firefox, trackers and ghostery

[rikona]

Hello Patrick,

Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 2:49:37 AM, Patrick wrote:

> In the country where I live (the Netherlands) one is not allowed to
> put a web cam and film the road from your home. This is considered
> to be a privacy violation, even though it is a public road. You need
> to put up a big sign that you are doing this before it is considered
> to be legal. 

Your country is well ahead of ours in terms of protecting privacy. You
are fortunate. 

> Not just the DD but the government. They should be making sure that
> all the gathered data is not abused, but instead they are tapping
> into it and analysing it for their own purpose. Supposedly for
> tracking down terrorists, but it is such a powerful tool, that abuse
> is just waiting to happen, especially with secrative courts deciding
> on what is or isnt allowed.

Abuse has already happened. It is also starting to be used
politically. In the not-too-distant future your representative can
combine this data with equally powerful marketing technologies to
produce a custom e-mail sent directly to you that has the *exact*
wording which will cause you to vote for that person, and to not vote
for their opponent. And, like advertising, the statements in the
e-mail are likely to be biased, distorted, and perhaps not even true -
all they have to do is be effective.

This is why we are very unlikely to see meaningful laws here - the
pols LOVE the snooping! :-)

> I just realised all this is not very Ubuntu related anymore, but
> imho it's a good discussion to have.

Agreed

-- 

 rikona