• Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If you don’t want to be tracked, you shouldn’t own a smartphone.

    Because let’s face it, you’re never going to be able to stop it unless you get rid of all your tech.

    • Anamana@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Imo it should be a choice whether we are tracked for monetary gains or not, and not a necessary evil. But with most basic services/devices you are not even presented with that choice. E.g. when buying a phone.

      And if you do have a choice, sometimes accessibility is restricted so much that you can’t participate in our networked society.

      I think we have to find ways to provide access to the most basic services with a minimum of tracking. Anything else should still be an option of course.

      How to achieve this? I don’t know. But EU regulations certainly wouldn’t hurt for now.

    • SmallAlmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      You’re objectively wrong. You can have a fully free and open source android rom without any spyware (not even from google) and be free, and I also use Piped for watching youtube because I don’t have a google account. Check out privacy communities on lemmy.

      Edit: And about getting rid of all tech, of course you can’t be 100% independent and have 100% privacy, but you can mitigate most of it if you know what you’re doing.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Many years ago I tried that, and found out that privacy is possible, but the cost is incredibly high.

        By using pi-hole I was able to find out if my mobile phone was communicating with Google. As long as I had GAPPS on LineageOS, there was plenty of traffic. When I removed GAPPS, the traffic went quiet, but my phone became severely crippled.

        Sure, I still had some smart apps on my smartphone, but I was also cut off from my bank, so basically living without money in todays society. Not really a viable option. Also, updating apps from fdroid was incredibly inconvenient, but I hope that issue has been fixed now.

      • xts@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No, sorry but you’re wrong. Your phone will still ping towers it’s near, those pings are logged. You’re being tracked as long as you carry a smartphone.

    • xts@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Tracking != taking all of your data and selling it for profit. That’s what Google does with YouTube, even if you pay for premium. So I see no reason to pay for it.

      Not to mention a premium sub costs more than most streaming services out there, including double the price of lots of Plex shares that have thousands of movies and shows to watch.

      • Anus B. Samus @feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I don’t understand the Google selling data argument. I thought Google was an ad broker. Someone goes to Google and says I want to play ads on YouTube for my awesome baking book, play it for people who are into baking. YouTube has the watch history of people and is able to tell who watches a lot of baking content. That’s not selling data to someone in my books as the advertiser does not receive any personal details about the people where the ad is played. He is just buying impressions. Or am I missing something?