zlacker

>>pbrw+(OP)
Hot take, it’s hard to have a free internet without ads. Lots of websites have marginal utility, but can be paid for with ads. And those websites will disappear when CPM rates go down the drain.

>>thornc+X6
Ads are not the discussion. It’s tracking.

Some will say that ads hijack your attention and therefore should be blocked by default. This is a different question. But since ad companies wanted to track ROI it became a problem, because it’s pretty easy for them to do that on the internet. That’s why more people are opposed to ads on the internet but not on a busstop.

If the busstop ads start taking retina scans to show you more personal ads while you travel around town, people will be opposed to that too.

You don’t need to track every user and every click to show ads and make money. But as ad companies like meta can make more money by tracking your every step they will just do that.

There were ads on the internet before tracking became a thing. And people made money off of those ads.

>>deutsc+g9
Funny reading that from someone with your nickname :-)

The Deutsche Post, or DHL is sort of tracking too, since a looong time. By having their delivery minions gather information about the circumstances people live in, and selling that information to interested parties.

>>LargoL+y92
Any proofs?

>>fsflov+KM3
I'd like to deliver, but it seems what I've read long ago is lost now, or buried under more recent and digital things which don't directly apply to the specific gathering in person by their delivery personnel. With the exception of the first part of the Spiegel.de article which mentions 'Lebensweise'. Unfortunately the link from there to the source is rotten, and isn't archived/cached anywhere.

I'm sure I've read much more about that, some 20 years ago, and after. Some small blips in the press, several fora. Sometimes even from people who claimed to be, or have been working as postman, and described what they had to look for (like house being renovated, new windows, nice garden, door, car, or in appartment houses clean floors, door mats, no trash, graffiti, what 'sort' of people) how to write it down in forms, and so on. Which annoyed them, because it was a hassle, unrelated to their job/task.

Anyways, they do have that data, gathered by whichever means, and sell them. As is obvious from their own sites.

It may be that they changed parts of that recently, because incompatible with EU-Law, DSGVO/GDPR, whatnot, but they did it.

[German] https://www.deutschepost.de/de/d/deutsche-post-direkt.html

https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/netzwelt-ticker-deutsche...

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/faq-post-daten-101.html

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/datenverkauf-an-cdu-und-fdp-d...

[English] https://www.deutschepost.com/en/business-customers/dialogue-...

---------------------- Letter is lost. Shrug.