If I had to guess: I sought that automatic content blurrer, neurodivergent website simplifier, or anti-Zionist tagger actually work. They’re all just piggybacking on trending topics to get users to install them and then forget about them, then they exfiltrate the data when you visit LinkedIn.
It's no different from when you visit an Islamist or anti-Zionist website that has analytics/trackers/ads on it.
It's bad, but this "massive violation of trust" is happening everywhere and has been for decades. There's nothing that's unique to Microsoft here.
This is not. To violate trust, there should have been some.
https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices
LinkedIn's scanning for browser extensions used by protected groups allows them to provide illegal services to US-based recruiters. I have no idea if they actually do it or not, and am not a lawyer, but common sense suggests there's enough here for a class action suit to move into discovery.
Do people really not remember scandals like Cambridge Analytica, and realise that these ads combined with social media feeds can be used to literally control and manipulate peoples decisions and behavoir?
Theres a reason Facebook and Youtube just got sued for being intentionally addictive attention machines.
Facebook was a party, but not the protagonist.
- a Cambridge researcher (Aleks Kogan) created a personality quiz FB app advertised as academic research
- users had to consent to download the app
- the app nefariously scraped users' friends' data (300k users unlocked 87 million users' data)
- the information was sold to Cambridge Analytica
- who then used the information to profile American voters
LinkedIn already has all of this information from the information you feed it. Scanning for more information provides more refined views, but LinkedIn already has your graph.
> if they do a better job at showing me an ad that might be relevant to me, how is that disgusting?
To me that signalled that the author of the comment doesnt really care what is gonig on behind the scenes if the result is a better and more relevant ad.
I see this attitude often from people who dont seem to understand the severity and seriousness of online tracking which leads to psychological profiling which leads to manipulation.
> who then used the information to profile American voters
You seem to have missed off the most serious bit at the end. Cambridge Analytica then used the data to profile millions of voters, and purposefully target divisive and flammable political material to specific suggestible people in order to manipulate outcomes.
This same thing is done all the time by all tracking and ad companies. I think this thread has gone beyond just LinkdIn scanning your browser extensions.
My point is that LinkedIn already has enough information (We've willingly given them!) to manipulate outcomes and if they're doing something nefarious, then it's already too late.
Whereas Cambridge Analytica involved bad actors (not Facebook) duping customers and re-selling their data. I don't think those elements are necessarily in play here.
You'd say that's a ridiculous and illegal thing to do without you explicit consent, right?
Maybe you personally don't mind and would be happy to offer that consent. But they're doing it without your consent, regardless of whether you want it or not.
LinkedIn scans for Anti-woke (“The anti-wokeness extension. Shows warnings about woke companies”), Anti-Zionist Tag (“Adds a tag to the LinkedIn profiles of Anti-Zionists”), Vote With Your Money (“showing political contributions from executives and employees”), No more Musk (“Hides digital noise related to Elon Musk,” 19 users), Political Circus (“Politician to Clown AI Filter,” 7 users), LinkedIn Political Content Blocker, and NoPolitiLinked.If you mean the _browser_, then I agree in principle, but - it is a browser offered to you by Alphabet. And they are known to mass surveillance and use of personal information for all sorts of purposes, including passing copies to the US intelligence agencies.
But of course, this is what's promoted and suggested to people and installed by default on their phones, so even if it's Google/Alphabet, they should be pressured/coerced into respecting your privacy.
[0]https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/anti-zionist-tag/ek...