I'm genuinely curious, how does it being a problem for them benefit you? (I'm assuming you're not saying that out of indifferent malice but because you have personal gains, which is normal.)
I think on the general principle of privacy. But also, the idea that the more trackable you are, the more easily manipulated you are by marketers and advertisers. Free markets work better the more consumers are rational. Giving marketers deep psychological and behavioral insight increasingly enables them to circumvent rationality and "hack" consumers in various ways.
Thanks for a constructive and very insightful response.
This definitely seems to be a valid reason why people would be against being tracked. We don't want to be more easily manipulated (through the data that the ones doing tracking are able to acquire) and coerced into buying things we don't want/need (but the ones doing tracking want us to buy).
Would it be accurate to describe it like this: the consumers' interests are to be rational, less easily manipulated and "unhackable", and being tracked is a threat to those interests.
On the other hand, the store owners are trying their best to get their products sold, so their interests are opposite of the consumers, to find ways to sell as many things as possible.
If that's accurate, I find it interesting that there are these underlying "wars" occurring within a single species. In fact, a single person may wake up and go to work one morning, serving in the position of the one doing the "tracking" and fighting against the interests of consumers, then in the evening they may go shopping and end up on the other side, fighting against the interests of the ones doing tracking.
That's decently accurate. We're all doing what's in our best interest, in the role that we play in that time.
In general - I want to give people who don't know me personally (and especially people trying to sell me anything) less power to catch my attention and pull at my impulses, not more.
There's a ton of evidence we aren't doing what's in our best interest at minimum a significant minority of the time. In any event, the claim of economics isn't that people act in their best interest, but that they try to maximize happiness* -- whatever that is (it's rather recursively defined -- happiness is produced by voluntary transactions, which in turn are voluntary because both parties believe that the exchange will make them happier).
* or whatever it is makes transactions pareto optimal.
Meanwhile, behavioral economists have shown humans aren't even great at pursuing happiness; perhaps they have reached their high water mark, but they're certainly not completely wrong.
> Would it be accurate to describe it like this: the consumers' interests are to be rational, less easily manipulated and "unhackable", and being tracked is a threat to those interests.
In my view, yes. Being rational is by definition the only way to make my life better. The harder it is to be rational—to perceive the truth through all the layers of bullshit and manipulation—the less I trust my own conclusions, and free markets in general.
underlying "wars" occurring within a single species
Have you met any humans lately? We all have divergent interests, differently expressed in different aspects of our lives. The entirety of law and politics is this.
There's a flip side to this. Being less trackable means that any passive advertising or active marketing you do see is less tailored to your situation and needs.
When I walk around I see many billboards advertising products for which I have no use (e.g. female hair care products). If tracking technology could replace those with things I actually might buy (even if male hair care products) then I would be a touch happier.
Do you know what companies never do? They never ask.
I see dating ads, cars advertisements, feminine healthcare products, insurance ads, etc. What do I want to see? Travel accessories, computers, hardware, games, tech gadgets, etc. I never see these ads.
Why doesn't Google say, hey, you're going to see Adsense all over the internet, advertisements before videos on YouTube, etc. Would you like to select a few categories so that time is spent seeing some cool products that are relevant to you?
I've been on the internet for 15+ years, and no one stopped to ask just once. I could select categories in about 20 seconds that would be more accurate than all this data collection and profiling that happens every day.
Instead, I just block ads, and install ad block on every computer I come across. I make my living off ad revenue, but ads are absolutely awful, irrelevant and too often malicious. If they gave me the option to select some categories in the past, I probably would have discovered some decent products to buy, and keep them turned on. But nope, I can't recall clicking an ad in the past decade.
But if they asked, you could lie to them. Lots of people would. There's a total presumptive lack of trust, which is part of why the whole business is so corrosive.
Serious question: are you sure you'd actually be happier? I like efficiency as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean that I'm looking forward to companies more efficiently marketing to me. Especially if it's going to be constant.
I have already started to notice ads targeted at me. Ads for niche outdoor gear companies that I patronize.
I can report that it has indeed made me happier, as compared to when the ads were "Click here, Millionth visitor, and win a prize!". The dragnet advertising is a constant assault on your intelligence.
It also helps that the targeted ads I am seeing are tasteful & well designed.
I adblock 90%+ of the time, but I let ads through on some websites.
