Few Americans Understand How Online Tracking Works, Finds Report 83
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Many people in the United States would like to control the information that companies can learn about them online. Yet when presented with a series of true-or-false questions about how digital devices and services track users, most Americans struggled to answer them, according to a report published (PDF) on Tuesday by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. The report analyzed the results of a data privacy survey that included more than 2,000 adults in the United States. Very few of the respondents said they trusted the way online services handled their personal data. The survey also tested people's knowledge about how apps, websites and digital devices may amass and disclose information about people's health, TV-viewing habits and doorbell camera videos. Although many understood how companies can track their emails and website visits, a majority seemed unaware that there are only limited federal protections for the kinds of personal data that online services can collect about consumers.
Seventy-seven percent of the participants got nine or fewer of the 17 true-or-false questions right, amounting to an F grade, the report said. Only one person received an A grade, for correctly answering 16 of the questions. No one answered all of them correctly. Seventy-nine percent of survey respondents said they had "little control over what marketers" could learn about them online, while 73 percent said they did not have "the time to keep up with ways to control the information that companies" had about them. "The big takeaway here is that consent is broken, totally broken,"Joseph Turow, a media studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania who was the lead author of the report, said in an interview. "The overarching idea that consent, either implicit or explicit, is the solution to this sea of data gathering is totally misguided -- and that's the bottom line."
The survey results challenge a data-for-services trade-off argument that the tech industry has long used to justify consumer tracking and to forestall government limits on it: Consumers may freely use a host of convenient digital tools -- as long as they agree to allow apps, sites, ad technology and marketing analytics firms to track their online activities and employ their personal information. But the new report suggests that many Americans aren't buying into the industry bargain. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they didn't think it was fair that a store could monitor their online activity if they logged into the retailer's Wi-Fi. And 61 percent indicated they thought it was unacceptable for a store to use their personal information to improve the services they received from the store. Only a small minority -- 18 percent -- said they did not care what companies learned about them online. "When faced with technologies that are increasingly critical for navigating modern life, users often lack a real set of alternatives and cannot reasonably forgo using these tools," Lina M. Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said in a speech (PDF) last year.
In the talk, Ms. Khan proposed a "type of new paradigm" that could impose "substantive limits" on consumer tracking.
Seventy-seven percent of the participants got nine or fewer of the 17 true-or-false questions right, amounting to an F grade, the report said. Only one person received an A grade, for correctly answering 16 of the questions. No one answered all of them correctly. Seventy-nine percent of survey respondents said they had "little control over what marketers" could learn about them online, while 73 percent said they did not have "the time to keep up with ways to control the information that companies" had about them. "The big takeaway here is that consent is broken, totally broken,"Joseph Turow, a media studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania who was the lead author of the report, said in an interview. "The overarching idea that consent, either implicit or explicit, is the solution to this sea of data gathering is totally misguided -- and that's the bottom line."
The survey results challenge a data-for-services trade-off argument that the tech industry has long used to justify consumer tracking and to forestall government limits on it: Consumers may freely use a host of convenient digital tools -- as long as they agree to allow apps, sites, ad technology and marketing analytics firms to track their online activities and employ their personal information. But the new report suggests that many Americans aren't buying into the industry bargain. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they didn't think it was fair that a store could monitor their online activity if they logged into the retailer's Wi-Fi. And 61 percent indicated they thought it was unacceptable for a store to use their personal information to improve the services they received from the store. Only a small minority -- 18 percent -- said they did not care what companies learned about them online. "When faced with technologies that are increasingly critical for navigating modern life, users often lack a real set of alternatives and cannot reasonably forgo using these tools," Lina M. Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said in a speech (PDF) last year.
In the talk, Ms. Khan proposed a "type of new paradigm" that could impose "substantive limits" on consumer tracking.
Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody at Facebook fully understands it either.
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Interestingly, both politicial parties have had "stick it to big tech" as a talking point for several years now. Last night in Joe Biden's presidential address, the main angle seemed to be "protect the children" from big tech - and screw everyone else, plus the kids too, once they hit 16 or 18. Meanwhile the Republicans are whipping up their voters' persecution complex so they can ride to the rescue with "solutions" like special rules (exemptions) for politicians on social media.
