Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data

erek

erek

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Lame.

""It's almost impossible to de-identify data," Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, said. "When they promise to de-identify the data, I don't believe it."

Motherboard and PCMag asked Avast a series of detailed questions about how it protects user anonymity as well as details on some of the company's contracts. Avast did not answer most of the questions but wrote in a statement, "Because of our approach, we ensure that Jumpshot does not acquire personal identification information, including name, email address or contact details, from people using our popular free antivirus software.""

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdkq7/avast-antivirus-sells-user-browsing-data-investigation
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It is absolutely insane that this is legal.
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It's really the same as right to repair, "we the people" want to keep our rights to do stuff like that, and maybe not even be spied on, yet a comparably infinitesimal number of companies think otherwise and because their net worth eclipses "we the people" shit tends to go in their favor whether it's right to repair, right to be forgotten, or hell right to lose all of our sensitive data and you can't sue us btw it's your problem to fix any identity theft issues.
 
M76 said:
And that is why I think VPNs are not privacy, but one more middleman who will keep your history.
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Literally just had this same argument at work, with some one telling me he uses a free vpn to keep all his browsing secured and not sold. Im like who pays for the vpn service if they dont charge you? How do they afford the network unless either they donate all their own money to provide a free service for the world, or they sell your shit to the highest bidder lol.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It is absolutely insane that this is legal.

People ought to go to prison for stuff like this.
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The problem is that the legislators themselves have no idea how tech works, and have no interest in figuring it out. For example, watch Zuckerberg’s questioning session in Congress. You can tell he’s fully aware that they have no idea what’s going on and, at least I would imagine, had to suppress the urge to laugh and bury his face in his palm while some old dinosaur is asking him about his “computer machine” he uses to search “the google”. He was visibly using it to his advantage so he doesn’t have to do anything, while Congress goes back to the consumer/voter acting like they did something and have their back. I don’t think a single member of Congress asked a pointed or relevant question about Facebook’s most egregious business practices, and Zuckerberg knows he can continue to get away with it. Other tech companies definitely took note, hence what we see here.

In short, don’t expect this to change. Politicians are either too stupid and/or bought off with lobbying dollars, and tech companies have discovered that seemingly nothing is more valuable in our economy than user data.
 
M76 said:
And that is why I think VPNs are not privacy, but one more middleman who will keep your history.
Click to expand...

100% this a VPN isn't privacy; it is simply alternative routing. This alternative routing can be used as a tool to increase privacy, but it can also be used as a tool to decrease privacy.

Odds are, 100% of the VPN services hawked by LTT et al are using this tool to decrease privacy despite any claims to the contrary. Exactly as Darunion said, if the product is free, then you are the product.
 
HockeyJon said:
The problem is that the legislators themselves have no idea how tech works, and have no interest in figuring it out. For example, watch Zuckerberg’s questioning session in Congress. You can tell he’s fully aware that they have no idea what’s going on and, at least I would imagine, had to suppress the urge to laugh and bury his face in his palm while some old dinosaur is asking him about his “computer machine” he uses to search “the google”. He was visibly using it to his advantage so he doesn’t have to do anything, while Congress goes back to the consumer/voter acting like they did something and have their back. I don’t think a single member of Congress asked a pointed or relevant question about Facebook’s most egregious business practices, and Zuckerberg knows he can continue to get away with it. Other tech companies definitely took note, hence what we see here.

In short, don’t expect this to change. Politicians are either too stupid and/or bought off with lobbying dollars, and tech companies have discovered that seemingly nothing is more valuable in our economy than user data.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that. I think politicians feign ignorance on technology to fool people into thinking they don't know any better as they line their pockets with lobbyist money.
 
Isn't there some 3rd party that checks on these vpn's to see if they store users' histories?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It is absolutely insane that this is legal.

People ought to go to prison for stuff like this.
Click to expand...

But they arent..... and they wont.

I interviewed with avast once for a position doing analytics. They said they deal with hundreds of millions of records, really a big data operation....

At the time i recall asking myself why in the fuck they have so much data and from where?

Now i know.

You cant stop this through government or protest. No one will go to jail. These people are smiling at you and telling you to go fuck yourself.
 
Armenius said:
I don't believe that. I think politicians feign ignorance on technology to fool people into thinking they don't know any better as they line their pockets with lobbyist money.
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Exactly. I never bought the "stupid politicians" argument. They dumb to trigger people's superiority complex reflexes. I's nothing more than a distraction.
 
Darunion said:
if a product is free, you are the product. Always ask yourself, how does this company make money and pay the staff to provide this free service/product to me?
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Good advice but that's some fairly narrow definition of a "product". There's lots of free stuff out there that is not spying on anyone. I mean, how can source code spy on you? How can a donated food spy on you, or turn you into a product?
 
dgz said:
Good advice but that's some fairly narrow definition of a "product". There's lots of free stuff out there that is not spying on anyone. I mean, how can source code spy on you? How can a donated food spy on you, or turn you into a product?
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The difference is the wording. Donated. Source code is maintained by people donating their time. Food is donated for no profit as well, and the companies that organize these have their revenue sources made available.

What changes it is if the source of the item is a for-profit company. Where does the profit come from?

The source code may not spy on you, but the website hosting it is.
 
My expectation is that many free browser extensions are doing this. I would expect the popular money-saving Honey extension to be doing this, though I haven't researched it.
 
Darunion said:
The difference is the wording. Donated. Source code is maintained by people donating their time. Food is donated for no profit as well, and the companies that organize these have their revenue sources made available.

What changes it is if the source of the item is a for-profit company. Where does the profit come from?

The source code may not spy on you, but the website hosting it is.
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I agree but we need a better slogan because "if it's free, then you're the product" isn't good enough. Are foobar2000 and vlc spying on you? I think not
 
dgz said:
I agree but we need a better slogan because "if it's free, then you're the product" isn't good enough. Are foobar2000 and vlc spying on you? I think not
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I can get behind that. Some slogan to improve awareness (like all the 'free' apps on the app store, but then like you said vlc is there too and it is all volunteer work).

"If the product is free from a for-profit company, then you're the product"
 
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moral of the story - you can't trust any company or any product.... there is no amount of money you can pay to have them NOT track you. Don't like it? stop using electronic devices completely................ if you can.
 
Armenius said:
I don't believe that. I think politicians feign ignorance on technology to fool people into thinking they don't know any better as they line their pockets with lobbyist money.
Click to expand...

That’s also within the realm of possibility. Either way, don’t expect to see them do anything about it. Tech companies will continue getting away with actions and behaviours that the cops would need a warrant to do.
 
sfsuphysics said:
It's really the same as right to repair, "we the people" want to keep our rights to do stuff like that, and maybe not even be spied on, yet a comparably infinitesimal number of companies think otherwise and because their net worth eclipses "we the people" shit tends to go in their favor whether it's right to repair, right to be forgotten, or hell right to lose all of our sensitive data and you can't sue us btw it's your problem to fix any identity theft issues.
Click to expand...
This is not the companies' fault. It's "we the people" who keep buying their shit and supporting such practices.
 
Meeho said:
This is not the companies' fault. It's "we the people" who keep buying their shit and supporting such practices.
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In the case of fecesbook, Spewgle or Shitter - this is definitely their fault because they are sovereign entities (their own countries in effect).
 
I think social media is a little different because you are volunteering the information you post. If you upload something to the internet it's fair game (even if unfortunate).

But having your anti-virus tracking you is too far. Those are actions you performed on your personal computer. I think these companies forgot what PC stands for.
 
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