It can go both ways. When I was researching for the next car I was going to buy, I started getting a _ton_ of car advertisements; however, most of them were useless. What their simple algorithm failed to notice is that I was looking at a very specific class of cars, and I spent more than 1 hour on several manufacturers websites doing research and had mostly narrowed in on my choice. The proper move would be to see that and advertise different dealerships to me, but I only got ads for other cars that I already decided I _didn't_ want.
Also, I like to research, in general. Which means I can often come across and get deeply into some very odd subjects and it seems there are some odd correlations out there in society. For example, after doing a bunch of research on different world religions and their origin stories, I started getting ads for the Mormon church, and strangely, for all types of gambling websites, destinations and attractions. None of this advertising was of any use.
I guess it comes down to a difference in acceptability of intrusive advertising. Personally, I am absolutely disgusted when adverts are tailored towards me (especially since I don't see them most of the time with Adblock).
Seeing tailored advertisements brings me a feeling of despair, in the sense that your personal privacy is being exchanged for money. It only serves as a sad reminder that you must actively fight to protect it, and that we, as consumers, are failing at it right now.
What's bad or irrational about being manipulated by marketers and advertisers? I don't see how buying something because some marketing convinced you of its worth is irrational.
Listen to your sentence, once you factor out the internal contradictions (emphasis mine):
> What's bad or irrational about being manipulated by marketers and advertisers? I don't see how buying something because some marketing manipulated you into thinking it was worth buying is irrational.
Most people, if it explained to them, would be generally uncomfortable with the idea of their movements in a public place being so specifically logged.
How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions?
Thanks for a constructive response to my question. I'm simply trying to gain a better understanding of the situation.
> How would you feel if every time you were in a store, an employee followed you around and took notes on your actions?
Most people would feel uneasy/bothered by that. But are those emotions warranted? If we did not get such emotions, would the same scenario be okay? Or are the emotions a consequence of the true reason why we're against such behavior.
It's also worth noting that the employee following you around is a visible behavior, while being tracked via Wi-Fi mac addresses is much less intrusive.
It's also worth noting that the employee following you around is a visible behavior, while being tracked via Wi-Fi mac addresses is much less intrusive.
It's less visibly intrusive, but the effect is the same. Our instincts aren't very good at reacting to effects we can't see, having evolved in a world where there were no undetectable ways for someone to follow us. Thus, we should consider what our natural reactions would be to a person doing the thing we want to use technology to do, before we create the technology to do it.
> It's less visibly intrusive, but the effect is the same. Our instincts aren't very good at reacting to effects we can't see
Absolutely true.
We should also consider the underlying causes of certain emotions, and whether or not they should be warranted.
Many phobias are unwarranted fears, so the goal is to eliminate the emotion rather than the underlying source. But the decision to _try_ to eliminate the fear can only be done after identifying and confirming that the fear is indeed unwarranted and unhealthy.
On the other hand, if the emotion is warranted, then it's completely valid.
What I'm suggesting is that human emotion serve as a really good indicator, but they cannot be taken as the absolute truth. It's best to investigate the actual facts and come up with logical conclusions. So neither trusting emotions blindly, nor ignoring them completely is the best course of action, but something in between.
Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them? They should feel lucky to have me in their store and provide service, not Orwellian surveillance.
My other beef here is that this is just another way to further dumb down and make retail employment completely mindless.
> Why should I have my movements tracked in a store when I'm not using the resources offered by them?
To answer your question directly, one of the advantages could be that they can optimize the store layout better so you don't have to walk as much to find what you want.
(There are other disadvantages and advantages, by listing one of them I don't exclude the existence of others, but I can't cover everything.)
> one of the advantages could be that they can optimize the store layout better so you don't have to walk as much to find what you want.
But stores do not want to do that. Stores know you want a pint of milk and loaf of bread. They put these two items far apart which means you need to walk past all that other stuff, this increasing the chance you'll buy something else.
Tracking technology isn't going to ne used to make my experience nicer unless that translates into more money fornthe store.
> Stores know you want a pint of milk and loaf of bread.
You, me, perhaps: what about other buyers, many of whom don't come to the store with detailed checklists? Their experience involves a fair amount of in-store exploration. For them placing milk and loaf of bread far apart might arguably be beneficial, because it makes them go past all of that other stuff they may forget to buy otherwise. Indeed, I imagine such customers are also easier to upsell to and more prone to impulse purchases of products that yield better margins—and that's part of the shopping process they visit the store for. Alas, people seem to enjoy buying things.