The fact that these are the
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Funny)
Few Americans understand how online anything works, news at 11..
What's this "news at 11" you speak of? Is he on TikTok?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
It was FILM AT 11, not news at 11. They would tell you about an event that they had shot film for but it hadn't been processed yet, and were promising to air the footage in a broadcast later that night.
People misremember this all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Surprise surprise... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There's news on Netflix now? Or can you watch something else on a TV?
Yeah, my console, but I'm not stupid, there's no news on consoles... is there?
Re: (Score:2)
Did you know that at one time TV programs did not have any color? Woah dude, that will blow your mind!
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah, I've seen Schindler's List...
Re: (Score:2)
There isn't really any news on News @ 11. It's just:
-mostly commercials
-sports
-celebrity gossip
-weather
-bullshit human interest story or stories
At most, there is 5 minutes of actual news.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, a lot of tracking services are sold on the basis of fallacies & myths about what it is reasonable to ask of any given dataset (i.e. Can the data actually answer your questions or do you need to gather other data as well/
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
They're all a bunch of opportunistic bullshitters getting away with whatever they can to make as much money as they can as fast as they can, regardless of ethics, integrity, & the harm they're doing to societies & democracies.
It's almost as if they're taking their cues from politicians.
Re: (Score:2)
They're all a bunch of opportunistic bullshitters getting away with whatever they can to make as much money as they can as fast as they can, regardless of ethics, integrity, & the harm they're doing to societies & democracies.
It's almost as if they're taking their cues from politicians.
Actually, they are acting as a subset of humans has always acted to obtain advantage over others to accumulate personal power, which includes $$$.
That is not just politicians. That is, everyone in the hierarchy who sees advantage and uses it.
Re: (Score:3)
Researchers give misleading conclusion, news at 11...
If you look at the top 3 questions most users got right, they are arguably the most important things for users to know about Internet privacy. I felt pretty good about the public's knowledge of Internet privacy based on the results of the survey.
Top 3 Answers Responders Got Right
1. When I go to a web site, it can collect information about my online behaviors even if I don’t register using my name or email address. (True)
2. A Smart TV can help adver
Re: (Score:2)
We don't understand how most things work. And that's just fine. You don't have to understand the exact workings of a computer or a car to be able to use them. Unless it's your job or hobby, it really doesn't matter. You can spend your time and energy elsewhere.
I don't have to have an understanding of the supply chain for apples. I can just go to the store, buy one, and enjoy it. My lack of understanding of the intricacies of it all doesn't impact my ability to enjoy that apple (not understanding every bit m
Re: (Score:3)
We don't understand how most things work. And that's just fine. You don't have to understand the exact workings of a computer or a car to be able to use them. Unless it's your job or hobby, it really doesn't matter. You can spend your time and energy elsewhere.
I don't have to have an understanding of the supply chain for apples. I can just go to the store, buy one, and enjoy it. My lack of understanding of the intricacies of it all doesn't impact my ability to enjoy that apple (not understanding every bit may even increase my enjoyment or rather prevent loss of enjoyment from knowing the dirty underside of the apple industry).
Which means you probably paid too much for a possibly poisoned (by pesticide) Apple that may shorten your life.
And the more complex the object or system, the less you are likely able to properly judge the benefits and consequences of your purchase/use of it except through simplified explanations that are at best myths.
Which allows for the livelihood of so many “fake experts.” Who needs to know only a little more than you to take advantage.
Re: (Score:2)
There are thousands of things you interact with everyday that you have no understanding of their workings. Quit acting as if you understand everything around you and as if it impacts your experience in any major way.
Email images (Score:4, Insightful)
This one is actually false if you have Gmail, as it preloads images.
Re:Email images (Score:4, Informative)
This one is actually false if you have Gmail, as it preloads images.
It is also false for many other email providers. For instance, Yahoo does not load image links when you open your mail. If they aren't inlined, you have to click to see them.
Re:Email images (Score:5, Informative)
This one is actually false if you have Gmail, as it preloads images.
