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Opting Out of Big Data Snooping: Harder Than It Looks

Posted by timothy on from the perhaps-you're-just-into-bottles dept.

Lasrick (2629253) writes "Princeton sociologist Janet Vertesi writes about her attempt at hiding her pregnancy from 'the bots, trackers, cookies and other data sniffers online that feed the databases that companies use for targeted advertising.' Big data still found her, even though she steered clear of social media, avoided baby-related credit card purchases, and downloaded Tor to browse the Internet privately."

3 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. Big data found her? by dougisfunny · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't say big data still found her anywhere in the article. She made no mention of evidence that they had, despite the Uncle sending a congratulations message on Facebook.

    Was there more to story than just the article on Time where she said her measures weren't able to keep the information private?

    --
    This is not the funny you're looking for.
    1. Re:Big data found her? by khasim · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah, I saw nothing that said big data found her at all.

      Seconded. There should have been SOMETHING like "after which I was inundated with baby-related advertisements".

      And trying to hide it while buying baby stuff on AMAZON?!?
      ?!?
      one more time
      ?!?

      I lied. One more time.
      ?!?

      Amazon knows what you bought.
      Amazon knows who you are.
      Amazon knows where you had it shipped.

  2. EFF testing new Privacy Badger tool by Freshly+Exhumed · · Score: 5, Informative

    EFF is launching a new extension for Firefox and Chrome called Privacy Badger. Privacy Badger automatically detects and blocks spying ads around the Web, and the invisible trackers that feed information to them.

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

    --
    I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.