This assumes the only source these companies collect from is your internet traffic. It’s not.
And even if it was, VPNs don’t protect against fingerprinting.
For the past few months I’ve been using kanary which is a service that searches for your information on hundreds of different data mining sources and submits deletion requests for you.
I started with ~225 exposures and it’s gone down over time but I’m still sitting at ~50 exposures and it seems to have plateaued.
This information was data like who I’d married and when, past and current addresses, family members, etc. None of which was gleaned from internet traffic.
Right, but you’re talking about two distinctly different things. The ISP doesn’t own the websites you visit. They only have a record of your traffic. The individual websites that you visit can bust your privacy through 3rd party cookies, browser fingerprinting, cross-site tracking, and a bunch of other methods created to circumvent the user security features built into the browser. Nobody shares that information back to the ISP for free. The real issues are that huge companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have scripts running on millions of websites, so they can track you everywhere you go. But they’re still just single companies. The linchpin is that they then sell that information to Big Data brokers like Cambridge Analytica, and Informatica. Those companies combine literally everything you do online, everything you submit, all your history, all your data points, and build these fully accurate pictures of you. You need to take proactive measures to prevent this sort of data harvesting that go well beyond a VPN. But your ISP doesn’t have these systems in place. So unless the ISP is buying your profile from Big Data, and then selling it to the NSA, having a VPN is enough to thwart your ISP, and the issue identified in the article. You still have to take a bunch of other precautions to prevent the larger issue if you truly want any anonymity, and they’ll probably figure you out anyways.
Oh Germany, how I love your rules. A protest against the AfD in Hamburg was dismissed by the police because of the announced 10,000 people between 50,000 and 100,000 actually showed up.
This isn’t a wild fire. This is intentionally done by farmers to prepare their land for the next crop. The farmers know that the smoke is choking and killing people in Delhi. But they don’t care because the winds carry the smoke away from them. There is a ban imposed by the courts against this. And they still don’t care.
Because in Europe everything is fine, isn’t it? With the new war inflation is skyrocketing and a new interest raise is around the corner. Thank you EU.
I’m also interested in this. In fact all of this could be my fault, so I just want to check. The one thing we can be sure of is that it’s not the Russian war that’s causing any problems anywhere, right? Maybe it’s the phase of the moon, or astrology
Inflation rate of the EU is at its lowest since October 2021.
Meanwhile the conversation rate is 99 Ruble for 1€.
So yes, thank you. We're actually doing pretty alright. But I'm sure your propaganda media tells you something very different.
Well. If you think the grass is greener on Russia's side, then go on and move over.
I also like how you avoided the other persons question of how that's the EU's fault for Russia to play imperialistic asshole.
Very tolerant… shouldn’t we “on the other side” be more democratic? I wish I could move over as you suggested, unfortunately the only option will be passing away because I’m stuck here. I can’t even get a passport because in my country public offices have stopped working.
lmao
What in the absolute fuck does this have anything to do with being democratic? Are you just throwing buzzwords around now? Seriously, just move to Russia and get shredded on the front. It would do us all a favor.
Hungary is suffering from their own pro Russia policy making & voting, which they're still holding onto. So apologies when I can't bring up a whole lot of sympathies for them and the repercussions they're facing from that. Germany is also not doing the greatest, and for similar reasons, at least in the energy sector. But at least now most parties sans the far left and far right have understood that.
You are assuming that inflation will stop, but after the new war oil and gas prices (so energy prices, and therefore the price of any retail good) are increasing dramatically. Another cycle of the depressive spiral is coming for Europe… the only positive aspect I can think of is that this part of the world is responsible for the misery and poverty of other areas of the world (say Africa) so in the end this will be a sort of very much due nemesis. But from here to saying that “everything is going to be alright” sounds like gaslighting.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the EU stands to gain money from this conflict
I think we, as Europeans, missed a chance to help those in need and to stand for the weakest and most defenseless. And I would not be surprised to witness how neighbouring foreign cultures hate us.
I feel so hopeless, so pissed, all these news and how these corporations are destroying open web. I really had hope with new generations being more tech savvy and more online would push for openness of web, instead I’ve come to realize that new generations are really into apps and not going beyond that, not interested in deeper look into software and tech - as long as the gadget works and no matter any subscription cost or microtransactions or surveillance.
I try to be hopeful, but damn it is hard to stay optimistic. I’ve been trying little by little to push friends and family in a nice way into using Firefox, alternatives to big corporate software and so on, but I understand it takes too much effort for someone who is not really interested in these things. But I will be advocate of open web forever myself.
Edit: okay unfair to expect anything from new generations, and of course there are more tech savvy people than there probably use to be, but had hoped for a huge change in that demographic.
Remember the time Sony Music installed a rootkit on peoples' computers via commercially purchased CDs because hacking paying customers' computers seemed like a good way to combat piracy?
Works out pretty well for him, considering the west is just about done with caring about Ukraine and is dropping support across the board. Soon he will successfully claim the valuable parts of Ukraine he started the war over.
reuters.com
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