#spyware

Here’s a great blog post by @pluralistic explaining why people like me install adblockers the second after they install a browser, and very often run the likes of Piholes to also filter adtech and malware at the DNS level where possible.

I understand a lot of online publications rely on ad revenue (and I pay for some of them), but between them being a #tracking vector and one of the main ways of how certain companies build their dossiers on you, them being used as a #spyware delivery vector (which is not new, btw) is about 15 bridges too far.

But hey, apparently #1984 was an instruction manual and not a warning.

https://pluralistic.net/2026/10/17/mercenary-spyware/

#SurveillanceCapitalism

“…the largest #adtech companies in the world, including #Google and #Facebook, allowed themselves to be hijacked by a "mercenary #spyware" company that used the ad system to locate targeted individuals and serve "zero-click #malware" that took over their computers and phones without them having to take any action.” @pluralistic

https://pluralistic.net/2026/10/17/mercenary-spyware/

Got an email from #Dropbox about their new TOS. I'm troubled by this passage: "We’ve further explained our collection and use of your data to better identify what data is being used for which purposes."

Has anyone dug deeper into this? What do they mean by "collection and use of your data"? What data are they collecting? How are they using it? For which purposes?

This vague sentence can apply to some pretty dystopian consequences.
@eff @pluralistic #spyware #ai_training #dataPrivacy