For me personally, its for a variety of reasons

1: Targeted ads and algorithms and such are typically used to manipulate you to feel a certain way or hold opinions you may otherwise not have. This has been demonstrated and shown to happen several times, such as with Cambridge Analytica, and its pretty concerning. I want to see things for myself and form my own opinions, not just being manipulated to believe what some big tech company or advertisers or the like want me to think.

2: Just think about all the data a lot of these companies can and are collecting on you. For instance, if you’re on a regular fully Googled Android phone, Google pretty much has access to your physical location at all times. What possible need is there for this? Why does Google always need to know where I am? Just looking at it simply, its none of their business, and no justifiable reason for them to know it. There’s no possible benefit or good thing that could come out of Google knowing my wheareabouts 24/7. If there’s no reason for them to know the info, why give them it on a silver platter?

3: The data being collected is also usually handled very poorly as seen through constant data breaches of sensitive information and the like, and can also be easily abused in general. I myself have been personally targetted and stalked, and the stalker got mine and my family’s information from data broker websites. Its pretty scary the amount of information these companies collect and share and make freely available about you, and it can be easily used against you.

4: Another example of the data being collected being misused is for example what’s happening in China, with the social credit system. The social credit system basically determines what you can do and everything about your life, such as job opportunities and employment, access to finance and banks, ability to travel, and a lot more, based off a variety of factors, from things like what you post or do online, to even who you’re friends with, and more. While you may argue that this is just China and there’s nothing to worry about, similar systems to this are already being worked on and tried by US employers and companies, and there’s nothing stopping things comparable to the social credit system from happening or being put in place in the West or elsewhere in this current surveillence capitalism world we live in. Something like this happening should absolutely concern you.

5: People have straight up had their lives ruined as a result of this mass data collection and privacy invasiveness. For instance, I remember hearing a story of a man who shared his Google account with his uncle. His uncle murdered someone, with his Googled Android phone in his possession, and Google provided the location data and such to the police, and instead the nephew was accused of the crime, and basically had his entire life ruined because of it, over something he didn’t even do. Just look at what’s going on now with abortion in some states in the US for another example. Its pretty scary to think about things like this happening, as it really could happen to anyone.

At the end of the day, these companies like Facebook and Google aren’t your friends. Trust is earned, and I don’t think any of these big tech companies earn it based off their actions and track record. What I do and how I live my life is none of their business or concern, and that’s how I feel about it, and wish more people would see it the same way, or at least put some thought into it instead of blindly accepting mass surveillance and data collection.

(Hopefully this all makes sense and wasn’t too rambly, pretty tired rn lol)

Well…

1. Target once used small amounts of shopping data to accurately predict women were pregnant before they themselves knew.

2. A Nebraska PD got data from Facebook to prove a woman had an abortion recently and prosecuted her.

3. you don’t know what will become illegal

So, even small amounts of data can predict lots of things about your life. The government has a track record of using that data to prosecute you. And you cannot trust the Government will always align with your morals (assuming it even does right now).

And that doesn’t even consider other entities & organizations in the world.

What if an insurance company wants uses public data about you to deny you coverage? What if someone is searching for people in the area with ideal houses to rob and you’re on vacation? What if they use a deepfake of a loved one to scam you? Steal your identity and ruin your credit? What if they make and sell deepfake porn made of you or a loved one? What if they create meticulously engineered political psyop campaigns hand-tailored to exploit your psychology? What if this list of “what ifs” could go on nearly forever, and some “what ifs” aren’t even things we’re capable of knowing about?

Because that last one is absolutely true, all the rest of those are true for someone, and at least one of them is probably true for you already.

Ok, but what if you don’t care?..well someone else in your life does. And even if they have impeccable data privacy habits, if enough of their friends and family don’t, then they’re just a single missing puzzle piece, and everyone can still see their shape.

Not to mention, you contribute to a pool of data that’s used to perform these kinds of analyses on society at large, meaning you contribute in some part to each and every instance of malicious data use towards anyone, anywhere.

Is that a good enough reason to care?

deleted by creator

A lot of people are giving good examples, and good answers. But I want to make an analogy instead.

Let’s think back to the time before the internet. 1970s. If somebody wanted to know everything about you they needed to stalk you. And that was very time-consuming. They needed to follow you everywhere you go, they needed to read all of your mail before you opened it, they needed to look through your trash, they needed to talk to all your friends to get all the information about you. Having a stalker was a serious time commitment from the stalker.

Fast forward to today, stalking is now trivial, and cheap. Thanks to new technology, data aggregation, and data brokers, every single person has a virtual stalker following them 24/7 who is dirt cheap for anybody to hire. So what would have been a crazy stalker in the 1970s can be used by anybody now to learn everything about you and do anything to you. That includes the police, that includes advertisers, that includes power tripping angry exs.

In the 1970s if you had a stalker you had a serious problem and people would help you stop the stalker. Even if the stalker did nothing illegal the fact that they were focusing so intensely on you would be enough for everyone to realize you’re in a bad situation. Today that’s the norm. So privacy is basically saying you don’t want a 24/7 stalker for hire following specifically you.

Imagine that someone has made a false accusation about you and it becomes part of your online profile.

Within less than a day, maybe even before you aware of the claim, every major online database has marked you as being something that you are not.

Who do you call to correct it?

Will a correction fix it?

Will the false information even get deleted?

When you don’t control the data, you are always vulnerable.

When other people are at your house, why do you close the door to the bathroom when you are pooping?

“You can’t see anyone watching you” Why not just close your eyes, you won’t see your house guests watching you poop.

Feel like this is just a bait post but if theres a chance it isnt, mostly for me its the principle of things. I think its my god given right to be in control of what my name or my identity is tied to and I feel that should be the norm. It was never just about the ads, its about the information thats being collected and if I can control it

The same reason I close my doors.

One problem is that you don’t know who’s actually hoarding your data and for what purpose.

Personally, its more about something being taken from me without consent and the ramifications that might have on society. And down voting you for asking this question is not conducive to a long lasting community

Let’s flip it. Why do people want data on you? why are people willing to pay for it? or governments deploy threats of fines (backed up by men with guns) or men with guns in order to force it’s collection on you?

private companies feel like they can make money with it, that they can make you do things that are profitable (buy something you wouldn’t, vote a certain way, decide against insuring you etc). Are you cleverer than teams of academics? I’m not.

Governments want it to enhance control. Sometimes that control can be benevolent but it’s still control. Often it’s not benevolent, selective enforcement of unjust laws against political opponents etc.

So why surrender privacy?

i think women who want the freedom to decide what they can do with their own bodies shows you how important privacy is. the was a cop in california sending out of state licenses to the home state governmemt to report women crossi g state lines for abortions.

deleted by creator

Why don’t you go ahead and post your browser history and location data for the last 6 months?

Sometimes not even ignoring the ads is possible because they are vectors for malware as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising

There’s a whole set of instances in the past where someone was innocently wanting to make a little money from their website, only to have all of their users infected with malware because of it. These instances utilized newly discovered exploits to run without interaction at all. Meaning you can’t simply ignore them, even just browsing a page with them was enough to infect people.

Ads aren’t just annoying, but they’re a vector for malware. And even if they weren’t, ignoring them isn’t enough to get your brain not to notice them at all. You’ll always subconsciously obtain associations of brands, etc. It’s literally an invasion of your brain.