#surveillancecapitalism

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

RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/117455857241569128

"The problem here isn't advertising, it's surveillance. The ad-tech sector has convinced advertisers that targeting ads to users rather than content will massively improve ad performance. The evidence for this is very poor: targeted ads improve clickthrough rates by less than 5% (relative to content-based ads that relate to the substance of the page you're looking at), and they're incredibly expensive (and very dangerous!) to serve." - @pluralistic

#privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism #tech #ads