This is the exact same logic as opting to not go through the hassle of registering to and casting your vote in your national elections (unless that physically isn't an option where you live) -- yes, your government isn't going to make a decision one way or another based on your vote alone. But will you affect the sociopolitical trends by whatever fraction of societal opinion you represent?

It may be you don't believe in democracy at all, and that's fair, but consumer action is the only way you can affect business decisions, by joining the decision-cohort you agree with more. Joining the opposite cohort because it's less work represents that you're okay with things continuing in that direction.

That said, I agree with the work it takes to navigate cookie banners being excessive (hence dark pattern), which is why my default browser config = ublock + consent-o-matic [1]

[1]: https://consentomatic.au.dk/

Sadly, there will be no signals at all, until it's too late. ICE has used online advertisement tracking to find their targets. They won't tell you anything about this, until they're already at your door with handcuffs. https://www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-into-the-online-advertisi...

You could use exactly the same argument for not bothering about doing things that pollute, generate landfill, or generally make things worse for society.

Its highly unlikely your vote will swing an election.

If you want easy things to do use cookie blocking extensions.

While I have no idea of the actual outcome, I’ll muddle through the extra step + thinking to opt-out where possible.

My own personal bend is that I do not want to be sold anything and I want anonymity where possible. We’re constantly being advertised to. Anything small action that I can take to deter that, or make the ads less personalized/interesting/distracting to me, is worth it. Even if I also will never knowingly click an ad.

It’s probably largely a control thing psychologically. With cookie banners specifically, I also don’t want to concede to dark patterns which make accepting easier than rejecting.

> I do use an ad blocker, and never click on ads. I feel like that action has a bigger return on investment than no clicking the cookie banner.

Right, but this is not solely about cookies or blocking ads. You also leave behind data which helps create a profile. AI is mass-creating profiles of everyone. Not everyone will have the same pattern, but information space is finite and they get more and more data about you over time. You may think this is not relevant for your use cases, but can you make this as prediction in the future?

Your ad blocker probably has a setting for cookie blocking too

Potential real-world consequences, while they do exist, are simply too subtle to realize. Some actual examples of cookies being used against people:

- CBP has admitted to buying location/advertising data from brokers to use in helping locate people to arrest

- Phishing and identity theft can be made easier due to cookies... security researchers have even demonstrated 2FA bypass techniques based on it

- Price discrimination - Consumer Reports found that flight prices can fluctuate based on your cookies. Sometimes they would even raise the price if you kept searching for routes, as an indication that you were in a hurry, thus likely willing to pay extra.

- Healthcare discrimination - Companies have been found to raise healthcare prices or deny coverage due to cookie data aggregated via brokers where external sites tracked a person's health conditions based on what pages they visited (examples: fertility, cancer and mental health support groups)

- AI models or automated systems using cookie data to predict housing stability, creditworthiness, and employment risk without ever seeing your resume or credit report directly

- ProPublica found that Facebook was allowing advertisers to target their housing ads based on specific age/race groups stored in cookies

- Some recruiting firms have used cookies to infer personality traits and political leanings. Your employment application could be rejected or deprioritized based on that

- Based on the previous examples, I think it is not a far-fetched idea that websites and services could deny you access altogether based on data revealed by a combination of things like your browser fingerprint + brokered cookie data, such as political affiliation, estimated income, race/gender, health situation, etc. Imagine for example, not being able to order pizza because you badmouthed their favorite president online.

It's also harder to change your mind later and go delete a bunch of specific cookies to opt out when you could have just said no from the beginning.

> Sadly, this still doesn't do anything to show me that I should opt out.

Then don't. No need to be sad about it.

> I, as an individual, am not going to have any effect on a business if I opt out or not. No business decision is going to be made because I opt out.

I do it more from a point of view of principal. I don't want following around the Internet by all and sundry who care to, any more than I want to be followed down a dar alley, for followed into Tesco by someone yelling “hey, Dave, I saw you went to the pub last night, my shop has some cheap spirits” or “hey, Dave, I saw you but a network switch the other week, do you want another one?”.

I also resist anything wrapped in many layers of dark patterns, and that describes almost all current ad tech.

> You might argue that it will matter if enough of us do it. Sure, that is true... but again, it won't matter if I do it or not. If N number of people opting out is enough to ruin the business model, then N-1 is surely enough as well. There is a 0% chance that I am the one who finally causes the system to collapse.

If your stats knowledge and reasoning accept that, then I've got an infinite compression scheme for you. It can compress anything including compressed anythings!

You are jumping between two factors of large numbers haphazardly from sentence fragment to sentence fragment, and the logic isn't following you. At some point N-1 might make a difference, and you could be that -1.

> I do use an ad blocker, and never click on ads.

To use your argument on tracking: but many people don't, so why do you bother? What makes you think you could be the +1/-1 here but not there? And by blocking ads you are blocking a fair portion of the tracking, in fact that is why I block ads much more than the ads themselves. I don't run sponsorblock for the other side of the same reason: that doesn't affect tracking at all.

> If having more information about me allows the website to charge more to show me an ad, and I never click any ads, then I am hopefully helping decrease the return advertisers get by using personal information.

And when the database eventually leaks, many others will have the extra information about you.

And again: by blocking the ads using most ad blockers (obs not all work the same ways) you are blocking at least some tracking.

--------

But again, if you don't want to block tracking, don't. No need to be sad that we've not convinced you with our arguments as to why we try to block it. I know other devs who take your attitude (that is simply isn't worth their effort), and many others who take mine or similar (when it isn't worth the effort, the information or product behind the mountain of “legitimate interest” checkboxes isn't worth the effort either so I'll just move on). Our threat and principal models can be different from ours without either of us being bothered by the other's choices here.

The business model of the websites I visit is not my problem. I block ads and trackers at multiple levels, very aggressively, and could not care less if some websites disappeared because of it. Perhaps then we will be left with a more sane and useful subset of the Internet.

I don't understand that thought process.

Why should I give up my data to any private entity?

If their business model depends on ads, then I say it should die.

[dead]

I’m glad you mention this. From today https://www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-into-the-online-advertisi...

>The effect of that data is serving you better ads.

On the contrary, the ads become worse, since they become better at trying to get me to buy some crap I don't need.

The more irrelevant to my profile they are, the better.

This is not just about "better ads" - though I don't understand the term better anyway here. This is about profiling people. Ads are just one benefit here. Profiles can be sold to get a better idea of the potential customer base.+

> It basically just powers product discovery in a giant global marketplace.

That is also incomplete. See how profiling led to ICE finding people - and ICE has a proven track record of executing US citizens. That is also a fact. It does not mean profiling led to the death of the people here, 1:1, but it meant that it is a contributing factor to the build-up of government troops killing people (which is very similar of Europe 1930s by the way).

Would you write your name down the side of your car?

I disagree, because there’s always a chunk of advertising that seems to be all about targeting low-income or people who aren’t financially savvy and I don’t think it’s ethical for an apparatus to take advantage of them.

Insurance is likely using that same data to adjust rates.

” it’s not a big deal. Just gets you better ads.”

I thought this was just ignorance.

Then I checked the profile. They ”have lots of experience with digital advertising “

This might’ve been true in 2012 but definitely is not the case today

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”