>or people running Hola, Oxylabs apps, and other stuff like them.

Those are also botnet slaves.

They are spying on millions of people without their consent and without telling them about it. In what universe is this legitimate and non-evil?

I believe the parent isn't disagreeing with you.

Breaking down the parent's post:

""" What's funny about this is that I think this is a legitimate and relatively non-evil use case. """ - parent is saying that fingerprinting so the advertisers know who saw the ads is legitimate and relatively non-evil.

It all comes down to lack of transparency/oversight and the option to exercise control as an individual. """ - parent acknowledges that not telling the user and not making it configurable can be problematic.

"They are spying on millions of people"

If you consider tracking an anonymous identifier for the purposes of better marketing "spying" then I think that's a stretch. Calling out TV in particular for it is a bit silly - it's simply everywhere.

"...without their consent and without telling them about it."

Yes they are. You opt in or out when you buy the TV. They tell you about it then. You can be like most people and not read the fine print, but then don't be all surprised when someone's pulling the wool over your eyes.

> If you consider tracking an anonymous identifier for the purposes of better marketing "spying" then I think that's a stretch

If information about me or my machines is being collected without my express informed consent, that counts as spying.

Also "anonymous identifier" is a bit of an oxymoron. If the identifier is unique, then anonymity is not part of the equation.

I can't fathom the math and scale involved here making sense in the long term.

Eventually the marginal increase in profit is less than the marginal increase in adtech cost. I wouldn't be surprised if many industries passed that point years ago. There's probably a lot of hype and hubris disguising that fact, but someone's going to make a successful business case out of cheap, low-creepiness spray-and-pray advertising.

How do other companies deal with it?

No. Facebook bought them.

>None of life's decisions (save maybe jumping off a bridge) are anywhere near as irreversible

and making children

"Fake it till you make it" was about confidence not building a business.

It was. Then at some point it became about building a business. Remember the Lily drone?

This is something obvious I had not considered. Good point!

What happens when the "insurance for your insurance" (level 2 insurance?) refuses to pay? You get level 3 insurance for this case? What if they are all equally corrupt? Which they probably should be, since it's in their interest not to pay up?

Just out of curiosity, what's your favorite news site, that has so many interesting articles?