Most popular platforms are tracking and spying on you. My friends and I also believe Slack private DMs are compromised as we often times see ads directly pertaining to oddball discussions we don't have outside of Slack.
Most people here probably know this already, but you can minimize some of this by using privacy browser extensions [1], containerized browsing [2], a good VPN [3], and/or Pihole [4].
I'm curious about the Slack thing. I wonder if there could be third parties doing something (browser plugins, third party keyboards for Android, edit: someone using a TV as a computer monitor.)
One thing is for certain, if ad targeting is not being done in ways it shouldn't be, there isn't anything technically preventing it.
The headline makes it sound uniquely sinister, but most of what's described here is just the modern adtech stack doing what it's been doing for a decade. The real tension is that advertisers want attribution, sites want revenue, and users want privacy and the current system optimizes almost entirely for the first two
what does coordination mean, exactly? is the expectation that a small group of users will band together and somehow lobby more effectively than FAANGs?
> users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy.
> You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed.
Which is, actually, what the BBC author of TFA is doing, by writing an article as a user, to inform other users so they too can act to protect their privacy.
Seems like industry insiders passing responsibility for their bad practices on to consumers really means they want consumers to stay divided.
The modern adtech stack is uniquely sinister, especially compared to its antecedents in society. TikTok is not only one of a select few big tech companies that dominate it, but (according to the article), it's becoming increasingly invasive "in unusual ways compared to its competitors".
(I have no idea whether that second part is true, as most of the article seems to be spent explaining the concept of the tracking pixel for non-technical readers.)
Framed another way: The market rejects the product at the price it would cost to provide, so companies have turned to addictive designs, skeevy tracking, and information asymmetry/user ignorance to recoup their investment.
"TikTok" in the headline for views but every ad system is sucking up as much data as it possibly can: cross-site tracking pixels, cookies, device ids, fingerprinting, app snooping, extension snooping, etc.
> "TikTok empowers users with transparent information about its privacy practices and gives them multiple tools to customise their experience," a TikTok spokesperson says. "Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms"
Such Doublespeak—the word empower really means enfeeble and privacy its opposite.
There should be digital riots, where people team up to fight such abusive practices.
Thinking of AdNauseam extension, but next level. Surely there should be a very simple and effective way to disrupt such practices when people organize. Is there any precedent for such thing?
I don't understand why such obvious bullshit serves any function whatsoever. If everyone knows it's bullshit, why is this better than saying "we violate your privacy as much as is legally possible, and sometimes more than that."
> Why are they still spending hundreds of millions on ads with athletes and other things that provoke a healthy image?
Because they are foolish enough to believe that advertising actually works to influence people's behavior. Or because they are afraid that their bosses are similarly foolish, so they will get punished if they try to do Coca-Cola the favor of cutting that extreme waste from the budget.
And if I choose to drink a Coke, then so be it. I'm not forced to, and I'm aware of the fact that I am consenting to whatever ill effects I might get by purchasing and consuming it.
These pixels are a horse of a different color. They grab my info with no consent given (hiding behind "But the site we have the pixel on has to inform you, not us!" is a complete and utter cop out) and then make a profit selling or using it.
Totally different circumstances, and this shouldn't be ok.
Sir, this thread is about corporate PR phrasing/excusing /marketing when everyone knows something is the opposite. You might've replied to the wrong thread here.
There's plenty of evidence that many people are not making rational and informed decisions due to advertising practices. That is absolutely being forced into things
> TikTok empowers users with transparent information about its privacy practices and gives them multiple tools to customise their experience," a TikTok spokesperson says. "Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms"
- Are we really empowered to stop being surveilled?
- Does the customization of my experience have any bearing with the actual allegation of tracking non-users on the internet?
- Are advertising pixels transparently shown to those who never have been on TikTok but are monitored all the same?
(edit: To be clear, Doublespeak isn't about a lie as much as words losing their entire meaning and being used to hide truth with comfortable phrasinggs)
If it's not a lie, it is still an immoral practice.
The article details how Tiktok is using the tracking to collect data on non-tiktok users to build profiles of people without their consent, and trying to say that people consent to it in their "downflow" usage of sites that have tiktok embeds.
