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Dunno about that. Seems like the kind of thing where people would have to be using services that explicitly do that crap.

eg Google, Facebook, etc.

People not using those services seem to be doing ok. :)



Hubris aside, it was established as early as 2008 that Facebook collects data on non-users for so called 'shadow profiles.'

Zuckerberg himself indirectly confirmed this: https://web.archive.org/web/20211006190710/https://www.getre...


You don't have to use services for google or facebook to track you through your face or being tagged in your relatives and/or friends accounts.

I kept getting the "eyes rolling look" when I mention my partner and other relatives friends I don't want them to post pictures of me online and I have very little way to make sure they don't. The only way is to refuse being photographed and basically avoid social events. You shouldn't have to be forced into antisocial behavior to make sure you aren't being tracked.

And I am only talking about photos, there are many other ways to be tracked and identified.


> The only way is to refuse being photographed and basically avoid social events.

Depending on where you live, you'll still be on probably dozens if not hundreds of security cameras as you go about your day.

It reminds me about the furor over so-called "glassholes" who filmed people while wearing Google Glass. People were outraged when they saw that they were being filmed with cameras that were right in their face, but don't care the that dozens of (mostly invisible) security cameras film them daily.


If you have literally any credit card, bank account, loan, property, a car, a single amazon purchase, starbucks rewards, I absolutely guarantee that you have a profile that’s being sold for ransom by any number of those providers. The title companies, credit reporting agencies alone also automatically get that information and subsequently sell that as well. If you buy any real estate or own any business, there are dozens if not hundreds of companies whose sole purpose is to scrape all that public government data and subsequently sell that to third parties. Yes, there are dark patterns involved.


You don't have to use Google for Google to have ~half of your emails. https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be...

Google have been so far good stewards of your data so nothing to worry about.


In addition to other comments: Using Google, Meta (with Instagram and WhatsApp), Snapchat, TikTok and whatnot is the default state for big parts of the world.


Many services just bundle the crap. Smart phone app, and websites, are often using third party libraries which bring huge developer convenience and other benefits - and they also imply tracking the user.

https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-facebook-tracks-...


er do you not use a search engine?


Duck Duck Go, and now sometimes Kagi


How could a user of these services know that they're not being tracked when using them?

We only have their word to go on, and absolutely no way to verify, afaik.


That's a decent point.

But are you saying there's no difference between known bad actors (Google, FB, etc) and DDG / Kagi?




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