"There are two types of mass surveillance. Commercial, which you can read about here. And mass surveillance carried out by states and rulers."
It may be ambiguous to refer to internet surveillance by so-called "tech" company intermediaries as "commercial" surveillance because the intermediaries monitor all internet use, not only commercial use. In other words, surveillance of non-commercial activity. There is no way for the public to verify how the data collected is used, hence restriction on data usage, cf. restriction on data collection, becomes pointless
HN commenters seeking to defend so-called "tech" companies in the past have made nonsensical analogies to, for example, banks that have traditionally tracked credit or debit purchases
But these issuers did not monitor card holders' non-commercial activity
They had profitable business operations outside of surveillance
The so-called "tech" companies generally don't. Whatever non-surveillance operations they conduct are subsidised by surveillance. Perhaps this is what is meant by "commercial" surveillance. Surveillance to generate profit
Generally no one pays anymore for what these companies mainly produce: software
It is a sad state of affairs when software, e.g., web-based software, is given away for free as bait to lure in surveillance targets
But that's the entire Silicon Valley "business model" in a nutshell. They wish they had something better
It may be ambiguous to refer to internet surveillance by so-called "tech" company intermediaries as "commercial" surveillance because the intermediaries monitor all internet use, not only commercial use. In other words, surveillance of non-commercial activity. There is no way for the public to verify how the data collected is used, hence restriction on data usage, cf. restriction on data collection, becomes pointless
HN commenters seeking to defend so-called "tech" companies in the past have made nonsensical analogies to, for example, banks that have traditionally tracked credit or debit purchases
But these issuers did not monitor card holders' non-commercial activity
They had profitable business operations outside of surveillance
The so-called "tech" companies generally don't. Whatever non-surveillance operations they conduct are subsidised by surveillance. Perhaps this is what is meant by "commercial" surveillance. Surveillance to generate profit
Generally no one pays anymore for what these companies mainly produce: software
It is a sad state of affairs when software, e.g., web-based software, is given away for free as bait to lure in surveillance targets
But that's the entire Silicon Valley "business model" in a nutshell. They wish they had something better
Enter the new "AI"