I am but a cog in a machine. A lazy one though.

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Joined 2Y ago
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Cake day: Jul 31, 2023

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I’m not going to say it’s not a me-problem, but disregarding the fact that if it was that simple it would be more widespread amongst people is making it seem as if we don’t try seriously and downplays the effort many like myself put in.

I care about privacy and about my close ones (as many here do) and I explain the issue to them in a nice way so to not come across as a pushy salesman, and they readily admit that they don’t want to put the effort in (effort as in learning something new, upkeeping with multiple apps, etc).

It’s not that I don’t know why they don’t switch immidiately - I know why. It’s simply that they don’t. It’s okay not to switch as long as you know the risks and I’ve explained the risks and they seem to understand it, but it’s not enough to get everyone to switch.

If life was that simple with everyone (I know some switch without hesitation) the world would be completely different.

You can explain to a decent normal person the imminent doom we are facing with climate change and they may understand it very well, but they still wont give up on using their car and switch to public transport immidiately, because it is an inconvenience.


Yup and months of premium instant 24/7 tech support to ensure the slightest thing doesn’t return them to default apps in the beginning !



You can still download the APK from their repository, install it, and use signals built in censoring-evasion setting as far as I know.

They are even working on self updating app feature IIRC.

This is why I donate to signal. I know there are decentralized alternatives but I can barely get my family and friends to use Signal.


Yeah the comment looked like any other post that account made and as you said, LLM generated crap. Full of mid sentence emojis, hashtags, and structured like a summary.


I was going to let the comment pass thinking its probably from Mastodon or something because of the hashtags and style. But no, the user is from a lemmy instance.


This happened in Finland, but I didn’t want to specify it to spark a universal conversation, which succeeded!

I know people from all around the globe deal with privacy issues and hoped that others would share their experiences.


This is another great idea. Similar to having extra email for spam.


That’s the advice I’ve gotten here pretty much, and will probably deal with it in that way from now on!

It is sad that we have to do that, but don’t think this will change any time soon.


Haven’t looked into VOIP phone numbers before, thanks for the tip!

Could have been that too. I was polite and didn’t fuss about it thankfully!


100% would never want to make their day tougher than it already probably is.

This hermit politely declined, paid, thanked, and left. The anger I felt was towards the retail company and the clerk doesn’t need to witness that.


Very true, this is nothing new and just wanted to stop for a moment and rant about my mundane experience and love the the discussion this sparked here!


Holy shit, now that is smart thinking! I can’t believe he already made 300 pounds from listening to marketing calls!


Yeah, I’m a bit sad that even offline shopping is showing clear signs of dark patterns, but guess it is just so.

Nothing against someone just doing their job though. Can’t always choose where you get your living from.


That’s probably exactly what I’ll be doing from now on. Was hoping for the simple “would you like to join?” but guess that’s out of style.


I did politely decline and didn’t want to make a fuss about it - the title is bit exaggerated and from outside perspective it probably wasn’t that dramatic.

I know that the cashier is just doing their job and I didn’t want to make their day any harder than it probably already was. I smiled, thanked and left right after paying.

Hope I don’t sound like a karen, just wanted to share my mundane experience in this community since I really love the discussion that is going on in this thread. I do hope that all of us in this community still remember the human when interacting with people in the real world.


That could also work, if their system allows more digits than the standard digit length of their own phone numbers.

I’ve bumped into this issue myself when trying to fill my second phone number into input fields which require me to pass a number I actually use at the moment into systems where I do want to give them my phone number…


Very good point, it seems to be the most popular advice in this thread and will try this next time!


Yeah the title is a bit of an exaggeration of my feelings and as you mentioned, I was a bit anxious too since I have been abroad for quite a long time (and encountered something I did not expect in what I thought was an environment that could not surprise me).

Agreed, it could very well be that I was the first customer to question since the cashier started working there.

Thanks for the uplifting comment!


