> It's crazy how much data these scripts collect

And you're ok with this?

Businesses choose to send this data to the ad platforms for their own benefits - better targeting, measurement, and ML optimization of their ad campaigns.

The businesses are legally accountable for the data they're sending and complying with privacy laws, but to most platforms it's a dumb pipe for whatever data the business chooses to send.

> Businesses choose to send this data to the ad platforms for their own benefits - better targeting, measurement, and ML optimization of their ad campaigns.

I think the post you're replying to is concerned about the moral rights of the people whose data is sent, not whether sending the data is beneficial or harmful to the business that sends it.

Probably more OK then they are with making their life uncomfortable to look for another job with similar benefits. It's not just a moral decision in a void.

Is your question rhetorical?

Their actions tell us they’re OK with it.

Do they? Have you never done something under protest?

Developers doing something "under protest"? Why would they? Nobody is going hungry if they don't work at $corp any more and work for $otherCorp instead.

That'll be something for when the market has fundamentally changed and you'll make your nation's average for your education level. But until then essentially nobody has to work anywhere "under protest", there are so many other opportunities.

So says you in a market where bigTech is laying people off, where people have spouse/kids/house payment/car payment/holiday pressures/adult responsibilites.

Choice A) stand on principle and ruffle feathers and risk becoming unemployed

Choice B) just do what tasks you've been assigned, collect paycheck, hold your nose until better options are available.

It is totally understandable why people can find themselves in these situations. It is totally different than the team member that thinks up this stuff and actively promotes this within the org. Those are the asshats

Other options have been available since forever and still are unless you're in a super niche field, and everything that touches ads and tracking / analytics isn't niche.

There's more than enough work out there, but those other jobs might not net an individual 10x the average household income. Can one survive on 5x or even 3x? Then there are more than enough alternatives.

If the employer has kidnapped your daughter and threatens to kill her if you don't build this tracking solution, then I can totally see how you'd do things you find reprehensible "under protest". But I doubt that's a common scenario, and generally people just don't care or they rationalize it ("I'm working on ads so the internet will not be paywalled").

You're preaching to the choir a bit, but I'm just showing some empathy. I've been in places that started to move into directions that I didn't agree with, and caused me to start the process of moving. It takes time, and while you're lining things up, you have to do work to get paid.

You can judge someone that accepted a job ad bigAdTech, but there are other jobs that start out as an acceptable place but as things continue on with potentially new leadership or some other change causes things to become untenable. Not everything is simple, but you can armchair quarterback and make judgement one the limit information you have.

Yes and yes.

Regardless of what you say, it’s actions that matter. You can tell me you’re against something all you want — but if your actions tell me you aren’t, guess which I care about?

It’s easy to talk ourselves into doing something “under protest” that we’re “against” for a big paycheck. But you know what, at some point, we’re not really “against” it afterall.

From experience, most folks who implement these tags don’t understand the scope of what they’re actually doing, and most are likely doing so without consulting a legal team or understanding the legal implications of the tracking they’re deploying.