In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like "headphone status" and "screen density."
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Other than GPS coordinates, what's the problem?
It's pretty standard stuff that every app collects.
I'm actually asking what specific thing is the problem.
The problem is the "why". Why does it need headphone status? Why does it need to know "music playing" status? It uses all this information to build a larger picture of the user. If the user is browsing sad memes standing in McDonalds while listening to music, there's a chance they're in a vulnerable state. So let's show them ads related to weight loss or even the opposite - something to entice them so they might feel good momentarily. That's the kind of headfuck these guys have already built using their machine learning models. So no, you should totally reject any and every app collecting this information.
BTW, "every app collects" is a bad precedent. Partly because not every app needs this information and partly because they are all selling to Google and FB and even more spurious third parties in the end.
Why do you want them to know all this stuff about you? Also, all this data set on a timescale can be used to triangulate who you are in other data sets they have that are "anonymous". It's trivial to identify you based on a few converging data points.