Online Privacy Worth Less Than Marshmallow Fluff Six Pack

nonprofiteer writes "With a program called Screenwise, Google is offering a total of $25 in Amazon gift cards to anyone willing to install a Chrome browser extension that will let the search giant track every website the user visits and what they do there over a year-long period. Google says it will study this in order to improve its products and services. Forbes points out that $25 in Amazon credits isn't quite enough to buy a six pack of Marshmallow Fluff ($26.75)." The money isn't much as a pure trade for privacy, but I suspect that many people would like to have their preferences be among those that shape how Google — and other companies, too — actually organize their interfaces. (Note that the tracking can be selectively turned off by the user.)

Comments

Yes

[Anrego]

This is one of those statements we need to hear from time to time to shock is into realizing that the vast majority of people out there do not value online privacy to the degree that the Slashdot crowd generally does.

The vast majority of people out there probably rank "letting a company mine my browsing history" somewhere around "filling out a survey".

Re:Yes

[Anrego]

I don’t equate it to stupidity. It’s not that people don’t understand the implications of this. It’s made fairly clear.. “every site you visit will be known to us”. It comes down to having different priorities.

The Slashdot crowd is privacy sensitive. It’s important to us. The fact that it’s not important to others is something we have to learn to accept. We can’t always write it off as “well, they are just stupid.. if only we could explain it to them in the right way..” because they have a valid opinion. They’ve chosen to live a certain way, and privacy is not a priority to them.

Re:Yes

[Hatta]

âoewell, they are just stupid.. if only we could explain it to them in the right way..â because they have a valid opinion. Theyâ(TM)ve chosen to live a certain way, and privacy is not a priority to them.

We can tell this is not the case, because when people get bitten by the obvious consequences of surrendering their privacy, they complain. If they knew and expected those consequences, they wouldn't be bothered when it happens. And yet we still hear stupid people complain about how facebook shared their data in a way they don't approve of. Tough shit, that's what you signed up for.