Yes, I understand that, they are more "low level", but again, everyone is doing tracking, gmail(and the rest) reads mail and throws ads at you based on content, who is to say they don't keep tabs on specific people? Most mail can be read anyway, since nobody really uses encryption on them, and mail is bounced around server to server.
They may very well, but nobody's forcing anyone to use gmail or create a Google account of any kind (except Google,
if you want to use their services.) I was laughing at the then-hipsters who were falling all over each proclaiming the coolness of Google's search engine (even before it was notably better than its erstwhile competitors) much less thought gmail was "so cool" and rushing to wrangle invitations while Google trumpeted that stupid "Do No Evil" slogan... (If that itself/alone wasn't a tip-off, I don't know what would have been.
) The only Google accounts I've personally ever had are dummies I use only for Google, and that's bad enough... And yes, of course all the non-ISP email providers eventually started doing it too. I guess having used BBS-type services before the Internet went public was useful training, since I've always known better than to write
anything in a personal email I wouldn't be willing to have blazoned on a billboard in Times Square if push came to even not-very-hard shove (though of course I've written things I'd "just as soon" have remain private...
), and that's even more true of email sent from work-related addresses. The only even vaguely "confidential" things I've ever written in those were business-related "confidences" of the client confidentiality, trade-secret type, nothing personally embarassing, let alone damaging.
All I am saying is that all this BS should be stopped cold, not pretend that it isn't a big problem with all the companies that have a hand in the cookie jar.
I don't disagree, but I never said it wasn't a problem in general. But there are relatively easy ways (for now, anyway) to at least limit the amount of information that can be identified to any given person as "an individual in real life", which will become almost impossible, at least without serious effort, with ISP-identified data) and I also know it's sheer fantasy to hope it will ever be "stopped cold". And frankly, I don't think the English language has adjectives strong enough to describe the level of fantasizing needed to think it could
conceivably happen with
The Donald in the White House and today's "Republicans" in control of Congress. Hoping pixies will drop a big bag of gold on your head while you sleep would be a much more productive use of your time, since it's
far more likely to actually happen...
For the foreseeable future, we'll be lucky to maintain the status quo, pathetic as it is, without wasting time or blood glucose even thinking about getting Congress to improve the situation.
I should have been a bit more clear, Mozilla (and...) gets paid by search engine providers, and those search engines do keep track of who you are, and what you are searching for, well, except for Duck Duck Go, they claim (unverified) they don't do that.
You seem to be willfully ignoring the point that no one is forcing you to use those services - which aren't exactly "crucial" to daily life, yet, anyway - and that there are easy ways of at least limiting the information that can be aggregated without serious effort. (Not to mention what I think is the very significant fact that ISPs are already being paid
a lot of money to do what they do. There's no quid-pro-"user data" involved there at all. That's just unadulterated corporate greed, pure and simple.) Ultimately, if someone who knows what they're doing
really wants to track you, you
will be tracked. But that's not what I, and most ("mainstream") privacy advocates, are complaining about. The NSA, law enforcement generally, and even the odd neckbeard troll infesting his parents' basement (with much higher than typical hacking ability) can track me until they pass out from sheer boredom for all I care. But that's a far cry from my ^%#ing ISP selling my aggregate browsing behavior on the open market, all linked neatly, clearly, and unequivocally to
me as an individual, since I have no access to the Internet at all without them. (And seriously speaking, these days it's almost as absurd to say "well then just don't use the Internet" as it would be say "no one's forcing you to use electricity"...) I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but if you don't see much less understand that difference, you're not only not paying attention, you probably don't even have the intellectual capacity to be able to pay attention in the first place.
As for that VPN, we have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, and who is actually in charge. They didn't raid the place, so, it is impossible to tell what they actually store.
Well, maybe, but afaic that's taking a step over the tinfoil hat line. You never "know for sure" about
anything you don't see or hear personally, and even then you'd be wrong half the time if you took even
that at face value. For that matter, if you're going to take the argument that far, what would there be to stop any company from continuing along its merry way even if the strongest possible Federal law prohibiting or sharing personal information were passed?
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