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The Next Frontier of Consumer Exploitation By Corporations

Posted by timothy on from the click-here-to-continue dept.

First time accepted submitter alisonuw writes "So what if Google knows where I'm planning my next vacation and suggests hotels for me? Sure, it's creepy, but is there really any harm in companies tracking my info to target ads to me? Professor Ryan Calo (UW law) is out with a new paper that demonstrates the real harm behind these practices, making consumers vulnerable to making decisions that go against their self-interest (ie: predatory lending, price inflation, etc). The Atlantic has an article today that outlines the new research."

4 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Only the stupid by johanw · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use multiple: AdBlock Plus and Ghostery in my browser, a hosts file and since I'm using Peerblock anyway to block the RIAA and cronies from my torrent client I added an ads blocklist there too.

  2. Re:Only the stupid by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use multiple: AdBlock Plus and Ghostery in my browser, a hosts file

    Try RequestPolicy it is better than a hosts file because it is on a per-website basis. You can let "slashdot.org" pull content from "fsdn.net" while blocking all other websites from pulling content from "fsdn.net"

    And it is a whitelist system rather than a black-list like the hosts file, adblock and ghostery, so nobody sneaks through just because you haven't updated it. The downside is that if those approaches are like driving an automatic transmission, using RequestPolicy is like driving a stick-shift.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  3. It's the only remedy that can work by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Informative

    not saying it _does_ work, but I think you'll find people are too busy living their day to day lives (work, family, kids, social networking) to monitor all the bad things companies do. There's a reason we started regulating companies. They did really bad things until we did.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  4. A very destructive false choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    One false choice that women are constantly presented with is "abort or ruin your life by becoming a poor single mother!" The pro-abortion crowd is loathe to inform women that there are huge waiting lists of people who want to adopt her baby -- and that adoption agencies would cover all her pregnancy-related expenses, and that choosing adoption has no downside for her career or education.