A new law will ban retailers from using shoppers’ personal data to hike grocery prices—but consumer advocates warn it contains loopholes that companies could exploit.

  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Companies just have way too much data about people.

    It should be illegal to store/compile data that isn’t directly related to the good, services or products that you’re offering.

    We’re getting to the point where everything about you, down to your real-time location, is available to anyone with enough money. That’s just not a power that we should allow to go unregulated.

    • boogiebored@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      all companies are in the data business now. that IS the business.

      i told a friend maybe 2 years ago that mcdonalds app and changing to digital drive thru menus would mean they could change prices at any time and even per customer. he thought it would be “too difficult”

      • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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        21 minutes ago

        he thought it would be “too difficult”

        A lot of people’s reluctance to focus on privacy is because they don’t understand the scale of the problem or the downstream consequences.

        That isn’t too surprising, it’s an incredibly complex topic and the companies that benefit from our collective ignorance go out of their way to gaslight everyone.

        They don’t call it a ‘We’re stealing all of you data’ disclosure they call it a ‘Privacy Notice’. They announce that they’ve added the option to opt-out (a Dark Pattern) of some new privacy destroying feature instead of announcing the privacy destroying feature. Bit by bit, people are bombarded with a bunch of messaging that makes them think that companies are looking to protect your privacy.

        “Your privacy is valuable to us” is probably the most honest thing they say, it is incredibly valuable… many hundreds of billions of dollars worth of value.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      We really need a non profit that buys data on politicians and Billionaires and then just make an app for people to follow them around and harass them to get this banned.

    • BigJohnnyHines@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      This is the real crux of the issue. Data collection and algorithmic incentives are destroying society.