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PSA: Reddit is Forcing Users to Accept Personalized Ads (www.macrumors.com)

submitted 9 months ago by fer0n@lemm.ee to c/technology@beehaw.org

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TL;DR: Reddit is removing the option to opt out of ad personalization, targeting ads based on user activity. Some specific ad categories can still be limited, but there's no more opt-out option.

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[-] dom@lemmy.ca 23 points 9 months ago

Honestly, number 3 is the only thing that would have marginal impact. Consumers don't have the time and energy to research every product to the depth required foe the first two.

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

And the vast majority of consumers don't even understand what's going on, and don't care. Look at how many people happily download and use the TikTok app, despite evidence that it's harvesting your biometric data and sending it to a government overseas. They don't fucking care.

[-] ono@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

Consumers don’t have the time and energy to research every product to the depth required foe the first two.

You don't need to go on a research project to see the personal info fields in a sign-up form.

For more complicated stuff, a labeling program would help.

[-] dom@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

On some products, these steps occur after you've purchased and opened the product and are setting it up.

[-] ono@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

1a. Exercise your right to return things that have invasive hidden requirements.

(And this is another area where a labeling program would help.)

[-] dan@upvote.au 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You don't need to go on a research project to see the personal info fields in a sign-up form.

That's not the only way companies get data about you though. Some collect it through their app - the sites that try and force you to use the app instead of the site are usually the worst offenders. Others just buy data from data brokers like Acxiom, Experian, LiveRamp, etc. and correlate it with the details they have on you (phone number, email address, ad targeting ID, etc).

Where possible, use sites instead of apps, since it limits the types of data that can be collected (as sites are highly sandboxed compared to apps). Good sites let you install them as PWAs for a more app-like feel.

[-] ono@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

That’s not the only way companies get data about you though.

Nobody said it was.

[-] dan@upvote.au 1 points 9 months ago

I was mostly replying to the top level comment about choosing companies/products that respect your privacy. It's pretty much impossible to tell if a company cares about or respects your privacy just from the sign up form.

[-] ono@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It read as though you thought picking out one particular case that I didn't address somehow refuted what I wrote. (Which it doesn't, of course, because I wasn't making an exhaustive list.)