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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

(timsh.org)
1957 points apokryptein | 1 comments | 02 Feb 25 17:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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qingcharles ◴[02 Feb 25 20:40 UTC] No.42911578[source]▶
One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do.

As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd.

And I buy this stuff. Every time I need customer service and I'm getting stonewalled I just go onto a marketplace, find an exec and buy their details for pennies and call them up on their cellphone. (this is usually successful, but can backfire badly -- CashApp terminated my account for this shenanigans)

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1. dheera ◴[03 Feb 25 14:16 UTC] No.42918405[source]▶
I just block all unscheduled calls and calls from unknown numbers. If there isn't a calendar event and it isn't coming from a known family member or close friend, the call doesn't go through.

I also have multiple cell and virtual numbers and give different ones out to businesses, banks, friends, and family. Businesses that don't need to ship me stuff also get a different address than ones that do.

I don't register to vote anymore because they leak my residential info. When they can agree to stop leaking it, I will participate again.