Site/Blog/Newsletter
FaceBook
Twitter
Mastodon

Support Reality 2.0

Links:

• Data Protection Commission tries to make victory of its U-turn on Facebook and Instagram – The Irish Times — Watchdog forced to toughen its decision on data protection complaint after European intervention
• Data Protection Commission announces conclusion of two inquiries into Meta Ireland | 04/01/2023 | Data Protection Commission — The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has today announced the conclusion of two inquiries into the data processing operations of Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (“Meta Ireland”) in connection with the delivery of its Facebook and Instagram services. (Meta Ireland was previously known as Facebook Ireland Limited).
• Inside Google’s Ad Display Network Black Box: Porn, Piracy, Fraud — ProPublica — Google’s ad business hides nearly all publishers it works with and where billions of ad dollars flow. We uncovered a network containing manga piracy, porn, fraud and disinformation.
• Meet Performance Max, The Blackest Black Box Of All Google Ad Products | AdExchanger — Lost in the Sturm und Drang of Q4 (Q for quarantine) 2020, Google introduced a beta program called Performance Max, its first ad product spanning all Google-owned media.
• GitHub - dmarti/CAPCA: California Advertising Placements on Criminal Activity Act
• LastPass Data Breach: It’s Time to Ditch This Password Manager | WIRED — The password manager’s most recent data breach is so concerning, users need to take immediate steps to protect themselves.

Site/Blog/Newsletter
FaceBook
Twitter
YouTube
Mastodon

Special Guest: Kyle Rankin.

Support Reality 2.0

Links:

• Is Ethical Advertising Possible? – Purism — Is ethical advertising possible? We all certainly know unethical advertising is possible, we live with it every day. The ad-driven Internet has created an insatiable hunger for personal data and as a result most of what the average person does in their web browser, or on their phone, and in real life is being measured, tracked, and sold to some degree. Yet if a company actually cared about your privacy and wanted to advertise its products, could it do so ethically? Can you track what a visitor does on your website without violating their privacy? We have been thinking about these issues heavily at Purism as we consider how to expand our marketing and in this article I’m going to explore where we currently are in our thinking.
• Doc Searls Weblog · People vs. Adtech — Below are blog posts, articles and essays I’ve written toward four goals in fighting surveillance of our private spaces online by the tracking-based advertising business and its dependents in publishing.
• Opinion | In Stores, Secret Bluetooth Surveillance Tracks Your Every Move - The New York Times — Imagine you are shopping in your favorite grocery store. As you approach the dairy aisle, you are sent a push notification in your phone: “10 percent off your favorite yogurt! Click here to redeem your coupon.” You considered buying yogurt on your last trip to the store, but you decided against it. How did your phone know?

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Reality 2.0 around the web:
Site/Blog/Newsletter
FaceBook
Twitter
YouTube
Mastodon

Support Reality 2.0

Links:

• Ford Patented In-Car Ads Because We Live In Hell Now — I’m all for innovation in the automotive sector, but there are some technologies I simply cannot abide by, and Ford’s newly-patented billboard detector that can read ads and display them inside your car is exactly one of those technologies.
• Apple forcing developers to ditch unique device IDs | Ars Technica — 2013 article about the origins of Apple's IDFA.
• Proposal: Treat FLoC like a security concern – Make WordPress Core — Why is this bad? As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains in their post “Google’s FLoC is a terrible idea“, placing people in groups based on their browsing habits is likely to facilitate employment, housing and other types of discrimination, as well as predatory targeting of unsophisticated consumers. This is in addition to the privacy concerns of tracking people and sharing their data, seemingly without informed consent – and making it more difficult for legislators and regulators to protect people.
• Add Permissions-Policy header to block Google FLoC [#3209628] | Drupal.org — Google is introducing what it calls Federated Learning of Cohorts, which is a way to gather user data without cookies, regardless of whether a website is loading any Google-related trackers. This is enabled starting in Chrome 89, and only in select countries on a trial basis. Although other major browser vendors are likely against this technology and will presumably not be implementing it, given Chrome’s market share this will become a concerning issue, because it largely remove users’ ability to easily opt out of being tracked—particularly true in the case of less-savvy users. See a very informative post by Plausible. Since no one can reasonably expect users to just stop using Chrome, it will be up to responsible developers to block FLoC at the source.
• Joomla! and FLoC — Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) proposes a new way for businesses to reach people with relevant content and ads. We explore what this could mean and why we are giving you the choice as to whether to use it or not.