Or POP your mail and read it as plain text (or, alternately, as Simple HTML in Thunderbird) -- or disable remote content ...
Re: (Score:1)
You can disable that in Gmail.
Re: Email images (Score:2)
So Gmail preloads that unique 32bit pixel for you. How does that help in any way!?
How naive, to expect the biggest trader of your data to care for your trackers. If anything, they would try to confine you into their silo so they have the more unique dataset on you.
Re: (Score:2)
If it preloads for *everyone* then you have no idea who actually looked at the message.
Re: (Score:1)
How can you limit the responses to True-or-False when the correct answer is "It depends" ?
Re: (Score:1)
This one is actually false if you have Gmail, as it preloads images.
You are mistaken. GMail does proxy the images, which gets around some fuckery that senders were using to infer how long you spent reading an email. And they don't get your IP or User Agent anymore, but Google loads those images when you open the email, not before, which still lets the sender track an "open."
Source: I am one of the email fuckers.
Report now returns a 404... (Score:2)
They've taken the PDF down. Fraud? Misinformation? Or just protection from being slashdotted?
Teach the internet's backend in schools! (Score:5, Interesting)
Selecting target groups, keywords, dealing with optiimization settings, A/B testing headlines, and so on.
I think that this is the only way for people to really internalize how the modern internet's content works. This also explains tracking and data collection.
Re: (Score:1)
Don't forget to tell them that this is about the "world-wide web", which builds upon the internet, but is not the same as "the internet".
For one, it means that "the current internet" is not the be-all end-all and that it isn't even difficult to build something else, but that this is being made difficult by "consumerisation" (like "apps", really tarted-up websites most of the time, or "CGNAT", or any of those other tricks that seem helpful but ultimately push you into a "consumer" box bereft of creative pow
Re: (Score:2)
I insist that part of standard education should be running a small online ad campaign. Selecting target groups, keywords, dealing with optiimization settings, A/B testing headlines, and so on.
Yes. If you only use a small email list for your A/B and other tests, you learn to interpret random results as meaningful (my old company).
MADlibs again? (Score:2)
Very few (people) understand how (insert pretty much anything here) works.
Low attention span. Someone waiving something shiny in their other hand.
SQUIRREL!
TANSTAAFL (Score:1, Insightful)
The takeaway here is a lot of people also don't seem to understand that it costs money to run online services. The reason you get "free" Facebook et al. is because they're able to monetize the information they collect. People are quick to say "but that's creepy!" and "they shouldn't be allowed to do that!", but it it came down to having to whip out their MasterCard and pay a subscription, you can bet some different tunes would start being sung.
I guess you could make the argument that online services which
Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes it costs money to run services. It doesn't follow that free means scraping people's personal info & browsing habits to make it. The service could show ads based on what people are looking at. They could charge advertisers more money for popular content than less popular content. They could sell keywords to advertisers that trigger on certain search terms. They could allow advertisers to "sponsor" content. Basically there are ways to sell advertising where relevance comes from what people are looking at or looking for rather than who the person is.
The free platforms have just chosen to grab every metric under the sun from users because piss weak privacy laws allow them to do it. And since they are able to do it, they can charge more money for advertising spots. There is also the potential that if a company went bust, that the data would be snaffled up and amalgamated by other services. If laws took that option off the table then their revenue model and what they charge advertisers might change but it doesn't mean they make less money.
Re: (Score:2)
People conducting study don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
"A company can tell that I have opened its email even if I donâ(TM)t click
on any links. "
If I answered no to this they would think my answer was wrong.
"A Smart TV can help advertisers send an ad to a viewerâ(TM)s smartphone
based on the show they are watching."
If I answered no to this they would think my answer is wrong.
"The doorbell company Ring has a policy of not sharing recordings
with law enforcement without the homeownerâ(TM)s permission."
What kind of BS question is this? Who gives a f*** what their policy is when it is well known they do it anyway.
"The US Federal government requires that companies ask internet
users to opt-in to being tracked"
If I said false they would think my answer is wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
1) Depending on your mail provider, and most people just use webmail these days, they may very well be able to tell because those damn webmail tools preload images and thus they get that information.
