this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
205 points (99.0% liked)
Technology
82069 readers
3319 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Timestamps on activities you take can be combined with other data points to figure out things like your location, what people are nearby you, and what you are doing at that moment. These data points are created frequently and can be reviewed actively or retroactively.
That data is collected and sold by data brokers, who then sell it to law enforcement and government, as well as advertisers and other companies.
AI is very good at finding patterns in data points, and is accelerating the usability of all this data thats been collected.
I simply don't like the idea of being targeted or used, so ive tried to minimize data collection. I have a custom ROM on my phone and have linux on my computers. I dont have accounts with companies I dont trust. Sometimes if I have to make an account anyways, I'll use fake information and a vpn.