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This just highlights the pervasive privacy issues in adtech. Many platforms today even support server-side events tracking which bypasses client-side detection & prevention like an adblocker would do to a tracking pixel. The true scope is alarming: way beyond clicks and views, they track events like "MakeAnAppointment", "AddPaymentInfo", "LoanApplication", etc.

This is the real reason why TikTok is a national security risk. Their ad platform, widely used by Shopify, Adobe, Segment, WooCommerce, etc., collects intimate data on non-TikTok users: prescriptions, medical appointments, loan applications, credit card details. Millions who'll never use TikTok, Facebook, etc. are still subject to this data collection in the name of "converting users to customers".

https://abs.codes/blog/2024/03/tiktoks-all-seeing-eye-survei...

At the policy level, we urgently need a national data privacy act to address these types of systemic issues. At the technology level, things like zero-knowledge advertising could mitigate a lot of the user privacy risk.



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