Of course it’s spying. Site dishes out an ad-link and observes if it gets loaded (can be done server side). That’s the easiest way that comes to my mind. I’d say closely monitoring the behavior of your customers is spying. Especially as the customer does not know that/if he is being monitored in this way.
Putting “anti theft gizmos” in a store is also spying, at least if you mean cameras and not a locked cabinet for valuable goods.
The question is, if we agree that the other party has the right to spy on their users, and if/how the users have to be informed. Here stores have to announce video surveillance with a sign to anyone who enters.
This is pretty much never done server-side. It would unnecessarily increase server load by requiring callbacks and/or polling. It’s always done in JavaScript or, for really simple setups, CSS.
Nobody running ads is considering users who block JavaScript wholesale. Not only is it a trivially small percentage of users, but it’s also a waste of time: those users aren’t going to stop blocking JavaScript to display ads anyway. Instead, they’ll just make it so the site fails to render at all if JavaScript is disabled.
You’ve presented a solution looking for a problem.
As for anti theft gizmos, they’re talking about the alarm tags and ink packs that get attached to merchandise so it sets of an alarm when you try to leave with it, or the item is covered in ink when you forcibly remove the security tag. These are passive anti-theft security and do not constitute spying.
Even if we were talking about video cameras, it’s unreasonable to call that “spying”. In order for something to be spying you need an expectation of privacy, which is not present when you’re inside a private business. It would be like calling a security who observes customers a spy. It’s absurd.
Eh, “did you ask to download something” is about the line where I would draw acceptability. You cannot use a website without them knowing if you made a download request for the content so I’m not bothered by them paying attention to the data to see what I downloaded.
It’s when you start sharing the data with others, or using that data from others, or adding things to collect information and send it back that I mind.
If someone did everything on the up and up, they would see my browser request, information that says what it can do that the browser opts to send, and a cookie that identifies the browsing session.
I’m fine with that because I can clear it or change it at will, and without sharing anything the capability information is less useful than the session cookie.
It’s far easier to do this all client side. It’s it spotting to detect when a resource load fails and log to the console?
Spying implies that someone, or at least some process, is watching me and my behaviour. But there is more to it, because that just describes a site working.
All the cumulative information just got fed into LLM models through data brokers that have a record of everything you every said, combined with everything else. So, not really meh, so much as an existential risk, as LLM’s are not AI and won’t stop failing, can be used for repression quite well if not entirely accurately.
There’s rfid stuck to merchandise that makes an alarm go off when you exit without paying. Just like the HTML elements that are loaded or not loaded. No spying.
Of course it’s spying. Site dishes out an ad-link and observes if it gets loaded (can be done server side). That’s the easiest way that comes to my mind. I’d say closely monitoring the behavior of your customers is spying. Especially as the customer does not know that/if he is being monitored in this way.
Putting “anti theft gizmos” in a store is also spying, at least if you mean cameras and not a locked cabinet for valuable goods.
The question is, if we agree that the other party has the right to spy on their users, and if/how the users have to be informed. Here stores have to announce video surveillance with a sign to anyone who enters.
This is pretty much never done server-side. It would unnecessarily increase server load by requiring callbacks and/or polling. It’s always done in JavaScript or, for really simple setups, CSS.
Nobody running ads is considering users who block JavaScript wholesale. Not only is it a trivially small percentage of users, but it’s also a waste of time: those users aren’t going to stop blocking JavaScript to display ads anyway. Instead, they’ll just make it so the site fails to render at all if JavaScript is disabled.
You’ve presented a solution looking for a problem.
As for anti theft gizmos, they’re talking about the alarm tags and ink packs that get attached to merchandise so it sets of an alarm when you try to leave with it, or the item is covered in ink when you forcibly remove the security tag. These are passive anti-theft security and do not constitute spying.
Even if we were talking about video cameras, it’s unreasonable to call that “spying”. In order for something to be spying you need an expectation of privacy, which is not present when you’re inside a private business. It would be like calling a security who observes customers a spy. It’s absurd.
Eh, “did you ask to download something” is about the line where I would draw acceptability. You cannot use a website without them knowing if you made a download request for the content so I’m not bothered by them paying attention to the data to see what I downloaded.
It’s when you start sharing the data with others, or using that data from others, or adding things to collect information and send it back that I mind.
If someone did everything on the up and up, they would see my browser request, information that says what it can do that the browser opts to send, and a cookie that identifies the browsing session.
I’m fine with that because I can clear it or change it at will, and without sharing anything the capability information is less useful than the session cookie.
It’s far easier to do this all client side. It’s it spotting to detect when a resource load fails and log to the console?
Spying implies that someone, or at least some process, is watching me and my behaviour. But there is more to it, because that just describes a site working.
but client side requires the client to cooperate. and the client is regularly not under your control.
I can’t make sense of your second sentence.
The client needs to “cooperate” to do anything, including showing whatever it is says “please don’t block our ads :'(”
I mean that merely observing behaviour is not spying, because that covers any interaction. So what makes this spying?
Except they all are spying on us and we all know it.
But I asked what makes this spying
I am saying we already know they are all spying. So while this humour might not quite fit, it’s still just one step removed.
Meh
All the cumulative information just got fed into LLM models through data brokers that have a record of everything you every said, combined with everything else. So, not really meh, so much as an existential risk, as LLM’s are not AI and won’t stop failing, can be used for repression quite well if not entirely accurately.
Unless you’re blocking Javascript, they have control to see what elements are loaded.
Correct
There’s rfid stuck to merchandise that makes an alarm go off when you exit without paying. Just like the HTML elements that are loaded or not loaded. No spying.
Wait, you realize those have been used to spy on you before right? In store and even between stores in certain cases.
If they travel between stores you must have stolen something, they are removed at checkout.
Ideally yes, but in reality it doesn’t always happen.
Depends on the product, some of them just uses stickers that are “deactivated”
Those stop transmitting. You can check it yourself, the readers are available, sometimes a phone is enough.