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Facebook, Google, and Microsoft Use Design To Trick You Into Handing Over Your Data, Report Warns (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: A study from the Norwegian Consumer Council dug into the underhanded tactics used by Microsoft, Facebook, and Google to collect user data. "The findings include privacy intrusive default settings, misleading wording, giving users an illusion of control, hiding away privacy-friendly choices, take-it-or-leave-it choices, and choice architectures where choosing the privacy friendly option requires more effort for the users," states the report, which includes images and examples of confusing design choices and strangely worded statements involving the collection and use of personal data.
Google makes opting out of personalized ads more of a chore than it needs to be and uses multiple pages of text, unclear design language, and, as described by the report, "hidden defaults" to push users toward the company's desired action. "If the user tried to turn the setting off, a popup window appeared explaining what happens if Ads Personalization is turned off, and asked users to reaffirm their choice," the report explained. "There was no explanation about the possible benefits of turning off Ads Personalization, or negative sides of leaving it turned on." Those who wish to completely avoid personalized ads must traverse multiple menus, making that "I agree" option seem like the lesser of two evils. In Windows 10, if a user wants to opt out of "tailored experiences with diagnostic data," they have to click a dimmed lightbulb, while the symbol for opting in is a brightly shining bulb, says the report.
Another example has to do with Facebook. The social media site makes the "Agree and continue" option much more appealing and less intimidating than the grey "Manage Data Settings" option. The report says the company-suggested option is the easiest to use. "This 'easy road' consisted of four clicks to get through the process, which entailed accepting personalized ads from third parties and the use of face recognition. In contrast, users who wanted to limit data collection and use had to go through 13 clicks."
Google makes opting out of personalized ads more of a chore than it needs to be and uses multiple pages of text, unclear design language, and, as described by the report, "hidden defaults" to push users toward the company's desired action. "If the user tried to turn the setting off, a popup window appeared explaining what happens if Ads Personalization is turned off, and asked users to reaffirm their choice," the report explained. "There was no explanation about the possible benefits of turning off Ads Personalization, or negative sides of leaving it turned on." Those who wish to completely avoid personalized ads must traverse multiple menus, making that "I agree" option seem like the lesser of two evils. In Windows 10, if a user wants to opt out of "tailored experiences with diagnostic data," they have to click a dimmed lightbulb, while the symbol for opting in is a brightly shining bulb, says the report.
Another example has to do with Facebook. The social media site makes the "Agree and continue" option much more appealing and less intimidating than the grey "Manage Data Settings" option. The report says the company-suggested option is the easiest to use. "This 'easy road' consisted of four clicks to get through the process, which entailed accepting personalized ads from third parties and the use of face recognition. In contrast, users who wanted to limit data collection and use had to go through 13 clicks."
"Another example has to do with Facebook. The social media site makes the "Agree and continue" option much more appealing and less intimidating than the grey "Manage Data Settings" option".
That's a bit rich for /. to post that. This site does the very same thing. At least in Europe it does. When opening the site we get the "We value your privacy" pop-up asking us to agree to all the advertising shenanigans. Oh look, the big "I agree" button is all coloured and in green, the universal colour for go, good or safe. The opt-out is just plain boring white.
Windows 10 greets me with a security warning every month, because I have switched off the option of submitting code samples for virus protection.
I develop my own software and I do *not* want it to go to Microsoft.
Every month I have to re-affirm that I have opted out of delivering my software to them. Stop that sh*t!
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
You seem to be keeping your gaze too low. You are not just a target for buying stuff; you are also a target for modifying your opinion and behaviour in politics and other questions.
You can be targeted through other vectors than traditional ads, e.g. notification flows, news flows, ads-or-propaganda-disguised-as-news, product placement, insurance company policies, employability, police knocking on your door, ...
As an extreme, think China. The view we outsiders get is that if they collect the wrong data about you, they will *target* you in a way that no ad-blocker will stop.
Have you ever read their EULA?
"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. "
"You can be targeted through other vectors than traditional ads" - you can, but it doesn't seem to happen a lot. The main motivation is ads, this is where money presently are. If you block all ads, tracking you is a waste of time.
Opinion manipulation is frowned upon after Cambridge Analytica. No legal protection though. Still, if you are not using platform that customizes news for you, you are immune.
VPN is cheap. Pretend you are from Netherlands, get GDPR protection. It might still be technically possible to track you, but it is much more difficult and results are less reliable. With 99% of population ignoring privacy completely no one will care to track you.
They aren't really. They are making it difficult to opt out and easy to opt in, and using very deceptive tricks to encourage one behaviour over the other. They should be equally easy actions, with no deception to encourage or enforce opting in. Additionally, if you look at how some sites break down cookies into categories like "essential", "performance", "tracking" and "advertising" etc., you still see a lot of unwelcome stuff in the "essential" category (which can't be disabled in many cases). That's illegal now; I should be able to disable every last bit.