Hi all,
I don’t really know how to ask this question. On one of my devices, I downloaded a web browser (Opera) and one of my friends made fun of me, saying that “you better like China knowing all the stuff you do online”.
I read the Opera website and it says it’s a Norwegian company, but on Wikipedia it does say it was bought by a Chinese company.
My question is: what does “China” do with my personal browsing data? Why is it useful for them? (and who are we referring to here, is that the Chinese government, a private company, who?)
I’m looking forward to learn more about digital privacy, but I don’t currently understand the “obviousness” of how it is wrong to use Opera.
I’m a tech enthusiast (hence why I’m here), but I’m cognizant that I have large knowledge gaps in some of these topics.
Thank you in advance.
China has state-coordinated schemes to both suppress its own internal population (which may not concern you if you aren’t Chinese and never go to China) and to manipulate people globally (which everyone should be concerned about).
While it’s true that all countries collect data for the purposes of propaganda, China does so at a scale and with a level of precision and control that pretty much no other country can reach.
You should be trying to limit the amount of data that ANY group gets about you, but some groups will do more nefarious things with it than others. Google for example just wants to advertise to you. Which is bad, I’m not trying to downplay that, just contextualize it. China wants to control every aspect of everything you do. China’s capacity to control people outside its own borders is limited, but growing. The more data China gets, the more leverage it has to manipulate, coerce, and control.
We are all too easy to manipulate.
The more data they have on us, the easier it is.
China has state-coordinated schemes to both suppress its own internal population (which may not concern you if you aren’t Chinese and never go to China) and to manipulate people globally (which everyone should be concerned about).
While it’s true that all countries collect data for the purposes of propaganda, China does so at a scale and with a level of precision and control that pretty much no other country can reach.
Is there any actual evidence that the Chinese state spends more money or man-hours attempting to collect, analyze, and manipulate public opinion than - say - The NSA? Or, for that matter, Google AdSense?
You should be trying to limit the amount of data that ANY group gets about you, but some groups will do more nefarious things with it than others. Google for example just wants to advertise to you.
Firstly, isn’t that the entire threat that this data analysis presents? A malicious actor wants to accrue enough information about you such that they know exactly what to say in order to manipulate your behaviors and beliefs. That’s advertising in a nutshell.
Secondly, why is the threat of a domestic advertiser somehow less existential than that of a foreign one? Does Sundar Pichai have more of my best interests at heart than Zhang Yiming purely by proximity? Or is this purely a “Chinese people think evil, American people think good, its just in our natures” thing?
Thirdly, if Chinese investment in American technology is such an existential threat to our freedom of thought and rational action, why is the American military industrial complex so glacially slow in their response? You want me to believe that the Chinese government is brainwashing Americans en mass with their evil TikToks, and we’ve got proof, but we still want to let them keep doing it until November (squarely in the middle of election season) before they’re forced to divest or stop serving content?
This all just strikes me as xenophobic hysteria, especially given the blaise attitude towards domestic advertisers (oil companies lying about climate change, crypto shills lying about their financial risks, Joe Rogan/Alex Jones types pushing phony nutrition supplements, political mega-donors lying about one another’s platforms, outright scammers just trying to fleece you).
I’m not a US citizen but I’d say if you don’t like US overthrowing governments all around the world, then you should be double concerned it happening to your country. Those data are really powerfull tool for such thing and they have been used for it in case of Brexit. It’s quite shocking to compare a foreign superpower with an advertising company and put it on the same level.
It’s quite shocking to compare a foreign superpower with an advertising company
Glances at Coca Cola, United Fruit, Disney, Ford, and IBM
Yes, but not for the reasons you imply.
Is there any actual evidence
I knew this topic would bring you people out of the woodwork. I’m not interested. Fuck the CCP and its Winnie the Pooh dictator, free Tibet, Taiwan is the real China, Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square.
Block me or I’ll keep saying forbidden things and your handlers will start to get mad.
Block me or I’ll keep saying forbidden things
Prove you are not some little pink and make 3 bullet points of nothing but criticisms (not constructive, not positive, NEGATIVE criticisms) of the Chinese Communist Party. You wont. You cant!
