Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Some software comes in two versions: with ads, and without. It costs more to buy the “without” version but you don’t have to look at advertising.
Comcast updated its Privacy Policy. They list all the information they collect about me – personal, billing, products used, internet traffic – and then tell me how they’ll use that information. I found this section particularly interesting:
“To Provide Recommendations and Deliver Relevant Advertising and Marketing.”
“We may also use information about you and/or your use of the Services or other services we provide to determine which movies or television shows to recommend to you and to send you promotional communications for the Services and other products and services we think may be of interest to you. We may also use this information to help third-party advertisers and programmers deliver more relevant advertising.”
Instead of selling my information to telemarketers, could I choose Option B and simply pay the extra buck a month?
Joe Doakes
You’re starting to see some of that in, say, the cell phone market.
Of course, cell phones don’t operate as a government-sanctioned cartel…
Of course, cell phones don’t operate as a government-sanctioned cartel…
Duopoly is a cartel. Goobernment does not have monopoly on being intrusive and to able to spy on your every move. Some might argue Snapple/scrOOGLe are worse. xfinity is just trying to keep pace. They will lose.
Google is far worse at spying on you — they’ve hardcoded monitors all through Chrome with no possibility to opt out. It’s a big reason to not use Chrome and instead use one of the Chromium variants instead (I tend toward Vivaldi, myself).
As for Comcast, my personal experience with them would drive me to a VPN were I forced to use them. At least with a VPN I’d have an expectation of privacy since I’m paying for that, while Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon have consistently shown they have absolutely no respect for anybody’s privacy other than their own.