this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Please understandnim asking this question from a genuine place. I dont want the quora answer, i want the tech savvy, security expert minds of my fellow lemmings. If thats ok?

What happens to this data? What can/do they do with it? and why are so many people concerned about google tracking them?

Do i as an average user need to be concerned?

If so, What sorts of things can i do to avoid being tracked? Preferably without too much comprimise.

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[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just a personal story to bring one example into focus.

I got sober 8 years ago and never talked about it online until I was about 4 years sober. Never saw a single promotion for anything related to alcohol...

Until the day I made a single comment on Reddit telling my story to help support another person who was just starting their own sobriety journey.

And like magic, all promoted communities to me were alcohol related. Even though I'm an ublock user, when I would selectively disable it every advertisement I saw online was related to booze.

So even though there are ethical applications for my data, I found that it was used in an attempt to target me based on human frailties.

[–] Steeve@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that's just really shitty targeted advertising, not surprising on Reddit lol

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Reddit wasn't even the worst offender.

I made two posts one on asshole design and one on dangerous design and they cumulatively got something like 7,000 up votes and then "magically" the problem was fixed on reddit!