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Privacy? What’s That?

Corporate Fuckery, Marketing / Advertising

Very few things get under my skin as much as bullshit like this:

A recent study from Consumer Reports engaged 709 volunteers who provided archives of their Facebook user data. Astonishingly, Consumer Reports discovered that 186,892 different companies transmitted data about these users to Facebook. On average, data from each participant was shared by 2,230 companies, with some users’ data being shared by over 7,000 companies.

Think you’re outside this little net?  Think again, Winston Smith:

This examination highlighted a lesser-known form of tracking known as server-to-server tracking, where personal data is transferred directly from a company’s servers to Meta’s servers, alongside the more visible method involving Meta tracking pixels on company websites.

A surprising finding was the pervasive presence of LiveRamp, a data broker, appearing in the data of 96 percent of study participants. The list of companies sharing data with Facebook extends beyond obscure data brokers to include well-known retailers like Home Depot, Macy’s, Walmart, and others, such as Experian and TransUnion’s Neustar, Amazon, Etsy, and PayPal. Notably, LiveRamp did not respond to a request for comment on this matter.

The study’s data came from two main collection types: “events” and “custom audiences.” The latter involves advertisers uploading customer lists to Meta, including email addresses and mobile advertising IDs, to target ads on Meta’s platforms. ‘Events’ describe real-world interactions, like website visits or store purchases, facilitated by Meta’s software in apps, tracking pixels on websites, and server-to-server tracking.

I’ll sum up all this in a simple sentence:  if you’ve bought anything online in the past three years, your personal data is everywhere.

Of course, there are the weasels:

Emil Vazquez, a spokesperson for Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, defended the company’s data practices, stating: “We offer a number of transparency tools to help people understand the information that businesses choose to share with us, and manage how it’s used.”

Oh sure.  Forgive me for being skeptical about the motives of said weasels, and the companies they work for:

However, Consumer Reports identified issues with these tools, including unclear data provider identities and companies that service advertisers often disregarding user opt-out requests.

I don’t even know what to do about all this — nothing can be done, seems to me.

But the best part of all this — and the reason for my hopelessness — is that of you think that Government isn’t getting their snouts into this data trough, I have a fucking bridge to sell you.

Corporations, no matter how big, always fall straight to their knees every time some government department demands a blowjob.  And this circumstance is no different.

Violent Reaction

Marxists

Sure, it’s okay if they do it:

Left-wing protesters in Germany called for supporters of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to be killed during a rally against political extremism.

Amid nationwide protests over the weekend, in which organisers claimed over a million people rallied against the right-wing AfD party, it was ironically the left which seemingly exposed itself as harbouring extremists.

A report from the left-liberal Aachener Zeitung newspaper on Sunday hailed the local demonstration in the North Rhine-Westphalian city of Aachen against the AfD, which it claimed saw around 10,000 people attend.

The celebratory article, headlined: “Aachen mobilises against right-wing hate” featured a lead image of the report showed protesters holding a banner reading “Afdler Toten”, which has been translated to “Kill AfD supporters”. The image also showed masked protesters dressed in the familiar black bloc uniform waving the flag of the radical leftist Antifa group.

The article was quietly amended, however, after observers noted the potentially criminal calls to violence by the left-wing protesters, with the image being changed to a less extreme picture, which also did not feature any Antifa-style radicals.

Yeah, you bastards.

Where have we heard that kind of rhetoric before?  Oh yeah, I remember:  it was a popular slogan among Hitler’s Brownshirts back in the 1930s — albeit aimed at Communists, the current Left’s ideological forebears.

Also used by Lenin, against people (kulaks, nobles etc.) who were resistant to Communist Party policy in Soviet Russia.  And also by Lefty heartthrob Che Guevara:  “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail.”

My, how that Great Circle Of Life does go round and round.

The great irony of all this, of course, is that while conservatives (like me) would like to see a Glorious Day when Leftist filth are led to the walls and execution pits not to mention the Hanging Tree, the plain fact is that it will never happen (unless I become World Emperor, that is).

More’s the pity.

Snake In The Astroturf

Eco-Crap, Watermelons

Here’s a face not known by my Murkin Readers, but probably familiar to those in Britishland:  ITV’s weather reporter on Good Morning Britain, the elfin Laura Tobin.