2) A Smart TV can track your viewing habits and if it is coupled with your smartphone (which a lot of people do because it allows them to turn their phone into a remote control).
3) Just because something is well known to YOU doesn't mean that it is well known to the average Joe out there.
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on your mail provider, and most people just use webmail these days, they may very well be able to tell because those damn webmail tools preload images and thus they get that information.
I use a mail client and it sure as heck doesn't follow random references embedded in emails. The question was "A company can tell that I have opened its email " ... If "I" was answering it they would think my answer was wrong when in fact they are wrong.
A Smart TV can track your viewing habits and if it is coupled with your smartphone
The answer is dependent upon usage and is in no way dependent on smart TVs. Any TV can help send an ad to a viewers smartphone using for example sonic beacons or signature matching. The question itself and available answers demonstrate a complete lack of
Re: (Score:2)
"A company can tell that I have opened its email even if I donâ(TM)t click on any links. "
If I answered no to this they would think my answer was wrong.
"A Smart TV can help advertisers send an ad to a viewerâ(TM)s smartphone based on the show they are watching."
If I answered no to this they would think my answer is wrong.
"The doorbell company Ring has a policy of not sharing recordings with law enforcement without the homeownerâ(TM)s permission."
What kind of BS question is this? Who gives a f*** what their policy is when it is well known they do it anyway.
"The US Federal government requires that companies ask internet users to opt-in to being tracked"
If I said false they would think my answer is wrong.
Exactly. This report is showing that the people who made up the report are dumber than the people they are testing.
It's the equivalent of having Miss Honey's kindergarten class make up a survey for physic's knowledge.
New finding - I have my machines pretty well protected, but constantly check it out. I have a throwaway gmail address and connect it to a pinterest account. Just sussed out that Home Depot is sharing with pinterest.
Re: (Score:1)
Because generally you would be wrong. Any email containing an image, especially a single-pixel image, will notify the company that the email was opened. And don't say "duh on my linux i just use the mail command line and there are no images" is a ridiculous response because people mostly read mail on their phones or online, and even if they do use a desktop client they are by default configured to fetch all images, so absolutely your "no" answer would categorically be wrong.
And the US doesn't require opt-in
Re: (Score:2)
Because generally you would be wrong. Any email containing an image, especially a single-pixel image, will notify the company that the email was opened.
Generally? It was a question addressed to me.. "A company can tell that I have opened its email". It wasn't asking me to conduct a survey and speak for the plurality of everyone else. Answering it correctly would have been tallied as an incorrect answer.
Emails often contain embedded images to avoid rendering problems with users who have clients configured not to follow external references. This is a well known security and privacy issue that is in fact taken seriously by millions of users and which all
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of American don't understand anything (Score:2)
Ask them about basic scientific knowledge, simple logic or just plain common sense and many Americans will leave you wondering how such a rich country can produce such poor education (and stay rich).
Why would their understanding of how sophisticated corporate surveillance devices work be any more profound?
Re:A lot of American don't understand anything (Score:5, Insightful)
How a "rich" country can produce such a poor education. Exactly that way.
"America" isn't rich. Some Americans are rich. Most of them are not. When comparing Europeans with Americans, you'll find that a shockingly high percentage of Americans is actually living paycheck to paycheck and any unforeseen expense puts their finances in a turmoil. And not because they're living it large but simply because they make barely the poverty line.
Education in the US, at least up to high school level, is inadequate. It's basically regurgitating whatever the teaching drone in front of you is droning on about, soak that up, spit it onto the test form and you'll get a passing grade. No thinking or understanding required. Actually, more often than not, trying to understand may well be detrimental to your success, because understanding often comes with asking questions, and asking questions that the teacher cannot answer (and unless they're in their teaching materials, they often cannot), will get you an angry teacher because you question the authority. And yes, for a lot of teachers that's the main teaching point, getting their students to accept authority and heed the teachings of authority figures, whether they are right or wrong.
Such an education system does not produce thinkers. It produces worker drones. Exactly what corporate America wants. The US school system is not supposed to teach. It's supposed to train.
