Scary. As if they don't know enough about everyone already.
latimes

People fret about the NSA, then they run nekkid through the Google.

Not good at all.

This is why we have contactless - it's simply a means to provide the least path of resistance so that the lazy will make "tracked" transactions instead of cash. The reasoning of course is that this piece of plastic, which can now be scanned at multiple retailers without any kind of pin, ID or signature, is "safer" than carrying cash? Because Mr Mugger really wants your few £10 notes and not your several hundred £££s worth of smartphone (most likely carrying $YOUR_LIFE, bank account details, etc) or jewellery or those plastic cards...

And of course the data gets sold on to the highest bidder by your bank or by retailers.

Cards themselves will almost disappear of course, probably sooner than we think and all of your monetary assets will be carried around on "devices", as is already happening, which is simply held to an RFID reader. The tracking will then be complete (the whole package in fact, along with GPS, facial/voice recognition et al).

i sincerely hope that the law will catch up with all this eventually.

we used to have such good laws for consumer protection and against monopoly, whatever happened to those?
the internet is like the wild west of 100 years ago...

lawmakers need to get tech-savy. one RMS in every government or maybe rather one of those clever bsd guys.

So not using google services is all that's needed? And people are STILL logging into google services? :O

Sorry, but to me this is a "so what?" moment. From the article:
So...they're essentially doing what's been done for a VERY long time: track coupon sales/redemptions. This has been going on with paper coupons since the 1980's, to see which ads are effective. The bar codes were different for different papers/routes. This is no different. Don't want them to track it? Then don't click on the ad...simple. Pay cash: no track at all.

And while there is a *POSSIBILITY* of turning the aggregate data back into something that can be tracked to an individual level, the proof-of-concept is easier than the execution. And cynwulf means something different, but I agree with it: contactless is the way things are going, but I think that's a good thing, for the exact reasons specified. Mr. Mugger gets my $$$...so what? Gets my phone? Without my fingerprint and PIN, it's useless, and I can brick it from the nearest other device, rendering it useless. Swipe an old credit-card with no chip? Until I can get the CC company to cancel it, it's fair game.

I've worked with numerous banks and the government over the years. If you think your bank hasn't been tracking your spending habits since the 1970's...you're wrong. And if you think they or the government cares...they don't. There is simply too much data to be tracked, unless you are a person of pretty solid interest for the government, for a VERY good reason. The banks/corps? Don't care...they want marketing data, to sell ads...which you are free to ignore, like we do when watching TV.

yes, i only saw that after i posted my post.
strange, the way people consider it a given that you're always logged into google... that's more scary than the article itself.

(and fyi, it is perfectly possible to use an android phone with stock android without ever logging into google.)

nevertheless, the statement from my previous post still stands.

a tinfoil hat evolves to be unneeded, weed out those who refuse to pay more for edu or f u

And it's so common - some time ago I decided to volunteer to help with LibreOffice documentation (can't code) and the only way to get started was to log in via Google, Facebook and something else that is in the same league (can't remember what, but I don't have an account for that, either). I haven't bothered to go back to see if things have changed.

It was only with my first Android phone that I made the mistake of believing the salesdroid and linked a gmail account to the phone. Without an account I can't use the Android store, but there's more than enough for me on F-Droid.


Unfortunately so. Would crowdfunding a lobby group help?

The majority are computer illiterate and the lines between an OS, browser, the WWW, search engines and so called "social networks" are very blurred, if not outright voodoo. It's quite easy for very IT competent individuals such as those who frequent LQ to forget that.

You make a hobby or living out of using an OS, the majority don't really know what an OS is. The desktop/laptop PC and MS Windows are one and the same and the smartphone phone and Android/iOS are one and the same. And that's precisely as planned.

15 years ago, people still clicked on the blue 'e' and that was "the internet". Nowadays the internet is accessed via their apple/google/ms phone/tablet. There is no concept of OS, not even a concept of what is on the physical local machine and what is stored on webservers or "the cloud".

With this ignorance it's a foregone conclusion that the overwhelming majority are the sheep to google/apple/MS et al's wolves. And it's this ignorance which keeps these corporations secure and very rich.

^ i usually largely agree with this line of argument, but i disagree that it has to do with computer illiteracy in this case.
in my opinion, something else is amiss if people just enter their email address when prompted (or create a new account), and it never even occurs to them that maybe there's a choice here.
Those UIs are carefully designed to make the option google wants you to choose the most appealing.

no, these sort of marketing ploys/exploits have been around long before the internet, but of course dangling the carrot of some free offer in the bargain is enough to get 99% of all users to lay down on their backs and let google tickle their bellies and lick their privates.

i agree that most people are unaware of the extent of the tracking and data mining.
but from my experience, they are quite capable to grasp the basic concept when i explain it, and even appreciate the implications, yet never get around to do something about it.

because the features and commodities you get are just to good to miss out on.

I fear my phone may be infected with spyware, or worse, after viewing the link in the original post.
On Firefox on Android 6 this is opening a full-screen video as I am attempting to browse. Have I a mote on this screen accidentally clicking on it or is there a full-screen advert?

I fear my phone may be infected with spyware, or worse, after viewing the link in the original post.
On Firefox on Android 6 this is opening a full-screen video as I am attempting to browse. Have I a mote on this screen accidentally clicking on it or is there a full-screen advert?

Oops, connection issue. Sorry.