“Okay Kim,” y’all might say.  “That’s a right purdy lil’ thang, thanks for the pics.”

Unfortunately, this totty is one of those rabid climate change advocates/alarmists, whose slanted opinions on the topic, and frequent injections of said propaganda into her weather reports has even some Brits perturbed.

Just so you know.

News Roundup

Bad News

And boy, are you ever going to need one of the above to read what follows below…

From the Dept. of Education:


...”scholars”?  People with degrees in “_____ Studies”?  Ah don’ theenk so, Boss.


...wait:  the Austros have over-45-year-olds in schools now?

And further silliness in Global Warming Climate Cooling Change© News:


...weaselkeywords:  “could” and “up to”.  Substitute “won’t” and “anything like” to the above.

From the Dept. of Civil Defense:


...here in north Texas, there’s a word for people like this:  neighbor.

In International War News:

 
...and even from the grave, Henry gets a Schadenböner:


... instead of sending them to Ukraine, we’re using missiles on asshole Muzzy terrorists, oh yes.  However:


...because repeating the same failed activity over and over always works in the end.
#TypicalSocialistPolicy

And in a different kind of war:


...and then euthanized like unwanted animals?  Oh please make it so.

Speaking of animals that need euthanizing:


...in which we play the “Guess The Race” game.  Clue:  her name is “Shacoria”.


...she sounds nice.  The story is just wonderful.


...branding?  Too harsh, you say?


...headline may have been edited slightly, to reflect reality.

And in further INSIGNIFICA:

...of course you did, my darlin’.

Finally, in ShowBiz News:


...sex every night and three times a day over weekends?  That’s what I’d do, anyway.


…most children don’t look like what they become,really:

But if I can venture a guess, it’s not the face that gets people’s attention anyway:

And with that, we’ve reached the backside of the news.

Reaching Out

The Gun Thing

I stumbled on this list of “Best Sniper Rifles SOTI, and thought I’d share it with everybody.  Here it is:

Accuracy International AXSR
*Accuracy International AT308
Barrett Mk22 MRAD
Mk 13 Mod 0/5/7
Barrett M82/M107
*M40
M24 Sniper Weapon System (SWS)
B&T USA 300SPR Pro
FN SCAR Mk 20 SSR
*SVD Dragunov
HK 417/G28/M110A1
M110 SASS
Sako TRG M10
*Sako TRG 22/42
M2010 ESR
Desert Tech SRS A2

I’m so out of touch with this stuff that in all conscience, I wouldn’t dare to comment on their choices.  However, there are a few on the list that I have shot (asterisked), and I have to say that I would happily take any of them to war, if I were of the appropriate age and fitness.  Of those, here are my favorites.

  • SVD Dragunov — loath as I am to give any plaudits to the Commies, for pure ease of shooting and comfort, not to mention very acceptable accuracy, this is my absolute favorite.  I owned one for a brief period, and traded it for something else, which ended up being lost in that Tragic Canoe Episode On The Brazos.
  • M40 (Remington 40X) — not only have I shot this puppy, but I’ve seen what it can do in the hands of a good shot — that would be Doc Russia, who owns a hand-made variant — and at any distance out to 800 yards (in my hands, anyway) this gun is deadly.  (In Doc’s capable hands… forget about it.)
  • Sako TRG 22 — best trigger of all of them.  I was at a Schutzenfest  many years ago (2003? how time doth fly), and saw someone shooting this rifle.  I asked if I could pop off a few, and he graciously consented.  If they weren’t so spendy ($5 grand back then, well over $6 grand now), I’d have seriously considered buying one.  Apparently the TRG 22A1 is a considerable improvement on the original, but I can’t imagine how they improved the thing other than with some internal wizardry.  Apart from cost, though, it has another failing, for me:  it’s heavy, Bubba.
  • Accuracy International AT308 — anything those wizards at Accuracy Int. do is worth a look, and the .308 version is outstanding.  I can’t remember which model I shot — I think it was the “Arctic Warfare” model — but in the hands of even just a competent rifleman (that would be me, on a good day), all the AI rifles are one-holers.

Anyway, I found the article a lot of fun to read, even though the rifles’ nomenclatures made my brain hurt, trying to keep up (“Mk 13 Mod 0/5/7 — 417/G28/M110A1 — M110 SASS”… how the hell does anyone keep track of this shit?)

Precision shooting… what fun.