• @X51@lemmy.ml
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    52 years ago

    VPN’s only provide minimal protection. Browser fingerprints still track who most people are. 4 reoccurring GPS coordinates can isolate who you are with unbelievable accuracy. How many people are visiting your home, your work, your favorite grocery store, and your favorite gas station on a regular basis? Everything they collect goes into a nice little bucket of data. Eventually, they’ll collect enough data in that bucket to know everything about you. Content Deliver Networks are shared amongst web sites and they know all of your surfing habits. They create psychological profiles of everyone at a very high level. Society is being manipulated. If you implement blocks to try and prevent the data from being collected, Social Media will fabricate false information (possibly even damning lies) about you so they can lie to their advertisers. I blocked a lot of data collection at Facebook and I ended up doing about 6 Captchas to prove I wasn’t a bot before they locked me out of my account. When I downloaded the info they did have on me… it was all lies. A lot of fictional information that did not relate to anything I’d done on the site.

      • @X51@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        I will also add that friend suggestions are a good gauge if Facebook knows who you are. After deleting every friend suggestion they offered, eventually they cycled through countries of which I have nothing to do with. I went a month with friend suggestions from Nigeria. Then it switched to Arabic countries. then South America. Countless prostitutes or LGBTQ individuals popped up as suggestions. I treated friend suggestions like a game of Space Invaders. I clicked the “x” to remove everyone that was suggested.

        Be aware that even if Facebook & Twitter do not have personally identifying info on you, they will fabricate it to defraud their advertisers.

        On Twitter, I regularly uncheck everything they flag me as being interested in. The first time I did that, they locked me out of my account. I replied back to customer service and cussed them out. They apologized and restored my account. Now I uncheck everything as soon as I log in. Doing so will flag them to ask for my username or phone number. No one online has my phone number nor will they ever have it.

      • @X51@lemmy.ml
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        12 years ago

        Many ways. -Never gave them personally identifying data -Didn’t add close family and friends. Only added random strangers. Rejected a friend request from my own sister. -Used browser add ons to block data or randomize the browser fingerprint -Blocked background domains in my hosts file used to exchange server info. -Obfuscation. Clicked on links and shared random (90%) incorrect info on mindless polls & surveys.

        I’m sure there were more things I did. Sometimes I’d copy a link to a poll and take the survey in a different browser. On one occasion, I took a poll and the output of the result made it clear that they thought I was another family member using the same IP address. This was my favorite quiz result.

  • @uthredii@lemmy.ml
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    32 years ago

    It is more honest to advertise that way, most VPNs dont deliver the level of privacy they advertise.