The interpretations in 2018 from the Six4Three emails released through efforts by a British MP were the most damning on this point.

Key points: https://twitter.com/YBenkler/status/1070337233159372806?s=20...

Here was one thread of highlights which is still somewhat readable: https://web.archive.org/web/20181206132832/https://twitter.c...

Germany banned their cross-site data sharing/reciprocity, such as from menstrual cycle-tracking apps which had come to light (maybe separately), in 2019: https://twitter.com/YBenkler/status/1093495901342126080?s=20...

I think you’re giving Meta a break with best intention operation. I really think web tracking is much more nefarious than you are giving credit to.

I really don’t understand the goal with vague statements like this that can’t even provide even the slightest hint of specifics. What specific data? Even a single example would make this anecdote useful.

A lot of people talk in broad strokes because if you use their marketing platforms you can see exactly what data is being mined. You can posit their ideological, political, and personal stances. Their friends, family, and pay more to reach people that are shown to influence them. You can choose their region, their income, their habits, hobbies, and kinks.

You can quickly create an account and look at their self-serve ads. There's no reason why anyone needs to try and "guess" what these tracking tools can do. You can just go to the endpoint of that collected data and just see what you can target.

It's better now but before you could do EVEN more. But better in the sense that someone who needs a limb amputating to stop gangrene setting in is better.

Additionally, there are different means to the same end, so being vague is keeping the discussion focused by keeping it about the general practice instead offering details that could easily derail into unproductive commentary. The ad firms probably move things around all the time, but the gist of it is, if you browser requests a resource from a server with a little metadata, god knows what’s being done with that from there.

The ubiquity of user tracking is extremely useful yet culturally absurd. Now that’s ambiguous ;)

No one said anything about "best intentions" or "non-nefarious". They said "legal".

Nefarious is defined as wicked or criminal. My usage was specific to the latter definition and not the former. I said nefarious and chose the definition the implies “illegal” but instead of having a conversation on the topic you chose to pick at specific word definitions.

Lawful evil.

Why do you give them the benefit of the doubt? There are countless examples of this kind of behavior in top companies.

The difference when it comes to other industries (e.g. food) is that the regulation has had time to develop, and most legislators understand the concepts. So it's harder to cheat.

Forgetting someones opt-out preferences by mistake doesn't ring as severe as using light carcinogens in your food mix.

It’s pretty straightforward and no secret. All those “share on Facebook” widgets you used to see everywhere are also tracking users. Since they’re embedded into basically every site ever, and each hit to the widget goes to facebook.com (so your browser helpfully sends their cookie along with it), that means Facebook knows who you are and what sites you visit without your consent or intervention, and uses that to sell targeted ads. They even have a profile on you even if you don’t use Facebook.

It’s changed a bit recently with GDPR, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and some third party cookie privacy stuff so it’s a bit less insidious now, but it’s still pretty bad.

Reminds me last week I was looking at parts on a chip makers website and wondering why page updates were taking so long. It's because at work facebook is blocked.

Frankly I do not know why corporations don't block facebook as a security risk. Seriously that stuff is bleeding info on what your employees are up to.