This could actually be a good thing. These days advertisers act as censors: all it takes is a bunch of complaints and a website's revenue stream gets pulled. The webmasters react by deleting the controversial content and avoiding the subject in the future. If this is what a profitable internet looks like it should probably die.
> Nobody has ever been hurt by a tracking cookie in the history of the internet.
How do you know?
> stamping out the little sites
Social media is responsible for this. Few people buy domains these days, it's much easier to register a name on some existing site. Most traffic originates from social media these days.
>
This could actually be a good thing. These days advertisers act as censors: all it takes is a bunch of complaints and a website's revenue stream gets pulled. The webmasters react by deleting the controversial content and avoiding the subject in the future. If this is what a profitable internet looks like it should probably die.
This is how newspapers have operated for nearly a century, and how television operated for over 60 years.
What do you expect will replace it? A reversion to the patronage system? I don't think Bloomberg or Murdoch paying for content to be made in the way they want it is going to be an improvement.
> This is how newspapers have operated for nearly a century, and how television operated for over 60 years.
Yes. They depend on advertising revenue and are worse off for it.
Journalists have a duty to report facts accurately but they must also keep the advertisers happy. Due to this conflict of interest, newspapers lose trust and are perceived as having little integrity. Gotta wonder if the article is presenting a truth or some version of it that happens to be aligned with the interests of the people with the money.
TV shows are sanitized for maximum advertiser appeal. Even when they push boundaries, it's carefully controlled by the networks. There are numerous and well-documented cases where they actively influenced the creative process. Gotta wonder what shows would be like if creators had true free expression.
> What do you expect will replace it?
I don't know. Hopefully something better.
> A reversion to the patronage system?
Perhaps. Would be great if we had some kind of crowdfunding or patronage system that lets people directly fund the creators they like. Art should work like an investment: large numbers of people invest in the studios they like and the work starts once enough capital has been raised. Since the money is guaranteed, creators get more freedom to do what they want. Since they'd be compensated before the work starts, copyright becomes irrelevant.
The reality is that vested interests (Billionaires and nation states and establishment political parties) will have an easier time in buying more favourable journalism under a patronage system, than crowd-funders will.
Patrons whose interests are diametrically opposed to yours will outbid you. Patrons of billionaires will produce coverage favourable to them, and will have far broader reach than the guy begging for Patereon subs, likes, tweets, follows.
>> Nobody has ever been hurt by a tracking cookie in the history of the internet.
> How do you know?
Same way I know that that defining the ASCII code for T as 084 has never hurt anyone. It's an interpretation of information, independent of the human condition. Change my mind.
Cookies are used to track users. Tracking users generates a huge amount of personal information. This data is stored in databases which run on computers. The security of servers can be compromised, leading to database leaks and the publication of people's information.
The setting of the cookie (the HTTP protocol) is not responsible for hurting anyone. People are, through negligence.
I would have accepted a case wherein a user in the arctic, with limited bandwidth, was hurt due to the cookie data interfering with the communication. Hand waving about a series of human failings being connected to a technology is not compelling.
I guess it's the same argument as the "gun" isn't responsible for gun violence, excepting cookies aren't even designed to reveal information. Guns are definitely designed (in part) be used against people.
> The setting of the cookie (the HTTP protocol) is not responsible for hurting anyone. People are, through negligence.
It's not just any cookie though. You specifically mentioned tracking cookies.
> Nobody has ever been hurt by a tracking cookie in the history of the internet.
These cookies exist for no purpose other than information collection. They aren't even required for the website to function.
This isn't negligence, it's imprudence: being reckless with people's personal information, amassing large amounts of it in the name of profit without stopping to think about the consequences.
This isn't unique to cookies either. It applies to every browser fingerprinting method.
This could actually be a good thing. These days advertisers act as censors: all it takes is a bunch of complaints and a website's revenue stream gets pulled. The webmasters react by deleting the controversial content and avoiding the subject in the future. If this is what a profitable internet looks like it should probably die.
> Nobody has ever been hurt by a tracking cookie in the history of the internet.
How do you know?
> stamping out the little sites
Social media is responsible for this. Few people buy domains these days, it's much easier to register a name on some existing site. Most traffic originates from social media these days.