In short, I wouldn't be so confident that a store with more ‘rational’ layout would score better in the eye of the customer, even all else equal.
Disclaimer: I don't work in this area of business and this is purely my speculation.
This is interesting and indicative of a bigger problem.
Why isn't it most profitable for the stores to provide the best experience for customers in order to be most profitable?
Suppose there are two stores:
- Store A. Offers decent experience for the customer.
- Store B. Offers much better experience for the customer.
One would naively expect and hope that, given those two choices, more people would prefer to go to the better Store B and hence it would be more profitable. Hence the stores would try to do their best to serve the customer interests.
Why is it instead more optimal for stores not to optimize for the happiness of its customers?
Could it be because customers are not adept at recognizing which stores offer better experience for them, _and rewarding_ such stores by preferring them over other stores?
These are only speculations, but here are points based on my own habits:
1) The most important criterion for me when looking for a store, is walking distance. I don't want to bike, or drive to the store. So the closest store is almost guaranteed to win my business.
2) The second most important criterion is the price. I'm still a student so I'm a bit careful with my spending. So if a store is much much cheaper, and not too much further, then I might go there when I have big errands to run.
3) I am pretty much insensitive to the layout of the store. I'm already walking 10-15 minutes to get there, so 30 seconds between milk and bread is no problem really
Anyway, my point is that in my case, the reason why the "better" store doesn't win is that I don't really care about the criterion used to define it as "better". So going back to your point, a store doesn't have anything to do to serve my interest other than being close to my apartment and lowering the prices. The rest is almost totally irrelevant to me.
You are assuming that the customer is you, the schlub with the iPhone, are the customer in mind here. It isn't -- product merchandising in stores isn't rocket science. Any decent retail manager handles this stuff just fine and Wal-Mart has been able to track merchandising effectiveness using the registers for like 25 years now.
The customer here is the product manufacturers and distributors, and the product is shelf space. In big box and department stores, strategic shelves like end caps and the area near the escalators are paid placements.
Ditto for the supermarket. Ever notice that in different chains, Coke or Pepsi is always either in the front or back of the store across locations? That's because they bid on the preferred location.
Retailers are focusing on stuff like this because most mass retailers have unsustainable business models and aren't making money at the core job - selling stuff to people.
While I don't have evidence, I think it's reasonable to postulate that store A is able to offer the same products as store B at a lower price due to being able to offset it with the extra revenue earned from people having to walk across the store and buying additional products that they would not have otherwise. While you (and I) might value our time over saving 50 cents on a loaf of bread, a significant portion of the population would rather spend 50 cents less on a loaf of bread and be forced to walk across the store. For other people, the better experience might be saving 50 cents, whereas for you it's saving time.
Same thing with Google and TV commercials. For some people, privacy and security and saving time is a better experience, but for most, saving a few dollars here and there is a better experience.
And going even further, why don't customers punish the stores that give shitty customer by no longer shopping there? Same goes for your ISP, politician, etc... We have short memories.
ISPs = Not many people have a choice. My Parents can get Verizon DSL or Comcast Cable. Not really a "competitive choice".
Politicians = It takes time. Once they are elected terms last a long time and then people often have to choose a "new evil"... They can't just say welp, I don't support you anymore that'll solve the problem.
I think part of it is that there's no real venue for customers to express their satisfaction to other prospective customers. If I find a store relatively well-laid-out, convenient, and friendly, I don't have a lot of opportunities to evangelize that store, even if I want to, because my legitimate actual real customer opinion gets crowded out by and blends in with astro-turfers. Sure I can talk it up to my friends, but that's not really a common topic of conversation.
Depends what you're selling. A grocery store is like that since they operate on razor thin margins and making you impulse buy is how they are going to make more money.
An Apple store is not laid out like that. I always see the big ticket items upfront and the accessories in the back. Most people don't impulse buy things that expensive.
>An Apple store is not laid out like that. I always see the big ticket items upfront and the accessories in the back. Most people don't impulse buy things that expensive.
You just walked past the shiny new things twice while you were there buying a cheap accessory. Maybe you noticed something you'll buy in the near future.
Meanwhile, the big ticket items are window dressing, and people who haven't bought an iDevice don't need accessories for one yet.
