By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026Companies like Google amass vast, nonconsensual dossiers on the personal characteristics and behavior of billions of people, supplemented with information purchased from the unregulated data-broker sector. 1100
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026When you visit a website, the site fires off a piece of software called "sell-side agent" to message a server called an "ad exchange" in order to announce your visit, soliciting bids for the right to show you an ad. 1121
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026"I am about to serve a web-page to a 18-34 year old man-child from New York's outer boroughs, who owns an Xbox and has been recently searching for information about gonorrhea: who wants to cram some ads into this guy's eyeballs?" 1120