Re: (Score:2)
How a "rich" country can produce such a poor education. Exactly that way.
"America" isn't rich. Some Americans are rich. Most of them are not. When comparing Europeans with Americans, you'll find that a shockingly high percentage of Americans is actually living paycheck to paycheck and any unforeseen expense puts their finances in a turmoil. And not because they're living it large but simply because they make barely the poverty line.
Ah, what is this shockingly high percentage?
Let's take the 2023 poverty guidelines for the 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia. Not this does not include localized anomalies. A single person is $14,580 For a couple, it is $19,720 per annum. For 3 people - $24,860. https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/po... [hhs.gov]
A single person working a full time job at $7.50 an hour minimum wage is making $15,600 per year, about a thousand over poverty line.
The number of people in America working at minimum wage is F
Re: (Score:1)
How a "rich" country can produce such a poor education. Exactly that way.
"America" isn't rich. Some Americans are rich. Most of them are not. When comparing Europeans with Americans, you'll find that a shockingly high percentage of Americans is actually living paycheck to paycheck and any unforeseen expense puts their finances in a turmoil. And not because they're living it large but simply because they make barely the poverty line.
Ah, what is this shockingly high percentage?
Let's take the 2023 poverty guidelines for the 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia. Not this does not include localized anomalies. A single person is $14,580 For a couple, it is $19,720 per annum. For 3 people - $24,860. https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/po... [hhs.gov]
A single person working a full time job at $7.50 an hour minimum wage is making $15,600 per year, about a thousand over poverty line.
The number of people in America working at minimum wage is FtPage According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 1.6 million workers, or 1.9% of all hourly paid, non-self-employed workers, earned wages at or below the federal minimum wage in 2019. That year, 82.3 million people were paid hourly rates, making up 58.1% of all wage and salary workers in the United States. https://usafacts.org/articles/... [usafacts.org]
Also from that site, in 1980, 13 percent of hourly workers made minimum wage, compared to 1.9 percent today.
Note that there are places with mandated minimum wage is around 15 dollars an hour, or $31,200 per annum. https://www.newsweek.com/33-pl... [newsweek.com]
While you're right, and the GP wrong, that most Americans are not barely above the poverty line, that doesn't mean they are wrong about their other point - that a shockingly high percentage of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'm not sure how to check the numbers of this, let alone how to compare the numbers to Europe or anywhere else, but one doesn't have to be near the poverty line for this to be true. I make about 58k/year (roughly $28/hour) and have for almost a year, and have only not been pa
Re: (Score:2)
While you're right, and the GP wrong, that most Americans are not barely above the poverty line, that doesn't mean they are wrong about their other point - that a shockingly high percentage of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'm not sure how to check the numbers of this, let alone how to compare the numbers to Europe or anywhere else, but one doesn't have to be near the poverty line for this to be true. I make about 58k/year (roughly $28/hour) and have for almost a year, and have only not been paycheck-to-paycheck for about two months now (and even then, just barely).
Ah - I can explain that. I can also note that it has long been like that. This will probably get me nodded to hell, but many people have really bad money skills.
One does not get to living paycheck to paycheck without taking a very active part of that.
As I noted, before in here, in the late 1970's, I worked with an engineer who was making 6 figures. Imagine what 6 figures in 1979 would be today. He was flat broke. I was making something like 13K a year at the place, yet I was not flat broke.
How can
Re: (Score:2)
Posting AC because I've moderated in this story already....
As well as a wise decision, considering your rageboner. Much of you're reee reply is non sequiturs.
I think this is what sums you up nicely:
Because if they don't agree with you they must be a communist / socialist / other boogeyman! We don't need your Red Scare crap old man. We need solutions for Real Problems that affect every American today.
Russia is not communist or socialist, and China is something, more a weird mix of capitalistic/dictatorial.
But what your reply shows quite clearly is that you are a loser. Or as you probably prefer to spell it, looser.