Thanks for the input! This kinda answered a question that popped into my mind: do the employees get bonuses for registrations.

And exactly, it felt too intentional to leave out the question, didn’t feel “natural” the way the phone number topic came up.

I know we are constantly being harvested for every little bit of data online, but it creeps me out when I encounter information “harvesting” by just talking to a store clerk.




You made me question myself now, was I being unreasonable?

Didn’t even think that the clerk might have been just trying to help me out, I felt like this was a smart sales & marketing psychological trick to give up and go the way of least resistance to get me to sign up (obviously not by the clerk directly, but as part of their training on how to deal with customers).

But either way, thankfully I was polite and nice about it. I might have become too cynical about everything regarding my private info in the last few years.


Sadly enough that several stores in this country started doing the same until enough privacy aware people noticed and made a fuss about it.


Yeah at no point was I mad at the clerk and didn’t show it at all that I was boiling inside, because its just their job and they have no say in it.

Haven’t tried to say I don’t have a number or come up with a fake number, but read this in the thread earlier and will probably give it a try next time!


When I was younger and lived at home we had “family accounts”. When I went to a store I picked up the “family card” and used that. So similar experience!


Now I know! I was positively surprised when they didn’t ask the follow-up question, but I see now they have been trained to not ask it at all.



I can imagine that the tactic used on me works - same as making the hide/close/disagree button small. Dark Patterns in real life.


Agreed. It used be worse here - at some point merchants wanted your social security number to create a unique customer identifier.

I will not describe how angry I felt hearing a shoe store clerk ask for my social security number (again, did not lash out at the clerk), but I was angry.

That thankfully did not last long (iirc).


That is just it. An app for everything, when it could just be a website you login to if you absolutely must have an account for something.

I’m glad I’m getting some peer support here and glad to hear similar stories.


I can relate, and agree that maybe the cashier found it just as awkward. Tried to be as nice as possible because I know its a tough job!

Thank you and you too, fellow privacy enjoyer!


Store making me feel like an outcast because of privacy concerns
Okay the title is a bit exaggerated, but honestly not far off. This post is very mundane and a bit long, but thought it fits the community. I'm visiting my home country and went shopping for pants, there were "30% off everything!" signs with a tiny text underneath that said "member discount" (don't have membership). Not a problem, did not notice and I don't care for such marketing tricks to get you into the store but okay. Picked up couple of pants, went to the cashier and they asked me "do you have our membership?" - I answered no and expected the follow up question whether I'd like to join, but, to my positive surprise the cashier just happily responded "okay, not a problem!" and continued to bag my stuff. I stood ready to pay and then the cashier said "now I just need your phone number and you can pay". Hold up. What. I did not expect that, I honestly had a burst of anger inside me (never gonna take it on a cashier, they are just doing their job). I asked nicely why do I need to give my phone number and I was told that to register me as a member so I can get the discount. I declined and said I don't want to join and would like to just pay. The entire interaction after questioning why they need my phone number was awkward, as if I had been the first person to decline, the weirdo, aluminum foil hat wearing hermit. This was just one of many interactions in the recent years that make me feel as if I was a weirdo for not sharing all my info around. The worst is when everyone keeps telling me "its just an app, just download it and use that why do you make things complicated" or "just sign up you don't need to pay anything". Thank you for reading my mundane rant, would you like to hear more? Just sign up for my weekly mailing list! ~~Your email will be shared with our 12 453 partners~~
fedilink

Too bad politicians don’t have to base their decisions on an expert opinion. Any credible person will answer that this is a bad idea, but the issue is “easy solutions to difficult problems”.


I know that long time ago this was one of the things that freaked me out. I went into google account privacy settings and there is a lot of info about you. It really creeps you out when you see info from years ago.


Can vouch for this method, I did something similar and just updated my email on services in order of my entries in password manager.



Signed. Although I wanted to ask if it has any value if it was signed by someone from outside of France/not French?