Re:Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know
by Freak_NL on Sunday May 29, 2016 @09:27AM
(#11796285)
> I have yet to encounter a chat network that uses targeted advertising, so you're well off into the realm of conspiracy theories there.
You won't see that because that is not what makes the phone number so useful. Its biggest benefit is being able to correlate all those separate data profiles via one unique key. This makes these profiles more valuable to advertisers. You won't see advertisements in most of these apps (it would drive users to the competition) but they don't have to; they just show them in the browser. They already know it is you thanks to the ubiquitous social media buttons and tracking going on.
This is largely conjecture, sure, but the fact that using your phone number is a requirement rather than an option makes me suspicious.
Sometimes I don't mind if two services know that I am the same person, but I would like to be able to choose for myself. Sometimes I do like to use a throw-away email address and a VPN to use some service, simply because I care about my privacy. Often I don't feel that a service needs to know who I am beyond an alias.
You won't see that because that is not what makes the phone number so useful. Its biggest benefit is being able to correlate all those separate data profiles via one unique key. This makes these profiles more valuable to advertisers. You won't see advertisements in most of these apps (it would drive users to the competition) but they don't have to; they just show them in the browser. They already know it is you thanks to the ubiquitous social media buttons and tracking going on.
This is largely conjecture, sure, but the fact that using your phone number is a requirement rather than an option makes me suspicious.
Sometimes I don't mind if two services know that I am the same person, but I would like to be able to choose for myself. Sometimes I do like to use a throw-away email address and a VPN to use some service, simply because I care about my privacy. Often I don't feel that a service needs to know who I am beyond an alias.