Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The problem for people isn’t advertising, and the problem for advertising isn’t blocking. The problem for both is tracking.

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Some good points here following Google's quiet change of policy to allow personally identifiable web tracking. "Google could now, if it wished to, build a complete portrait of a user by name, based on everything they write in email, every website they visit and the searches they conduct," says Julia Angwin. "Tracking is no less an invasion of privacy in apps and browsers than it is in homes, cars, purses, pants and wallets," says Doc Searls. "Our apps and browsers are personal and private. So are the devices on which we use them...Tracking people without their clear and conscious permission is wrong... Claiming that advertising funds the "free" Internet is wrong." True. But tracking isn't the only problem with advertising. I tried looking at the new map of the Galaxy today and even with ad-blockers turned on couldn't see it behind the barrage of popups and auto-play videos running on news sites.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 19, 2024 9:19 p.m.

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