The corporate push to produce personalized year-in-review data visualizations is entertaining, but it also normalizes the commercial surveillance practices happening on a minute-by-minute basis.

And yes, the year-in-reviews are primarily a form of advertising, but the advertising is calling consumers to act by becoming a customer and entering into the company’s particular data collection practices. Because, after all, more users equals more data; more data equals more data points; more data points equals more inferences — which, ultimately, may enable the company to predict more accurately how the user will act in the future.

But this begs the question: should we allow such a normalization to happen? Are we okay with companies blatantly and openly flaunting their data collection practices merely because they dress up the personalized results in bright colors and humorous quips?

Or, should we ignore the flashy adornments and call it what it is: commercial surveillance?

I wouldn't be surprised if the companies' appointed data protection officer actively wants to have these reports to justify data acquisition under GDPR rules.

Personally, I use them as a prompt to unsubscribe or delete accounts I don't want use any more.

I have been pondering this point, and while I think there is a strong argument under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR for collecting this data as a legitimate interest of the company, I am stuck wondering about the legal reasoning for retaining the data so long.

The GDPR requires data to be kept only as long as necessary to achieve the purpose(s) of its collection. So, keeping all this data throughout the year just to create data visualizations? Seems sus -- to me. And I'd be interested in hearing from a DPO on how they justify the retention.

Indeed, this poses many problems and I too would like to know their justification.

And, surely, they should ask in advance if I even want to generate the report at all, because that of itself can effectively de-anonymise bulk statistics in creating a personalized report.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/CatnipJ:

The corporate push to produce personalized year-in-review data visualizations is entertaining, but it also normalizes the commercial surveillance practices happening on a minute-by-minute basis.

And yes, the year-in-reviews are primarily a form of advertising, but the advertising is calling consumers to act by becoming a customer and entering into the company’s particular data collection practices. Because, after all, more users equals more data; more data equals more data points; more data points equals more inferences — which, ultimately, may enable the company to predict more accurately how the user will act in the future.

But this begs the question: should we allow such a normalization to happen? Are we okay with companies blatantly and openly flaunting their data collection practices merely because they dress up the personalized results in bright colors and humorous quips?

Or, should we ignore the flashy adornments and call it what it is: commercial surveillance?

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/103y3sb/the_yearinreview_trend_is_a_reminder_of_just_how/j31kvse/

It’s interesting the layers they have. They built the whole IT economy on it. So. It’s here. Might as well experiment with it guys and see what mistakes you can make the machine make. The more you whittle down your information supply the more urgent their promptings. Facebook shifts the log off screen so the initial click on a phone to logout only covers up the logout. Then it prompts you to explain why you logged out. That’s not even counting the meta data (haha)/shared browser pixels/DNS leaks/gps pings/tower triangulations/and on and on.

Reddit alone has 30 + redirects/browser hops/cookies/candies/poptarts and who knows what else.

Love ya Reddit, you quiet, sneaky, little brother you.

This AI-generated art is making the rounds these days.

All hail or AI corporate overlords! Bow down to it!

Crypto has a concept of us getting paid for our user data.

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I never thought about it that way. Thanks for sharing.

"Bow down to her if you want, bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescence. Boo. Boo. Rubbish. Filth. Slime. Muck. Boo. Boo. Boo."

Commercial surveillance

Expectations: picture in the post

Reality: SELECT count(*) FROM watch_history WHERE year = 2022

Crypto will be one of our most important tools in fighting corporate capture of society.

Asking for a friend; how many fingers do you have on your right hand?

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How do we create a whimsical atmosphere without freaking the users out?

Bananas, of course!

Kind of a weird POV. “Surveillance” is loaded and dramatic, tracking is not about covertly storing your personal secrets that can be uncovered some day, it’s just about enabling them to provide better services to you and ultimately make more money by doing so.