in the Senate Intelligence Report.

Essentially, it you aren't aware there are black hats in among the white and gray hats, you are vulnerable. The effectiveness of any such onslaughts plummets to near zero, however, once the ignorant are educated. So that would be the FIRST step to take. The other steps are to provide the no longer ignorant the tools to block the black hats, which, once again, already exist.

Just like with brushing and flossing, people have to actively engage not just passively let their teeth rot.

But black hats be black hats, so they are going to forever try to find ways around such measures. Which means it's an eternal struggle until we, as a race, finally fucking grow up, but considering we seem to be at about the teenager level of emotional and intellectual evolution, we've got a long way to go.

What's going to stunt that growth, however, is false equivalence that takes focus off of the critical issue.