Not selling it doesn't matter to me because the company that I'm afraid of ending up with my data -- ie the company I don't want others to sell their data to -- is Google itself.
You have to ask yourself, why don't we want companies to sell our data in the first place? What's wrong with a third party having it? Its out of fear of them abusing that data. So then you have to ask yourself, what counts as abuse? To me, its any time a company uses the data against me, in order to make me spend money or buy products. This is EXACTLY what Google does with my data. They use it to find out what the best adverts to serve me are, that give the highest likelihood that I will click on them and buy something. Given the amount of garbage adverts they have, I do not trust Google for a second: I've seen plenty of Google and Youtube adverts for outright scams, exploitative garbage like Raid Shadow Legends, have heard reports of malware being served, etc. As long as Google happily serve these adverts on their network (and they don't even respond to reporting the adverts, as plenty of HN submissions have shown), I don't believe they can be trusted, in general and certainly not with my data.
Therefore, I do not want Google to have any data on me and that's why I am against this and other acquisitions.
Besides just the data, its also Googles record for shutting down services they buy and their non-existent customer support.
Not knowingly, in that I don't remember ever clicking on such an advert and then purchasing something. But its impossible to tell if they've primed me to buy something later.
But just because I try to be vigilant and also try to block adverts, doesn't mean that I should be ok with them having my data. Just because they haven't figured out a way to trick me yet doesn't mean they won't later or that they won't become even more egregious later. Besides, its a business model I find unethical, so I want to distance myself from it as much as possible, and them not having data on me is part of that.
Got it. Yeah, I find highly-targeted ads to be creepy as well, and started using ffx with adblock for all browsing. I use Chrome for logged-in web use (gmail, fb, etc).
I don't get relevant ads anymore, but instead I get lowest-common-denominator ads. It's... worse!
I don't like the idea of targeted ads, but the consequence feels pretty minimal I have to say. The worst thing that happens is I buy a product that I turn out not to be happy with / wasn't worth the money?
If regretted purchases were rampant it'd be a problem worth solving, but it doesn't seem to be.
Just some thoughts I've been exploring. I'm not exactly planning on going back to wilfully being tracked.
It’s not really about regretted purchases for me than it is about giving some corporation that power over us. Additionally, the internet has become a cesspool if advertising and google is a huge part of causing that. It’s also that google is serving adverts for scams, malware or just exploitative garbage.
I also feel that while you and I may be doing ok avoiding this stuff, many people don’t including old people and children. That’s not ok. I know that’s off topic here, but the more data google and about us, the less likely it will be that we can protect ourselves or others from this.
You have to ask yourself, why don't we want companies to sell our data in the first place? What's wrong with a third party having it? Its out of fear of them abusing that data. So then you have to ask yourself, what counts as abuse? To me, its any time a company uses the data against me, in order to make me spend money or buy products. This is EXACTLY what Google does with my data. They use it to find out what the best adverts to serve me are, that give the highest likelihood that I will click on them and buy something. Given the amount of garbage adverts they have, I do not trust Google for a second: I've seen plenty of Google and Youtube adverts for outright scams, exploitative garbage like Raid Shadow Legends, have heard reports of malware being served, etc. As long as Google happily serve these adverts on their network (and they don't even respond to reporting the adverts, as plenty of HN submissions have shown), I don't believe they can be trusted, in general and certainly not with my data.
Therefore, I do not want Google to have any data on me and that's why I am against this and other acquisitions.
Besides just the data, its also Googles record for shutting down services they buy and their non-existent customer support.