Again, even if others are doing it, it's shitty and unethical.
Lots to blame Tiktok for but I believe this is completely ubiquitous across the internet. Every major brand with a digital marketing department does this.
This wasn't a problem until it was done by a Chinese company, when American companies (Meta, X, Google, etc.) spied on us we saw it as a triumph of entrepreneurism.
> TikTok's pixel is years old, but it just shifted in some major ways. On 22 January 2026, when TikTok's US operation officially changed hands, users had to agree to a new set of data collection practices. That includes a new advertising network that TikTok will use to show targeted ads on other people's websites. To facilitate that new advertising system, TikTok updated its pixel.
> In the past, TikTok's pixel basically just told companies if their ads were generating sales in the app itself. Now, the pixel will help companies follow users who see an ad when they leave TikTok and make a purchase elsewhere.
So what you've said is not only wrong, it's the total opposite of what's happened. Under Chinese control, it was less invasive than it is now.
Me too. I'm a privacy warrior like yourself. But they do have a point. The Facebook pixel is decades old. This seems to be getting more traction than that did.
I think the FB pixel caused significant industry change, though. For instance, ad blockers became, well, not ubiquitous but incredibly common. Safari started doing great stuff with limiting third party cookies. Email apps started letting you opt out of loading images. A cottage industry of things like Pi-Hole popped up deter tracking at the LAN level. As a whole, tech added a gazillion ways to make Facebook’s tracking less effective.
I hadn't read that Paul Graham article before, but it was extremely accurate at the time.
My degree is in Public Relations and I worked in political PR for a bit before moving to newspapers. The PR office worked so hard to word things in a way where news editors could lift our copy directly into print. It was a delicate balance to sell a point of view without sounding like a sales pitch.
Later, at the newspapers, I was shocked to learn how desperately editors would snag any text to fill the space between paid-for ads on a page. A minimal amount of actual journalism occurred above the fold. Past that we would publish absolutely anything in the English language without filtering.
This was all 20+ years ago. Now we've cut out the middle man, automatically publishing AI generated slop directly as if it were human-produced news. It's all very discouraging.
Paul Graham cherry picks examples of history where humans are comically misguided as an argument for why virtually all humans are copying each others morals. Graham somehow argues that stopping the Nazis in WW2 or protecting children by socializing them against risky activities is unthinking hive mind and hand waives all of the nuance and human integrity. Weak argument and reads like propaganda from Steve Bannon.
Tiktok is also running web scrapers for some reason. I guess ML stuff. Their bot is hitting URLs on my server that haven't ever been linked elsewhere on the web and haven't been valid for years. Nobody else is still trying to get to them since I retired that subdomain.
This kind of tracking is insane. I built a self-hosted analytics setup so I can see how my sites are performing without sending anything to ad-tech companies [0].
Keeps the data on my server, gives real insights, and doesn’t contribute to the surveillance ecosystem [0].
Nothing new here. This is why they eventually rolled back Chrome's initiative to automatically reject third-party cookies. Industry backlash was that the analytics of too many sites would break. Best thing to do is to switch to a privacy centric browser.
the thing that struck me building a mobile app is how much access you could technically request without most users noticing. we use the camera as a core feature and even that single permission makes some users nervous, which is totally reasonable.
the real problem isn't any single app though, it's that the permission model on mobile is still too binary: you either grant access or you don't. there's no "allow camera but only while i'm actively in the app and don't cache any metadata." ios has gotten better with the location permission tiers but for most other permissions it's still all or nothing.
the scarier part of the article imo isn't even the tracking pixels, it's the sdk integrations. when you add a third party sdk for analytics or ads, you're trusting that company with whatever permissions your app already has. most indie devs don't audit those sdks line by line, and the big ones are basically black boxes.
TikTok, more than any other app, seems to be aware of things that I talk about. I'm not big on conspiracy theories (well until the past six months or so), but I really wonder if TikTok has figured out a way to listen with the microphone on my phone. I will be chatting about the most random thing -- needing a new washing machine -- and then I'll suddenly get some washing machine add in the next hour. Or someone will mention a movie being snubbed for the Oscar's, and then an edit for that movie pops up.
