• brawndo@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    Just because you pay a subscription to avoid ads does not mean your data is not still being harvested and sold. The big exception is now they have a payment method tied to a specific person not just an ad profile.

    • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      That has more to do with what apps you chose to use and give them your data.

      But people still don’t get the basic principle “if you don’t pay, you are not the customer, your are the merchandise being sold”.

      • gedfromgont@piefed.ca
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        2 days ago

        You are right but just as the original commenter said, even if you pay there is no way to be sure the app you just paid for isn’t harvesting and selling your sweet sweet usage data. Like Tiktok I’d imagine would 100% do.

        I am at a point where I’d really like to support and pay for apps, even closed source ones, just so they don’t show me ads or harvest my data. Open source is much better at that, of course.

        • gramie@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          No way to be sure? It is absolutely sure that they are harvesting every bit of data they can from you.

          My wife was shocked when she googled herself and found information that could only have been obtained by reading all of her emails. I explained that Gmail and other mail services are not charities, and if you’re not paying for them with money, you are paying with something else.

      • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Yep. Like proton started out immediately as a secure alternative. I’d trust them. I imagine tuta and others as well.

        As for the rest (Google, meta, tiktok) I’d say there is zero chance your data would ever hope to never be harvested.