24 November 2022

I’m a big fan of World Cup.  It’s the time in my home country that I get excited about soccer (football for the rest of you.) In my country, soccer coverage is not very good except during World Cup.  And I really enjoy it. 

What I don’t enjoy is the various advertiser tracking that then shows up in my web searches.  Have you ever noticed that if you search for a pot of gold, that you’ll forever see advertisements for gold, gold cars, gold dust, gold records, etc… ? That happens because the company website is tracking your activity and trying to show you items that might be of interest to you. 

There is no free ride. You can think of your search information and personal information as a form of currency.  You trade that “currency” for the convenience and experience. 

Companies like Alphabet, Meta, and others sell that information to advertisers.  In return, you get to use their platforms without an additional charge.  And if done well, it may be useful to you to narrow down the vast amount of goods and services that you may want. 

If done wrong or with nefarious purposes, it can be devastating.  Take for example a recent lawsuit https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/wake-county-news/wakemed-faces-class-action-lawsuit-for-alleged-meta-pixel-data-breach/ where a hospital was tracking user information and collected too much data and sent it to Meta. 

The good news is that some companies are starting to require more transparency.  Apple for example https://www.facebook.com/business/help/126789292407737?id=428636648170202 requires that to use the Meta pixel, you must get permission.  That may be in response to laws such as CCPA, GDPR, PIPEDA and others. 

My biggest question at this point – why are there not stringent national laws in force on par with our world cousins, for all US Citizens?