I never did a search or anything else on any app on any devices related to these things, but somehow TikTok seemed to know. Maybe coincidence that I have heightened awareness of... but it does seem different.
Facebook was doing tracking pixels in the 00s. It probably worked even better then because stuff that's currently in apps was on the web back then and fewer people ran adblockers.
Every party in the advertising ecosystem should be assumed to be doing this (and your adblocker should be trying its best to block it).
(b) display images. If images are optional, then the option must be enabled, e.g., by default
For example,
I often fail these requirements as I manually retrieve information without a browser. For example, I read the information from the BBC website without meeting the software requirements for social media pixel tracking
I also use a text-only browser to read HTML offline. This browser fails the software requirements as it does not auto-load resources. Further, I compile it without support for images
In addition to the software requirements there is also a requirement for access to remote DNS controlled by a third party
If you do not use the TikTok website, then your browser has no need to retrieve DNS data for tiktok.com or other domains registered to or used by TikTok
Unless you delegate lookups to a third party DNS provider such as an ISP, Cloudflare, Google, Quad9, etc. or run a local resolver that accesses remote authoritative servers then the required web browser specified above will not be able to retrieve DNS data for tiktok.com or whatever domains are used for the tracking pixel
For example, I use only locally-stored DNS data served from local authoritative DNS servers and localhost forward proxy memory. There is no DNS data for tiktok.com or other domains used for TikTok's tracking pixel
NB. The subject of this comment is (c) software and DNS requirements for pixel tracking. A different subject is (d) how many users may or may not meet such requirements, e.g., high numbers versus low numbers, "average" users versus non-"average" users, and so on. HN replies often attempt to change the subject to (d)
I even read that TikTok has its app listen to a port on localhost, and have websites run code that exfiltrates data this way (effectively bypassing privacy protections of your browser).
Which is worse is moot. Which is more likely to harm or immiserate you is the relevant question and unless you're chinese the answer is almost certainly ellison.
TikTok is now a Zionist operation being run by (former?) members of Mossad's Unit 8200, which is like the NSA's cybersecurity group. So monitoring everyone is literally the point of TikTok now. Meta, Google, Apple, and others are also participating in it. Silicon Valley not actively mobilizing against this shows how geeks are complicit with genocide and the systems that drive it.
The article says in the title how that won't solve the problem. Their chief solution is guarding against invisible tracking pixels all over the web, and how using a properly equipped browser and extensions can hopefully mitigate them. I found the article's recommendation of suitable browsers to be quite poor: a brush off to Firefox and no mention of LibreWolf, IronFox, etc al.
Most popular platforms are tracking and spying on you. My friends and I also believe Slack private DMs are compromised as we often times see ads directly pertaining to oddball discussions we don't have outside of Slack.
Most people here probably know this already, but you can minimize some of this by using privacy browser extensions [1], containerized browsing [2], a good VPN [3], and/or Pihole [4].
1: https://duckduckgo.com/compare-privacy?tab=extensions
2: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-use-firefox-contain...
3: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CRtEQzSVE59jj5ROKZlt... (*do your research, e.g. NordVPN creeps me out with aggressive advertising practices even though they're highly rated)
4: https://pi-hole.net/
I'm curious about the Slack thing. I wonder if there could be third parties doing something (browser plugins, third party keyboards for Android, edit: someone using a TV as a computer monitor.)
One thing is for certain, if ad targeting is not being done in ways it shouldn't be, there isn't anything technically preventing it.
The headline makes it sound uniquely sinister, but most of what's described here is just the modern adtech stack doing what it's been doing for a decade. The real tension is that advertisers want attribution, sites want revenue, and users want privacy and the current system optimizes almost entirely for the first two
advertisers act for themselves. sites act for themselves. users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy.
Advertisers are organized, site owners are organized, and users are not. You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed.
what does coordination mean, exactly? is the expectation that a small group of users will band together and somehow lobby more effectively than FAANGs?
> users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy.
> You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed.
Which is, actually, what the BBC author of TFA is doing, by writing an article as a user, to inform other users so they too can act to protect their privacy.
