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thebaddmoon t1_iy4lp89 wrote

Reply to comment by TintedGL in nj.com Contains 126 Marketing/Tracking Tools by n00dlejester

I work in digital marketing. I understand very well how pixels work. The data it collects is used for advertising, that's it. Nobody cares what kind of porn you watch. It's just how the internet is monetized.

Think of it like this – one of those "drop your business card in and win a $100 dollar gift card" things at restaurants. The restaurant is going to take your contact information and do something with it. Maybe they will put you on an email list for the restaurant. Maybe the company owns a bunch of restaurants and it will send you coupons for other places they own. Maybe they will sell the contact information to another local business as you are active in the area and have money to spend. This stuff happens all the time. They're not "stealing" your data, you opted to give it to them in the first place.

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TintedGL t1_iy4ne4z wrote

I never opted to give facebook my data tho thats the difference. Its still stealing regardless of what they do with it. Whether it's legal to do or not it isnt consentual if i don't know about it. Dropping your business card is a deliberate act, going to a website completely unrelated to facebook only to have facebook trackers hiding there is not

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thebaddmoon t1_iy4o46m wrote

A lot of sites require you to consent in the form of a "This site uses cookies" popup. Ever seen one of those?

You say the site is "completely unrelated to Facebook". The site itself is the one that chooses to install the pixel, in order to extract profit via data collection itself. You can put equal blame on the site owner. Again, assume this is happening to every single commercial website you visit. You are consenting by just going there, because by now you should understand, this is how the internet is monetized.

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TintedGL t1_iy4pibr wrote

Just because its how the internet works nowadays doesnt make it any less unethical

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thebaddmoon t1_iy4qw0j wrote

I don't know what to tell you. Personally it doesn't feel unethical to me. There are zero negative outcomes for me because of it. I understand the rules of the game and I consent to playing it by visiting websites. Instead of random ads I get more targeted ads, why would I lose any sleep over that?

PBA cards are also considered "unethical" to some, but you still gotta get in the car and drive to work. My advice if you are really concerned with your privacy is to not use websites that have pixels installed. You can also use VPNs and other means to further prevent companies from following your consumer habits. For 99.9999% of people, this is a non-issue, and they are confused when people tell them "Facebook is stealing your data" because it's not really as nefarious as everyone makes it seem.

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