Despite your rather boring and often incorrect victim narrative, there are many people out there who are not sharing in your victimhood despair. Your
Re: (Score:2)
How many are unemployed? And I don't just mean the official statistics, I mean the reality. How many have those lovely "0 hour" contracts, where they're constantly on call, hoping to make a few hours so they can make ends meet? How many have full time jobs? And I don't mean "work full time" but rather actually have normal, 40-hours-a-week full time jobs? Because in a lot of areas, unpaid overtime that borders on full time while being paid more around 25 to 30 hours is pretty common.
Sadly, I do know the stat
Re: (Score:2)
How many are unemployed? And I don't just mean the official statistics, I mean the reality. How many have those lovely "0 hour" contracts, where they're constantly on call, hoping to make a few hours so they can make ends meet? How many have full time jobs? And I don't mean "work full time" but rather actually have normal, 40-hours-a-week full time jobs? Because in a lot of areas, unpaid overtime that borders on full time while being paid more around 25 to 30 hours is pretty common.
Sadly, I do know the statistics, and how they are fudged to make them look more appealing rather than as appalling as they are. You'll find that if you take away all those lovely statistics-skewing tactics away, you end up closer to 20 percent of people living effectively near the poverty line. If you calculate in things like mortgage debt and college bills (because they dared to dream and wanted to live in a house and have an education), you get dangerously close to 50% who are indeed living on the edge, always one month away from bankruptcy.
Mon ami - I gave you statistics, which you roundly dismiss. Perhaps a better response would be to give me the stats that you claim are the truth, and I'll be glad to examine them, and if mine are wrong, and all that you claim is true, I'll gladly apologize for disagreeing with you.
One interesting thing is that it is rather difficult to get numbers on anyone else living paycheck to paycheck. Apparently no one else in the world does now, except the US other than the only thing I could find was Great Britai
Re: (Score:1)
Was about to post the same thing. But the US is not "rich" It is just rather large an has some insane concentrations of wealth and, to compensate, a lot of really poor people.
Re: (Score:2)
Wifi devices have to send out probing packets if you turn off the SSID broadcast of your AP at home and tell your phone that it's off, because then the device has no other way of finding out whether the AP is in range than to send out probing packets constantly. Which also drains the battery of your device quickly. Normally, WiFi devices will wait for the APs SSID broadcast and react to it, without sending an "are you there" packet every other second.
And yes, I know, some of the "easier to use" cellphones h
Re: (Score:2)
How to use it? Sell it. That's what most companies do with that information. They don't have any use for it themselves, but they realized that there's money to be made with it, so that's the reason they collect it.
What would laws do? Well, let's take a look at Europe and their infamous GDPR. The idea was to keep companies from collecting data of you left and right without you knowing. The net effect? Didn't faze Facebook, Google et al at all, they just slapped a page in front of you with "We collect your li
Re: (Score:1)
GDPR has a clause where you can not refuse service if the user declines, making this scheme a violation of GDPR. And they got fined for it:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/0... [cnbc.com].
Re: (Score:2)
That's calculated. By the time they got fined 400m, nearly all of their users already accepted that.
400m is just cost of doing business in this context.
Re: (Score:1)
Not disagreeing on this. I almost mentioned it, but I opted against, considering GDPR has the strictest fines ( including escalation of sanctions ) from all the privacy frameworks.
Digital litteracy (Score:5, Interesting)
This research painfully brings to light what all the initiation courses on schools as well as govt and other initiatives for elderly and other target groups miss out on.
These courses, given by those who have no clue either, explain how to install and then login and hence submit oneself and ones data to GAFAM.
None of them explain how to steer clear by offering any alternatives. It gets even worse: "Be safe online, only ever install from your designated app store!!" is what people are advised, right.
What about Droidify, which sources a large list of FOSS software for my AOSP de-googlified devices? On every boot, the manufacturer has made sure to display a full-screen warning: "bootloader unlocked, your device is unsafe and will not receive our security updates. Press Power Button if you want to proceed at your own risk."
That last message totally ignores the fact that the device has and will have last month's security patches many years after the OEM has stopped supporting it.
I understand people need help being safe online. So, I volunteered at the local organization that has in fact a monopoly on such events in community venues. Next thing I get an email, welcoming me to the group. They've added my personal details to the group's shared google doc and invite me to their next Teams meeting.
