• Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Alternative title: People creeped out after woman discovers what tech literate people have been saying to do for a decade

    • rar@discuss.online
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      5 months ago

      Same can be said for any field, academic or not. For example, it won’t do any good to dismiss cancer awareness campaigns because doctors have been saying about it for decades. It’s for the public’s benefit, and everyone deserves privacy.

      • gjghkk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 months ago

        In my country, we had been saying that the government was doing business with Israel, even though they were condemning on every public forum. It took only 1 journalist until the whole public saw the hypocrisy. 1 journalist against all TV channels and internet trolls. (Here 95% of all TV channels are sponsored by government).

        I remember telling this years ago, yet this man, who also had to leave the country for his other journalist work said it at the right time with the right tools.

        So, what I get this is, don’t stop telling the truth. Even though nobody listens now, people will when the right time comes.

        • refalo@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          what’s wrong with doing business with Israel? I believe most countries do so… and they have some of the smartest engineers in the world.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            In case you somehow missed the news: they’re currently killing lots of innocent people in Gaza. Not doing business w/ Israel puts pressure on the Israeli government to stop doing that.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                5 months ago

                Idk, but most of the time that happens with pariahs, like Russia or N. Korea. Israel is friendly with a lot of western nations and not friendly with pretty much everyone else, so sending a message could certainly work here.

              • gjghkk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                5 months ago

                I actually don’t think it works. It’s better if we retaliate in the same way Israel does.

                What 7 October taught is the hypocrisy of our leaders. I am specifically talking about Muslim leaders and Erdogan, but in general I think this is also true.

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        There isn’t a soul in your country that isnt aware cancer exists.

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      I have all my histories turned off and once a year or so I go in and make sure they haven’t added anything new for me to turn off.

      Now the question is, are they really not collecting my data or have I just made it so I can’t see what they have on me?

      • Randelung@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        They collected incognito session info, whose entire existence was ‘not keeping a history’, so almost 100% the latter.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 months ago

          It just not stores the session >_> Nothing was ever fully incognito about it beyond the icon looking like a spy.
          Also it’s made by Google. Not much of a surprise.

          Now for Firefoy I would be interested.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            I never assumed that incognito mode did anything more than not save my history and searches in my browser. And maybe some other stuff like cache and cookies.

            It took me a while to realize that less tech-savvy people wouldn’t know about that stuff and assume that it meant that Google isn’t watching you.

            And unless you’re very privacy-conscious, even your ISP knows where you get your internet porn from

      • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I do the same thing, and always wonder that too. These companies have been caught lying consistently and repeatedly about what they collect and how, so even with all the right settings I’m very skeptical that they actually respect my choices.

      • voxel@sopuli.xyz
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        5 months ago

        i have only YouTube enabled (personalization is good enough that i actually do care about it) and google search (since it also affects google maps) and both are set to the lowest auto delete option

      • stratoscaster@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        My best guess is that they instead aggregate your data and serve ads based off of basic demographically information - instead of data they’ve harvested from your Google account. E.g. they’ll use your age range, gender, region, etc

      • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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        5 months ago

        How do you turn them off. I mean, do you go through every Google product and dig for the settings? Or do you just mean you revisit the ad settings?

        • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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          5 months ago

          In your google account settings there should be a page called “Data And Privacy” that has loads of things to turn off or at least limit the amount of time before they say they delete it.

          They keep changing where it is and how the pages are laid out in order to keep us on our toes. I think there may be a privacy center somewhere too. There used to be.

  • spizzat2@kbin.social
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    5 months ago

    To save you some time, it’s Google’s Ad Center, which the article doesn’t even link to, as far as I can tell.

    I’m not creeped out by any of the info I found in mine, but I am annoyed. “Yes, Google, I searched for [random thing] twice because I needed to know a little more information. That time has passed because I bought it or the event has passed or whatever. Reminding me about it just makes it weird.”

  • kennebel@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    some people might like that it helps them get targeted ads - after all, the tech has crunched all the data, and can advertise things to you that you might actually want.

    Hahahahaha Next best thing to ad blocking, is generic ads that you don’t care about and can ignore more easily, and you know that the company is getting paid less for those ads showing.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      I much prefer random ads anyways. Targeted ads are 90% something You’ve already recently bought.

