Originally Posted By: Planobilly
What do you guys consider the dangers of tracking in general?


In real world terms, today, I don't want to be psychoanalyzed and targetted for browser ads. It's amusing seeing a sudden proliferation of ads for things like audio editing software plugins when you just happen to have bought one, but it's the darker, more subtle stuff, intended to get into my head without me knowing or being able to block it, that I worry about.

More generally and futuristically:

Given the existence of information and a possible way to put it to bad use, it will be put to bad use. The more personal activity is automatically tracked, the more raw personal data there will be to analyze at some future date, when someone takes an interest in some revealing aspect of that Big Data that hadn't been noticed before. Big Brother may not be here yet, but let's not prepare a way for him by routinely logging petabytes and petabytes of random data about every one of us all the time. The bigger data mines we create, the more "gold" there will be to mine for, and eek.

There's a setting in iOS that lets your iPhone keep a record – viewable on a little map! – of everywhere you go. First thing I do with a new phone is turn that off. Do I expect anybody to be doing anything evil with my location history? No. Do I have anything to hide? No. But why keep information like that around?

Last edited by Mark Hayes; 01/06/22 05:30 PM.