When a site says "we protect your privacy."

[Toto'sDad]

Does that mean they are going to try and dig so deep into your computer they go all the way through the chair you're sitting in and hit the hip bone behind your wallet? If they really wanted to protect your privacy, they would just not pry into your information at all. Why do they even say stuff like that? I think it's kind of like saying I love you on your first date with your little girlfriend alone in your parents car when you were sixteen. I'm not sure there's a lot of sincerity there. How far can a site get into your computer? Can they like pull credit card numbers. Your girlfriend's phone number you have on the side? Do they know about that nightie you bought her? ER, just asking that for a friend, I'm too old for a girlfriend. Do they know how much I hate rap music? (not asking for a friend)

 

[Blue Bill]

 

[unixfish]

Remember when Microsoft said Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows ever?

Windows 11 has started it's rollout.

Those words are just there to make you feel better about sending your information to them, or about them storing sessions information or cookies. If they decide to use that information nefariously tomorrow, then they will just pull down that message. Or emphasize it in bold so more people feel good about the information they use there.

Fox Mulder had it right:

 

[bgmacaw]

You can trust them...

 

[Peegoo]

Oh, it's a rock-solid statement.

Just like "the check is in the mail," and all those commercials about how diamonds will improve your marriage.

 

[Nickfl]

Heres what Duck Duck go says about this page right now:



38 trackers, thats a lot of "your privacy" to "protect"...

 

[memorex]

We protect your privacy, even as we sell your personal information to other companies.

 

[Mike H.]

What it usually means is that they won't share your information with any third party. But they will damn sure use it themselves to target you with advertising and take their cut for any links you click to buy something.

 

[metalicaster]

It doesn't matter how much the website respects your privacy when your browser and OS are sending advertising data out all the time the machine has power and internet connection.
If you use Windows and/or Google Chrome, you don't have any privacy to protect. And then whatever device you use, your ISP is logging every site you visit online, which you can stop with a VPN, owned by a shady company who may well log your data instead.
The internet is owned at this point. It's AWS and Google's world, and we're just living in it.

 

[boris bubbanov]

We protect your privacy, even as we sell your personal information to other companies.

Perversely correct.

If my secrets were mine and mine alone, the secrets would have been lost by now. I turn all these critical bits of information to The Man because he'll still have it when I'm 50 years gone.

These people remember the name given to a pet, by a girlfriend so lost to time I'd swear she never existed. Give them everything you have for safekeeping - because if you don't, THEN it will be forgotten forever.

 

[JL_LI]

Protect your information is very misleading. Once you give your information, it’s out there. An honest business would not share your information and would tell you that. But banks, utilities, schools, and hospitals have all been hacked. If a business or web site tells you that safeguards are in place, they may be, but there is still risk.

 

[Toto'sDad]

Protect your information is very misleading. Once you give your information, it’s out there. An honest business would not share your information and would tell you that. But banks, utilities, schools, and hospitals have all been hacked. If a business or web site tells you that safeguards are in place, they may be, but there is still risk.

So, it's kind of like when you see your neighbors old lady changing clothes with the shades not completely pulled down and you tell your buddy about it, and say, but don't tell nobody I told you.

 

[Telekarster]

If a business or web site tells you that safeguards are in place, they may be, but there is still risk.

Yep... pretty much sums it up

 

[Mowgli]

When it comes to facebook, meta, Google, Instagram, Zoom, etc. if it's free chances are YOU ARE THE PRODUCT IT IS SELLING WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

Your online behavior, your likes and dislikes, the searches you conduct, the products you buy, the age, sex and other demographic info you give to them "freely" are used to both (1) sell to data harvesters and (2) construct a profile of you and those whose demographic and browsing profiles are similar to yours.

Then they use their Artificial Intelligence algorithms to design online techniques to manipulate you without you being aware of being manipulated (they will provide you content that will elicit, for example, your brain to produce a Dopamine surge which will unconsciously addict you to keep your attention glued to a particular website.).

This is the way Casino operators learned years ago to design their games like slot machines; give them a little reward with a small win every few pulls of the arm and players will keep feeding it money. Online companies learned this from the casino people; this is why they do the same exact thing.

Give credit to the neuroscientists who figured out that it was the occasional rewards that triggered the Dopamine surges.

And it goes even deeper. If you want to learn more I HIGHLY recommend Harvard professor Zuboff. She spent around 7 years researching this subject and her information jibes with MOST of the other experts on the perils of online life:

 

[Killing Floor]

In plain language "Protect Your Privacy" means sell access to your personal information at each and every level they are technically able to reach with or without your consent. But it's protected. By "protected" I mean callously shared. But with protections. It's the IT version of Duck and Cover.

 

[Blrfl]

WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY
Except when we don't.


The large print giveth and the small print taketh away. Step right up.

 

[Peegoo]

It's no different from all those HMO commercials that are designed to make you think they care about you.

They often contain a woman speaking in the same gentle, calm, sympathetic tone that your mommy used when you were five years old and she was putting a Band-Aid on your booboo.

That is how we're programmed.

 

[Peegoo]

WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY
Except when we don't.


The large print giveth and the small print taketh away. Step right up.

i am wearing a Tom Waits tee shirt as I type this.

 

[THX1123]

They are protecting their access to you as a revenue stream. They are protecting your privacy in the sense that your data is a source of revenue. They are protecting their access as a pathway to extract revenue from you in the future.

 

[Obsessed]

Citizen4. ‘Nuff said.