      With random ads sometimes you see something interesting that you didn’t even know you wanted because you didn’t know it even existed.

      If I’m looking for a laptop I don’t care to see 1000 ads for laptops, I’m not going to just click an ad and buy one I need to research and deep dive into the kind I want.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, that’s the thing, the more I want something, the less interested I am in ads. Their whole point is to sell me their product or service, not inform me if it is worth buying.

        And in the meantime, Amazon is trying to sell me a monthly subscription to once in a decade purchases.

  • penquin@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    I’ve had mine turned off for years, but it doesn’t really matter, Google and all these tech giants will still collect whatever info they want regardless.

    • red_pigeon@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Also one or a few people turning it off doesn’t matter much. The tech giants still get their demographic statistics from the ones who haven’t (which is the larger percentage of the population). You could be spending money on things based on targeted ads for your demographic.

      In other words, you are creeped out about wondering what they could do with your personal data if you turn it on. But you should be even more creeped out about how your daily decisions are already influenced by them using others data

      • penquin@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        I mean, you need the fucking money to buy shit in the first place. Lol

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          That’s the funniest shit about this late stage capitalism. I just read somewhere that like a third of McDonald’s customer base have been historically low income, and they just figured out a almost half of them have been priced out of their menu…

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Well yeah, there’s a reason it’s called late stage, not “yet another stage” or “completed”. The ouroboros is getting fat from it’s greedy feast.

            At a certain point the options became to slowly self destruct or accept defeat

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Same, but I just reviewed mine a week or two ago when I finally switched my email away from Gmail, and lo and behold, there were more trackers enabled (for new stuff they added and I don’t use, but still…).

  • Icalasari@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    lol it has almost nothing on me. Even has my relationship status wrong

    ADHD - The ultimate Info Tracking killer

    • boywar3@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Same lol

      Between that and the random shit it has listed as what I get ads for…it isn’t a whole lot. I spend most of time looking up highly specific things on Wikipedia or out of immediate utility, so I suppose I’m just not that interesting…also ublock origin ftw

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      I supply mine with fake info with the google rewards app :p
      I answered the question as if I was a mother (am not and male) of 4 children, which has higher education, is into tech and fashion, has 4 children and a house.
      So far I made 29,30€ in total in Play Store cash. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      Sadly some of the funds lapse after some time but I have used it for smaller apps and such.

      • acetanilide@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I used to do surveys as a CEO of a megacorp making lots of money

        Turns out they give more money to you if you’re already rich…(probably because rich people don’t really do that stuff so they want more of their data)

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I used to do this, but I honestly don’t have much need for Play Store cash. I paid for a couple FOSS apps I wanted to support, and then stopped w/ the opinions thing because I don’t have a use for the rewards. I’m actively trying to avoid the Play store in general, so it’s a bit counter-productive.

  • Account_93@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Those same people will be shocked when their smart assistant has saved all past recordings of their requests. Lmfao

    Then again, This article is on one of the cancers of the internet “unilad”.

  • yokonzo@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Well I had it disabled on my main account, but to be sure I checked my other accounts, which weren’t disabled. Turns out Google thinks I’m a high income female who works at a large real estate company. Kind of tempted to visit a bunch of weird sites to poison their data more

    • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      I checked my throwaway/spam account. Apparently, I’m a high-wage tech employee at a large company, and I’m also a homeowner.

      Damn, they think too highly of me.

  • chlopczyca@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I tried to check mine and was extremely glad but underwhelmed that all my accounts have personalized ads turned off. I’m sure Google has tons of info on me anyway though lol 🙃

  • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
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    5 months ago

    I turned off my Google account entirely by deleting it in January of 2022. And I use add and tracker blocking DNS functionality on all devices on my network and primarily use open source software. So good luck. They may very well still know stuff about me, but the stuff they are going to know is going to be limited and or very old.

  • metaStatic@kbin.social
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    5 months ago

    The ad settings are so far off the mark it’s not even a little concerning … besides the fact they where on by default (fixed)

    What is concerning is google activity. literally everything you do on your phone is tracked by default

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Doesn’t tell me anything becasuee I would need to verify I’m over 18, but I’m sure it still collects all that information.

  • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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    5 months ago

    Went to check - had personalised Ads off on every account I have already, so I guess I won’t be seeing what Google’s got on me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