I think it's less apathy and more that they don't understand the stakes. It's a lot like how laws in the US were written when data collection and processing was a manual task.
Sure, I could tail someone for two weeks, flash their email and SMS data, and flip through publicly available images of them. Or I can get a bunch of digital data points like GPS, wireless APs, and the actual emails and SMS data. Computers and databases make it trivial to sift through this data.
The average person likely doesn't understand how deep digital profiles can go. They think that because they use incognito to look up birthday gifts and porn, everything that's private stays private. What about when screen sharing a work presentation and there's a banner ad for cancer or addiction treatment? What about months of funeral care ads after searching for what to do after a parent or child dies?
People think that advertisers are wasting money since they see ads for the same purchase made a week prior. They'd be devastated if health insurance providers partnered with Visa or a tracking network to extract a "health risk" profile.
Sure, I could tail someone for two weeks, flash their email and SMS data, and flip through publicly available images of them. Or I can get a bunch of digital data points like GPS, wireless APs, and the actual emails and SMS data. Computers and databases make it trivial to sift through this data.
The average person likely doesn't understand how deep digital profiles can go. They think that because they use incognito to look up birthday gifts and porn, everything that's private stays private. What about when screen sharing a work presentation and there's a banner ad for cancer or addiction treatment? What about months of funeral care ads after searching for what to do after a parent or child dies?
People think that advertisers are wasting money since they see ads for the same purchase made a week prior. They'd be devastated if health insurance providers partnered with Visa or a tracking network to extract a "health risk" profile.