Seems like industry insiders passing responsibility for their bad practices on to consumers really means they want consumers to stay divided.
I'm organized enough not to use Tiktok. Anything else is probably going to be ineffective. Not sure if this is effective either though.
The modern adtech stack is uniquely sinister, especially compared to its antecedents in society. TikTok is not only one of a select few big tech companies that dominate it, but (according to the article), it's becoming increasingly invasive "in unusual ways compared to its competitors".
(I have no idea whether that second part is true, as most of the article seems to be spent explaining the concept of the tracking pixel for non-technical readers.)
100% - targeted advertising lives and breathes on data - this is par for the course
It may not be news to you personally, but that doesn't mean it's not newsworthy for the general public.
the average person doesn't know jack about how data mining works and would be hard pressed to understand what a heap or stack is.
no surprises here, but the public should hear this, even if it's a given to the technical folks
The real tension is users don't want to pay for anything which is why the ad landscape is what it is.
Ads optimize for getting every single penny without any pushback from bad effects, which is why the ad landscape is what it is.
Tossing in more paying users wouldn't fix scummy ads. And ads could exist without being scummy, but it would take some other kind of pressure.
Framed another way: The market rejects the product at the price it would cost to provide, so companies have turned to addictive designs, skeevy tracking, and information asymmetry/user ignorance to recoup their investment.
The market isn't rejecting the product, it's taking the product and rejecting paying for it.
If it were rejecting the product, ads wouldn't appear anywhere.
"TikTok" in the headline for views but every ad system is sucking up as much data as it possibly can: cross-site tracking pixels, cookies, device ids, fingerprinting, app snooping, extension snooping, etc.
I chuckled at
> For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
If you worry about tracking you certainly shouldn’t be on Facebook or Instagram, one the OGs of pervasive tracking even if you’re not a user.
> "TikTok empowers users with transparent information about its privacy practices and gives them multiple tools to customise their experience," a TikTok spokesperson says. "Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms"
Such Doublespeak—the word empower really means enfeeble and privacy its opposite.
The real issue here is the word "users".
They're silently collecting very personal information, without permission, from people that not users.
You can't object to Tiktok collecting information about your mental health because you're not told they're collecting it in the first place.
Presumably an EU citizen _could_ make a GDPR subject access request to see what they have, but this seems unlikely to work.
They can just ignore it and get away with it: https://noyb.eu/en/microsofts-xandr-grants-gdpr-rights-rate-...
The "success" of GDPR is greatly overstated here. In practice, breaching it is the winning strategy.
I guess to complete GDPR request you'd have to send them some of your personal information to identify yourself too. :(
There should be digital riots, where people team up to fight such abusive practices. Thinking of AdNauseam extension, but next level. Surely there should be a very simple and effective way to disrupt such practices when people organize. Is there any precedent for such thing?
Meanwhile I bet marketing people in your own job and all the other jobs you had used those in every single email.
In their defense the tracking pixel is (likely) quite literally transparent.
I don't understand why such obvious bullshit serves any function whatsoever. If everyone knows it's bullshit, why is this better than saying "we violate your privacy as much as is legally possible, and sometimes more than that."
Effectively everyone knows that Coke (the drink) is trash for your health. It's liquid candy.
Why are they still spending hundreds of millions on ads with athletes and other things that provoke a healthy image?
Because we're all monkey-brained. There are uncountable examples of this.
> Why are they still spending hundreds of millions on ads with athletes and other things that provoke a healthy image?
Because they are foolish enough to believe that advertising actually works to influence people's behavior. Or because they are afraid that their bosses are similarly foolish, so they will get punished if they try to do Coca-Cola the favor of cutting that extreme waste from the budget.
And if I choose to drink a Coke, then so be it. I'm not forced to, and I'm aware of the fact that I am consenting to whatever ill effects I might get by purchasing and consuming it.
These pixels are a horse of a different color. They grab my info with no consent given (hiding behind "But the site we have the pixel on has to inform you, not us!" is a complete and utter cop out) and then make a profit selling or using it.
Totally different circumstances, and this shouldn't be ok.