What. The. Fuck.
I used to troll people with a tracking app (Score:1)
I wrote a simple tracker and would get people on Reddit to click it and then tease them with hints about who they are. People would get furious and try to report me.
But thats the whole point of Reddit, just their favorite content providers never throw it in their face.
Americans understand all too well (Score:2)
Reading the quiz, it seems that Americans understand all too well what their risks are and what companies want to track.
If the US wants privacy, we need something on a federal level like GDPR. US companies have to follow GDPR to do business in the EU, why is it impossible to comply with privacy requests when they are dealing with a US citizen?
The only thing in the US even close to GDPR is the California Consumer Privacy Act, and that doesn't cover everyone in the US.
Why would they? (Score:1)
Online tracking is a highly technical field that changes tack every few years. Cookies, then pixels in pictures, requesting computer info to track your id when cookies were turned off, and that was just the 90's & start of 2000's. How many different ways can companies track you these days? To suggest that consumers try to keep up with that is absurd. It is a technological war where when one tracking technology is figured out, and mitigated, another steps in. Any training you give consumers on onlin
Re: (Score:2)
Any training you give consumers on online tracking is out of date in a couple years...
That's why you don't teach procedures, you teach principles.
"If you're on a computer, and you're installing an application, assume every option shown during the install and/or first run is legally required to be there. If the 'next'/'allow'/'agree' button is given a bright, contrasting color, look closer for a more muted button, or a text-only option. If the two options are given such unequal design, the software will be collecting data on you."
"Consider the nature of what a mobile app is supposed to do, an
Some answers depend on the user's choices (Score:2)
I can't really disagree with the overall broad conclusion that people don't understand the tech they use. Just from talking with laymen, it's easy to see that it's really the case. But when you get into the details of this quiz, it really looks flawed, such that people are required to give some wrong answers in order to be scored right. Many of the answers depend on the users' choices and behaviors.
For example: "A Smart TV can help advertisers send an ad to a viewer
Re: (Score:2)
True as this may be, the quiz's target demographic is the kind that, basically by definition, aren't thinking through how this technology works. Consequently, the quiz works pretty well if one adds "assuming a default configuration" or "is it both possible, and reasonably probable that..." to the beginning of each question, and "Generally" in front of the answer.
Let's try it...
For example: "A Smart TV can help advertisers send an ad to a viewer’s smartphone based on the show they are watching." They are expecting a person to say true, but it's only true if you give it network access.
Let's try this with the qualifiers: "Assuming a default configuration, A Smart TV can help advertisers send an ad to a viewer's smar
MAXIMIZE FAILURE (Score:2)
This "survey" (test) was likely designed as most multiple-choice questionnaires are: to maximize failure. There are lots of tactics in the test-setter's arsenal, far beyond the obvious "score a debatably incorrect answer as correct".
Setting fair multiple-choice quizzes is incredibly hard work even with filtering pilots. I know, I've tried and ultimately been disappointed.
No shit (Score:2)
I don't care - but what I do want is.... (Score:2)
I don't really care what companies can learn about me.
But I DO think they should be required to provide annual reports to each and every person detailing all of the information they have on them. THAT would be useful.
People here resisting the clear and correct point (Score:2)
Bunch of smartasses here critiquing the survey questions because they can avoid email tracking by using Mutt and avoid smart TV tracking by putting it in a Faraday cage.
I exaggerate - I myself configure a primary webmail account to not load external images - but it's the default/encouraged behavior that people need to be aware about . If you didn't know that Smart TVs can track you to serve ads, you wouldn't have the chance to make an informed decision about the privacy tradeoff of connecting one to your
Re: (Score:3)
It is misleading to the point of not believable to say that just because I checked off a box when they installed a software that I'm now "informed". You don't even really have to check the box, the TOS will state that the moment that you use their software you have implicitly agreed to all terms. I doubt that is actually legal.
I think this misdirection will one day be corrected in legislation. For instance, if I write software and in the TOS, I say t
Re: (Score:2)
Amen.