If the store owner has to choose between using the data to make more profit or to enhance customer value, he'll likely choose the first option. You're not supposed to find the cheapest product easily, but that which provides the best profit ratio for the store owner. So, store layout will change in a way to manipulate your buying decision and you will not even notice the reason for the gradual change.
it's a simple test: if data companies collect where clearly explained to the user, would the user approve or not?
"By entering this store, we will permanently record your location every 60 seconds. The main purpose of said data collection is attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising. Further, we will sell this data to many companies, most of whom we don't directly interact with. Our privacy 'policy' will most likely never be audited, and the worst possible outcome of violations is a fine in the low millions of dollars. We will hand this information over to police and lawyers if they clear the high bar of, well, asking for it. The nsa doesn't bother asking."
My guess is that most people would not be okay with that and choose to opt out.
But my question/argument is, would that be a rational decision? I don't see a lot of benefit for the customer to deny the store those options, so why do it if there's nothing to be gained from denying.
> attempting to stitch your actions on the internet to store visits to more effectively sell advertising
I think this is the key factor. If people see themselves as susceptible to such manipulation, then it does benefit them to deny such behavior to prevent stores from affecting them negatively.
>But my question/argument is, would that be a rational decision?
Does that matter? We[1] live in a capitalist democracy. One of the tenets of capitalism is that consumers should be well-informed and "vote with their dollars/feet", and the core principle of democracy is that the individual citizens get to decide how their society is run. We don't live in a LessWrong-ocracy where the world is run based on somebody's idea of rational objectivity or whatever.
I'm in politics so I know exactly how frustrating it can be when the average Joe doesn't necessarily agree with your vision of a rational decision, but if that's the case, the solution is to change their minds, not to circumvent or obfuscate to get around them.
[1] - I'm thinking Westerners in general, but I'm American, so I may be over-generalizing, we're good at that :-)
Notice that the very many organizations that track people, from businesses to government, rarely notify those they track (in an effective manner) and sometimes go to great lengths to hide it (e.g., many stories report police departments hiding their surveillance tactics, such as with Stingray).
If the argument is that it's good for the people tracked, why hide it?
(EDIT: Deleted the first paragraph; I can't find the reference.)
For me it is mostly about the involuntary nature of it. I actually don't mind myself, but I do mind not having the ability to turn that tracking off (well, without manually disabling Wifi all the time anyway) or in any way control or affect the profile it generates.
Interesting to compare to Google who tracks customers around the internet. Crucially, if you don't log in to a Google account you are only one 'clear cookies' away from erasing your profile (I wonder occasionally if Google reconstructs profiles across different cookie sessions or not ...). At least on that side, you have some control. You can't change your MAC address nearly so easily.
Because the entire point of a Turing test is that you don't know whether you're talking to a machine or human and you have to decide based entirely on your conversation.
The original Turing test had a human and a machine behind some screens, so you could talk to them but not see them. Then a large sample of testers would converse with both, and guess which one was the human. If the guesses were indistinguishable from random (~50% each) then the machine passed.
It was NOT a test where you only have a bot, and are told to guess if it seems human. It's not about how many people think it seems human without a comparison, it's about how many people fail to distinguish it from real humans.
I haven't been able to run down the parameters of the test in this case. I imagine there are some humans mixed in to obfuscate the machines? (Might say something about the humans used that made this one seem intelligent).
The Real Name policy was the beginning of the end for me, Reader being shut down made me lose interest in all new Google products, and Snowden made me stop using some of the ones I already had been.
The Real Name policy is noteworthy from starting out being fundamentally stupid at the "anyone who has spent a week online should know this" level, but still seemingly just a dumb mistake, to being downright malicious and evil the moment it was clear they had no intention of backtracking even after their attention had been brought to the risks it put some people in.
I do funny just fine. Pity HN has such a lousy sense of humor. Really funny comments get downvoted all the time here for being "unproductive" or some silly crap like that.
But hey, if all you want to do is get karma, just post a bland reinforcement of the conventional wisdom. Works like a charm.
No, you can't. You can create a new history, you can't edit an existing one.
To clarify: You can, e.g., use interactive rebase to remove a commit from a branch. But that creates a new HEAD with a different SHA - this is why rebasing published branches is such a bad thing.
The parent was implying you could change history without anyone noticing. This implies modifying a previous commit whilst keeping the current HEAD the same, which can't be done.
Exactly right: it's the fact that this makes mass surveillance so much easier that is the problem with certain surveillance technology being used by law enforcement.