Sir, this thread is about corporate PR phrasing/excusing /marketing when everyone knows something is the opposite. You might've replied to the wrong thread here.
There's plenty of evidence that many people are not making rational and informed decisions due to advertising practices. That is absolutely being forced into things
>"Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms"
Where is the lie?
> TikTok empowers users with transparent information about its privacy practices and gives them multiple tools to customise their experience," a TikTok spokesperson says. "Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms"
- Are we really empowered to stop being surveilled?
- Does the customization of my experience have any bearing with the actual allegation of tracking non-users on the internet?
- Are advertising pixels transparently shown to those who never have been on TikTok but are monitored all the same?
(edit: To be clear, Doublespeak isn't about a lie as much as words losing their entire meaning and being used to hide truth with comfortable phrasinggs)
If it's not a lie, it is still an immoral practice.
The article details how Tiktok is using the tracking to collect data on non-tiktok users to build profiles of people without their consent, and trying to say that people consent to it in their "downflow" usage of sites that have tiktok embeds.
Again, even if others are doing it, it's shitty and unethical.
Lots to blame Tiktok for but I believe this is completely ubiquitous across the internet. Every major brand with a digital marketing department does this.
Modern ads and tracking are effectively malware. Treat them and their operators as hostile and block everything you can.
Blocking trackers is a reasonable self-defense move today, but it also highlights that the system isn't aligned with users anymore
It hasn't been for some time now, sadly.
This wasn't a problem until it was done by a Chinese company, when American companies (Meta, X, Google, etc.) spied on us we saw it as a triumph of entrepreneurism.
TokTok is infamously an american company now
You clearly didn't read the article:
> TikTok's pixel is years old, but it just shifted in some major ways. On 22 January 2026, when TikTok's US operation officially changed hands, users had to agree to a new set of data collection practices. That includes a new advertising network that TikTok will use to show targeted ads on other people's websites. To facilitate that new advertising system, TikTok updated its pixel.
> In the past, TikTok's pixel basically just told companies if their ads were generating sales in the app itself. Now, the pixel will help companies follow users who see an ad when they leave TikTok and make a purchase elsewhere.
So what you've said is not only wrong, it's the total opposite of what's happened. Under Chinese control, it was less invasive than it is now.
The debate just gets louder when geopolitics gets layered on top of an already controversial model
Got a mouse in your pocket? What’s this “we” business?
The “we” I was around was and is vehemently opposed to American companies doing this sort of thing.
Me too. I'm a privacy warrior like yourself. But they do have a point. The Facebook pixel is decades old. This seems to be getting more traction than that did.
I think the FB pixel caused significant industry change, though. For instance, ad blockers became, well, not ubiquitous but incredibly common. Safari started doing great stuff with limiting third party cookies. Email apps started letting you opt out of loading images. A cottage industry of things like Pi-Hole popped up deter tracking at the LAN level. As a whole, tech added a gazillion ways to make Facebook’s tracking less effective.
Related: Facebook owner reportedly paid Republican firm to push message TikTok is ‘the real threat’
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/30/facebook-...
Also relevant: https://paulgraham.com/say.html
I hadn't read that Paul Graham article before, but it was extremely accurate at the time.
My degree is in Public Relations and I worked in political PR for a bit before moving to newspapers. The PR office worked so hard to word things in a way where news editors could lift our copy directly into print. It was a delicate balance to sell a point of view without sounding like a sales pitch.
Later, at the newspapers, I was shocked to learn how desperately editors would snag any text to fill the space between paid-for ads on a page. A minimal amount of actual journalism occurred above the fold. Past that we would publish absolutely anything in the English language without filtering.
This was all 20+ years ago. Now we've cut out the middle man, automatically publishing AI generated slop directly as if it were human-produced news. It's all very discouraging.
Paul Graham cherry picks examples of history where humans are comically misguided as an argument for why virtually all humans are copying each others morals. Graham somehow argues that stopping the Nazis in WW2 or protecting children by socializing them against risky activities is unthinking hive mind and hand waives all of the nuance and human integrity. Weak argument and reads like propaganda from Steve Bannon.