Mao was an absolute moron who, in addition to the intentional genocide, also accidentally killed tens of millions of his own people by being too stupid to understand ecology.
Like, I go to a website and research clown outfits or biscuit preparation, what the hell is China going to do with this information? Banking info I would be concerned. Any more specific examples of foul play come hitherdom? The question really isn’t being answered.
It’s not about what country has it, it’s about that they CAN have it, and what they could do with it.
We continue to spiral into a dystopian area. To say it won’t happen to you, remember that period tracking apps are being used to track women and arrest them. If I was a Chinese data center grabbing data, this is a nice piece of info to sell and make a profit out of it.
But what about you? Surely you don’t do anything. But lets think of a hypothetical. Maybe you visit sites in Opera that are anti-Russian, a news site that had a story about Putin shitting his pants. We’ll with all the data stored, they can identify who you are. You’re now on a Russian list of people who hate Russia. Maybe you’ll go, “But I’ll never go to Russia.” But who knows?
When women were using those apps, they didn’t expect it to be used to get them arrested.
People who practice good privacy have a significantly less chance of getting shit on. So why not?
Maybe you’ll go, “But I’ll never go to Russia.”
But maybe Trump wins the election and now the US government is starting to harass you because Trump is Putin’s lapdog.
You just don’t want that info out there.
https://mullvad.net/en/why-privacy-matters
Excellent set of articles on why.
Personally I think it’s overblown, with way too much Sinophobia, similar to “the red scare” of the Cold War. It’s easier to control and manipulate your own population if they’re all afraid of “the big bad”.
However I’ll agree with pretty much all the risks, all the ways it can be abused. It’s just that local companies will “legally” abuse that data with far more direct impact to me, as do local political groups. A foreign government collecting that data may be able to manipulate crowds to meddle and someone needs to be concerned with that, but they have no reason to meddle specifically with me.
You should definitely be concerned about data collected about you and how it can be abused, but not just by China
The pessimistic view: basically everything you do online can be tracked, sold, and bought by anyone with a few bucks. Poor online security means you have no privacy regardless of browser, while good (or at least “better”) online security is possible with almost any browser.
If your friend is advocating switching browsers, but with no other behavioral changes, that’s just a false sense of security, which may be worse.
To more directly address the question, unless you are a Chinese dissident, “China” having your browsing data isn’t any better or worse that Google or Microsoft or Meta having that same data. Spoiler: for the average user, they already do.
I’m not a Chinese dissident but it’s not inconceivable that I might want to go to China one day for business or pleasure. That would be a bad idea considering how vocal I’ve been about hating the CCP. If they’ve correlated my statements to my identity, they could have me arrested on trumped up charges when my flight lands.
Google or Meta wouldn’t do that. It’s not even in the same ballpark as bad as a state level actor.
Good question. One reaaon is that wherever it goes you can’t ensure that’s where it stays.
also, generally, you want your data going as few places as possible. not to beijing, not to washington, not to palo alto.
Others have explained why Chinese ownership of Opera might be bad.
I suggest you try the Vivaldi browser which is made by a company started by the co-founder & CEO of the original Opera. Basically builds upon the heritage and philosophy of the original Opera. Extremely customizable, tracker and ad blocking built in along with speed dials, gestures, UI customization of just about everything.
Has desktop for all platforms including Linux, and mobile for Android and iOS with sync (not going through Google) for all platforms.
Optional email, calendar, Mastodon and RSS clients in the desktop versions. Optional email account and Mastodon account accessible from any standard client and the Web, or via their desktop.
Not fully open source (nor is Opera) and built on the same open source Chromium base as Opera, Brave, Chrome, but seriously de-Googleized and does not use the Chromium UI. Will continue to support ad blocking even after Google/Chromium removal of the interfaces for ad blocking extensions. Yet desktop versions do allow installation of extensions from the Chrome/Chromium extension store.
Edit: fix link and some grammar
because east bad west good
Lol, literally no one is saying it’s good for Google/apple/us government to know everything about you. A much more accurate comment would be “east bad west bad”.
EDIT: I suppose some of the comments could be characterized as “east bad, west bad, china bad but better at it than everyone else”. Which COULD be taken as an insult or a compliment (or both) to China.
Everyone bad, no one good. It that simple.
