How do you feel about your apps, websites and store wifis tracking your digital movements? Now that consumers have the right to opt out, have you?

On one hand, I feel the lack of privacy is the trade off to living in a digital world.

On the other hand, I love the convenience! I was at an interesting kitchen gadet via an app. I went to compare prices at a different store. The interesting kitchen item was the first thing to show up.

I too feel that losing some privacy is the trade off for the conveniences of a digital world. At the same time I use Ghostery to seriously limit the advertising pumped at me, have a separate 'junk mail' email account that anything I sign up for or loyalty club I join has email contacts addressed to. I leave my cell phone turned off until I want to use it. I think it is instructive for retailers to know that if I am going to purchase even a moderate size ticket item I am going to check all relevant providers and hopefully they can also realize that I look at the specifications where a price is given and get off the website promptly when they say "Price in cart" or "Call for prices". I am not going to call and I am not going to drop the thing in my cart just to get a price--which is rarely a bargain, regardless of what they may purport.

There is the 'Big Brother is Watching You' from all the traffic cams and street cams and doorbell cams around. Hundreds of thousands of dollars has been spent on this stuff of both public and private money and my sense is that it has not been money well spent as it seems to fail to be a deterrent to crime. . . only now you have a picture of the crime happening. You also have pictures of why the crime happened--a couple of young men come up to a car parked in the driveway overnight with the doors unlocked and they get in the car looking for anything of value you didn't care enough about to lock the doors.

Definitely a trade-off. Google and Microsoft make it very difficult and time consuming to go through all those settings, but I do it anyway. Most apps won't work if you opt out of some settings.

Not long ago, as we drove past a certain business I mentioned to my daughter that I had shopped it. The next day she got a popup ad for the place on her phone.

A law was passed in CA that forced data trackers to allow people to opt out. I started doing this under the privacy sections of various websites and apps. We'll see how effective it is.

I agree that the traffic cams do not work to our benefit. The doorbell cams don't deter porch pirates.

I had the Ghostery add on for FireFox, but I don't remember why I got rid of it. DuckDuckGo is a Google based search engine that doesn't track you.

panama, yes, our devices listen to our conversations for marketing purposes. I started disabling the microphone permissions in my apps.

Start talking about a murder mystery from the protagonists' view but change the names to congress critters and then see how long it takes for the Secret Service or the FBI to knock on your door.

90% of me thinks this is intrusive and just not fun. For me, it is great fun to search and go down rabbit holes and follow tangents... Having stuff aimed at me is not fun. OTOH, If I were photogenic I would probably pose and hope that a producer would notice me and give me my big break to stardom!

Seriously.

The 10% of me that works near residences and businesses is grateful for at least some protection for what I do. I know who I am and what I do and why I am anywhere. But others might see me/hubby at early job in another light. The various security devices provide a record every day of our vehicles, the duration of each stop, and which one of us actually got out of the car to deliver an item or whether we were delivering from the car windows.

I admit that I occasionally photographed myself and/or hubby making some deliveries. This stopped odd and unwarranted complaints. I did not like doing this. I like to work in good faith and get on with the rest of the day!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2020 02:25AM by Shop-et-al.

*laughs in capitalism*

you can opt out all you want. you can also google any of the big tech companies like fb, twitter, google, apple, etc... and see that they have been pretty consistently sued and fined by various organisations for violating their own polices and national laws.

while apples physical devices are incredibly secure their platforms are not

A few years ago, my wifi ID was "FBI Surveillance." One day, my stepsons were over and I told them the name to connect to. Three days later, my network was gone.

@2stepps wrote:

Start talking about a murder mystery from the protagonists' view but change the names to congress critters and then see how long it takes for the Secret Service or the FBI to knock on your door.