Tiktok is also running web scrapers for some reason. I guess ML stuff. Their bot is hitting URLs on my server that haven't ever been linked elsewhere on the web and haven't been valid for years. Nobody else is still trying to get to them since I retired that subdomain.
Some people might find this useful. I'd be interested to know if there's a more complete list out there.
https://github.com/danhorton7/pihole-block-tiktok/blob/main/...
Why are there IPs in a DNS hosts file? That’s not how those work, even for Pi-hole, unless something’s changed in recent years.
There are tools that will parse and do the needful with a 'mixed' (i.e., containing both domains and IP addresses/CIDR blocks) feed.
Which tools? AFAICT, this is targeted towards Pi-hole, which last I checked, didn't but things change. Thanks for any info.
I ask this because I'm working on my own tools and would like to take a look at existing implementations, if they exist.
pfBlockerNG (on pfSense) does. But you need to specify the feed in both places—i.e., as an IP feed and a DNSBL feed—though.
So technically 'parsers', plural.
Awesome, never even heard of pfBlockerNG. I'll take a look. Thank you!
URL for others interested: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/packages/pfblocke...
Pihole _should_ filter these out, but I assume it's not a pihole-specific list. (alternately, the author is just confused)
This kind of tracking is insane. I built a self-hosted analytics setup so I can see how my sites are performing without sending anything to ad-tech companies [0].
Keeps the data on my server, gives real insights, and doesn’t contribute to the surveillance ecosystem [0].
[0] https://www.uxwizz.com
Nothing new here. This is why they eventually rolled back Chrome's initiative to automatically reject third-party cookies. Industry backlash was that the analytics of too many sites would break. Best thing to do is to switch to a privacy centric browser.
the thing that struck me building a mobile app is how much access you could technically request without most users noticing. we use the camera as a core feature and even that single permission makes some users nervous, which is totally reasonable.
the real problem isn't any single app though, it's that the permission model on mobile is still too binary: you either grant access or you don't. there's no "allow camera but only while i'm actively in the app and don't cache any metadata." ios has gotten better with the location permission tiers but for most other permissions it's still all or nothing.
the scarier part of the article imo isn't even the tracking pixels, it's the sdk integrations. when you add a third party sdk for analytics or ads, you're trusting that company with whatever permissions your app already has. most indie devs don't audit those sdks line by line, and the big ones are basically black boxes.
I wonder if the writer asked the website that sent their e-mail to TikTok why they were doing that in the first place.
To be honest, I'm not sure I understand why would you want to put a tracking pixel from TikTok on your website? What is the gain for the website?
This headline could be written about every major social network on our planet. Tracking pixels are not something TikTok invented.
I keep getting this alert (on Android) saying TikTok is draining the battery even after I've swiped-up on the app to exit it.
Here's a partial list of domains a browser without any extensions contacts when navigating to this article:
Same applies to Google, Facebook, Twitter, you name it.
Yet it's fine when American big tech cos track you? At least TikTok is being honest about it.
TikTok, more than any other app, seems to be aware of things that I talk about. I'm not big on conspiracy theories (well until the past six months or so), but I really wonder if TikTok has figured out a way to listen with the microphone on my phone. I will be chatting about the most random thing -- needing a new washing machine -- and then I'll suddenly get some washing machine add in the next hour. Or someone will mention a movie being snubbed for the Oscar's, and then an edit for that movie pops up.
I never did a search or anything else on any app on any devices related to these things, but somehow TikTok seemed to know. Maybe coincidence that I have heightened awareness of... but it does seem different.
Facebook was doing tracking pixels in the 00s. It probably worked even better then because stuff that's currently in apps was on the web back then and fewer people ran adblockers.
Every party in the advertising ecosystem should be assumed to be doing this (and your adblocker should be trying its best to block it).
Tracking pixels are routine in emails, not just websites, so the article is incomplete as it does not address how to guard against those.
The solution to turn off "load images" in the web email clients.
One side effect is that Capital One thinks that it has the wrong email address for me:
It keeps sending me that every month or two, which is kinda annoying.> which is kinda annoying
Set up an email filter based on the Subject line to trash them.
Disable HTML in fact.
