<story><title>The Many Ways Google Harvests Data</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-has-more-of-your-personal-data-than-facebook-try-google-1524398401</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>downandout</author><text>&lt;i&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like saying that because windows are transparent, it is ok to stare into people&amp;#x27;s living rooms. It&amp;#x27;s not - irrespective of transparency or lack of curtains.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nope.  When you enter someone else’s place of business, you have no expectation of privacy.  These websites belong to private entities. So it’s more like saying that because you voluntarily walked into my store, it’s ok for me to observe your behavior while you’re there. Which, of course, is completely logical and acceptable to most people.&lt;p&gt;Don’t want me to track your behavior while you’re in my store? There’s a very simple, 100% effective solution for that: don’t enter my store.  Because if you do enter, you have no right to complain that I’m observing you.</text></item><item><author>laythea</author><text>The whole tracking thing should be outlawed in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like saying that because windows are transparent, it is ok to stare into people&amp;#x27;s living rooms. It&amp;#x27;s not - irrespective of transparency or lack of curtains.&lt;p&gt;In a world where that is clearly not ok, then why is it that this kind of thing (tracking) is deemed ok?&lt;p&gt;What we need is something that does to our online privacy, what curtains did for peoples real privacy. And, although I fear that this is not technically possible, the absence of the possibility of such protections, still does not make tracking right.</text></item><item><author>Nadya</author><text>44 blocked scripts loading the article - nearly half of which was tracking related. Surely the irony of that isn&amp;#x27;t lost on people? Google&amp;#x27;s ability to track users is 99% entirely due to companies like the WSJ using them for tracking users. These companies are just as much to blame, if not more, than Google itself.&lt;p&gt;E: What I mean by that is Google provides the means, but Google couldn&amp;#x27;t track nearly half of all sites if nearly half of all sites weren&amp;#x27;t complicit in the tracking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chongli</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Nope. When you enter someone else’s place of business, you have no expectation of privacy.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not true at all. When I go to the hardware store to buy a box of nails, I don&amp;#x27;t have any expectation for the owner to begin following me around for the rest of the day (and in perpetuity thereafter). I also don&amp;#x27;t expect the hardware store owner to get on the phone with the grocery store owner and ask him what groceries and personal hygiene products I bought.&lt;p&gt;Also, the comment originally pertained to the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper. Are you suggesting that reading the newspaper at home grants the publisher the right to peer in through my window?&lt;p&gt;Expectations of privacy have long been enforced by social norms rather than laws. Since technology has granted corporations the means to do an end-run around social norms then we should expect the law to catch up and fill the gaps.&lt;p&gt;People may not have had a lot of privacy from their neighbours when living in small towns but they could generally count on their community to care about their well being. This is not the case with online businesses of any sort.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Many Ways Google Harvests Data</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-has-more-of-your-personal-data-than-facebook-try-google-1524398401</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>downandout</author><text>&lt;i&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like saying that because windows are transparent, it is ok to stare into people&amp;#x27;s living rooms. It&amp;#x27;s not - irrespective of transparency or lack of curtains.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nope.  When you enter someone else’s place of business, you have no expectation of privacy.  These websites belong to private entities. So it’s more like saying that because you voluntarily walked into my store, it’s ok for me to observe your behavior while you’re there. Which, of course, is completely logical and acceptable to most people.&lt;p&gt;Don’t want me to track your behavior while you’re in my store? There’s a very simple, 100% effective solution for that: don’t enter my store.  Because if you do enter, you have no right to complain that I’m observing you.</text></item><item><author>laythea</author><text>The whole tracking thing should be outlawed in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like saying that because windows are transparent, it is ok to stare into people&amp;#x27;s living rooms. It&amp;#x27;s not - irrespective of transparency or lack of curtains.&lt;p&gt;In a world where that is clearly not ok, then why is it that this kind of thing (tracking) is deemed ok?&lt;p&gt;What we need is something that does to our online privacy, what curtains did for peoples real privacy. And, although I fear that this is not technically possible, the absence of the possibility of such protections, still does not make tracking right.</text></item><item><author>Nadya</author><text>44 blocked scripts loading the article - nearly half of which was tracking related. Surely the irony of that isn&amp;#x27;t lost on people? Google&amp;#x27;s ability to track users is 99% entirely due to companies like the WSJ using them for tracking users. These companies are just as much to blame, if not more, than Google itself.&lt;p&gt;E: What I mean by that is Google provides the means, but Google couldn&amp;#x27;t track nearly half of all sites if nearly half of all sites weren&amp;#x27;t complicit in the tracking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oldcynic</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re effectively suggesting people take all their business offline again.&lt;p&gt;When I walk into store (a) it&amp;#x27;s reasonable to assume that store (a) might be observing my behaviour, along with perhaps a sub-contracted security company etc. It&amp;#x27;s less reasonable to assume that walking into store (a) gets me observed by stores b-z and subcontractor 1-255 which is more like what happens on the web. They don&amp;#x27;t generally follow around town for the rest of the week either.&lt;p&gt;Go to web site or store and get observed by Google, Facebook, and dozens of assorted analytics companies who will then endeavour to track you wherever you go next, for as long as possible.&lt;p&gt;Now then, ignoring JS and adblocking for a moment, which &lt;i&gt;mainstream&lt;/i&gt; ecommerce or news sites can one frequent in order to adopt the &amp;quot;100% effective solution&amp;quot; of not being tracked?</text></comment>