In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like "headphone status" and "screen density."
"They trust me" "Dumb fucks"
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Disgusting
"They "trust me". Dumb fucks." - Mark Zuckerberg c. early 2000s: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#2000's
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I don't care if this app becomes the new norm, I ain't risking all that metadata. Fuck Facebook
Holy crap are you kidding? Mastodon IIRC requires zero priviliges/personal information to run.
Also, what the hell does it need "headphone status" for?
Bluetooth headphones have unique identifying information. Another data point for apps that the headphone jack doesn't provide.
Honestly not defending them because the android app can potentially track your credit score, but this is probably to pause videos when headphones unplug and perform similar actions.
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A lot of that stuff is pretty standard if you're doing logging and metrics on your service (which you should if you want to resolve outages). From the IP address and user agent you get rough location, os info, and network info. A few other things can be used for optimization (faster load times), and a Meta-scale, I wouldn't be surprised if they do that.
That tracks about everything it possibly can just for the sake of it. I despise Meta so much...
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This is why I only ever access Facebook through FireFox Focus and use a fake name.
Youtube has done it now. The internet fighting is on. Truly not able to see Youtube now with blockers.
ReVanced is still working.
This is why I use Privacy Badger
Not only does it show you what and where it blocks, but you can also whitelist blocking in case you play browser games.
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Okay I'll bite. I work in product management for capitalist software companies. Every single software product you use has trackers built in unless if you're hardcore FOSS.
Even if the company has no interest in selling your data, it's still really hard to learn about user behaviours in the real world in order to figure out what to build next. Many of these trackers are UX tools, much more than selling your data tools. My previous employer fully anonymized and aggregated usage data, but we can't necessarily say the same for other companies.
These trackers are the industry default and honestly, I don't know where we'd be without them. We use them to measure the success of what we build and to look for surprises/opportunities.
On that note, for products and websites that I like, I sometimes intentionally turn off my ad and privacy blockers for them (as long as it's not intrusive). It's hard to do our work without that data.
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