Those are my favorite kind of spams.
Don't load images, or use GMail which loads images through a proxy.
I was pleased to see that Fastmail is also an option[1].
1. https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-keeps-you-safe-from-s...
ProtonMail and Tuta both block images by default.
This is probably the default for all clients now. Even Outlook blocks images.
Software requirements:
You must use a web browser
The web browser must
(a) auto-load resources, e.g., images
(b) display images. If images are optional, then the option must be enabled, e.g., by default
For example,
I often fail these requirements as I manually retrieve information without a browser. For example, I read the information from the BBC website without meeting the software requirements for social media pixel tracking
I also use a text-only browser to read HTML offline. This browser fails the software requirements as it does not auto-load resources. Further, I compile it without support for images
In addition to the software requirements there is also a requirement for access to remote DNS controlled by a third party
If you do not use the TikTok website, then your browser has no need to retrieve DNS data for tiktok.com or other domains registered to or used by TikTok
Unless you delegate lookups to a third party DNS provider such as an ISP, Cloudflare, Google, Quad9, etc. or run a local resolver that accesses remote authoritative servers then the required web browser specified above will not be able to retrieve DNS data for tiktok.com or whatever domains are used for the tracking pixel
For example, I use only locally-stored DNS data served from local authoritative DNS servers and localhost forward proxy memory. There is no DNS data for tiktok.com or other domains used for TikTok's tracking pixel
NB. The subject of this comment is (c) software and DNS requirements for pixel tracking. A different subject is (d) how many users may or may not meet such requirements, e.g., high numbers versus low numbers, "average" users versus non-"average" users, and so on. HN replies often attempt to change the subject to (d)
Will Pi-hole with good blocking lists remediate this?
Whether or not it does so effectively, you should go for it anyway.
Thanks. I already am.
When can we finally make user tracking illegal?
I even read that TikTok has its app listen to a port on localhost, and have websites run code that exfiltrates data this way (effectively bypassing privacy protections of your browser).
Oh wait no sorry, that was Meta. In both the Facebook and Instagram apps: https://cybersecuritynews.com/track-android-users-covertly/.
You think an app blessed by the CCP isn't going to track you?
I see no difference in the level of tracking in TikTok vs. any other app/advertiser. What that data gets used for is anyone's guess.
Blessed by CCP or by Larry Ellison? I don't know which is worse
Which is worse is moot. Which is more likely to harm or immiserate you is the relevant question and unless you're chinese the answer is almost certainly ellison.
Both suck.
At least the CCP is somewhat loyal to the Chinese people and somewhat dedicated improving the standard of living in China.
Ellison is loyal to...checks notes... Israel.
TikTok is now a Zionist operation being run by (former?) members of Mossad's Unit 8200, which is like the NSA's cybersecurity group. So monitoring everyone is literally the point of TikTok now. Meta, Google, Apple, and others are also participating in it. Silicon Valley not actively mobilizing against this shows how geeks are complicit with genocide and the systems that drive it.
> TikTok is now a Zionist operation being run by (former?) members of Mossad's Unit 8200, which is like the NSA's cybersecurity group.
Bold claims like this need citations.
Did you even try to do it yourself?
I'm not even reading this link. That's your job. I just did a search for "unit 8200 tiktok" to get this.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/288710-tiktok-isnt-anti-israel...
In America, yes.
But this article is from the BBC so they would arguably be talking about the one that's available in Europe which is still controlled by China.
Thanks for making the distinction.
Don't have that brainrot engine on your phone - problem solved.
The article says in the title how that won't solve the problem. Their chief solution is guarding against invisible tracking pixels all over the web, and how using a properly equipped browser and extensions can hopefully mitigate them. I found the article's recommendation of suitable browsers to be quite poor: a brush off to Firefox and no mention of LibreWolf, IronFox, etc al.
Article title aside, your argument sounds similar to "alcoholism? Just stop buying alcohol"
Sorry, that will not work.
FTA:
“TikTok collects sensitive and potentially embarrassing information about you even if you've never used the app.”
Ublock. Don't surf the web without it. And apps? Just avoid them whenever you can. Default assumption should be that they are spying on you.