[facepalm]

There seem to be many privacy solutions, but little adoption. Sorry, but I have to blame the consumers, not developers. I am actually amazed at how much manpower is being poured into doomed privacy projects. Like how many encrypted messenger apps are there, that never stand a chance against WhatsApp and Facebook?

[Joeboy]

I'm not sure you can really blame the consumers. All products claim to be "secure", and consumers have no way of knowing what is and isn't secure. Plus of course security isn't a binary and all security solutions have problems of one kind or another, which makes things extra-confusing.

[facepalm]

But how can you change the situation, if consumers don't care enough to educate themselves? A government decree wouldn't help in this case, as governments can't be trusted with protecting privacy.

[open-source-ux]

"I have to blame the consumers, not developers"

I'm the opposite to you, I blame developers. They are the ones who build and understand the tech that powers online tracking.

If a user switches from their Google account to a non-related Google website, how are they to know they are stealthily still being tracked thanks to an invisible bit of Google Analytics code?

Do the consumers who purchase a ChromeBook realise everything they do in the OS is tracked and recorded by Google (even simply printing to their desktop printer)?

Are the parents of school children aware of the privacy implications of their kids using ChromeOS in the classroom? ChromeBooks are becoming ubiquitous in US classrooms, and yet there's barely any discussion of the privacy aspects.

Even if these companies assure us they only aggregate the data they collect (never personally identifying individuals), that's still a frighteningly large volume of personal information they capture. Can you imagine the humongous volume of aggregated data that Google must hold on it's users? They probably have the ability to mine that data in ways that most us probably can't even imagine.

What do developers do about this? Nothing. They built this tech and few ever call out these companies on their behaviour. In fact, a great many rush to the defence of these companies and happily recommend their products ("just bought my mom a Chromebook!").

So no, I don't think it's fair to blame consumers, but yes you can certainly blame developers.

[facepalm]

I thought it was meant in another way, that the article blames lazy developers for not providing good privacy solutions. Of course certain developers implemented Facebook and whatnot, and are therefore to blame. But "developers" in general can not influence how big companies handle people's data. I can not change how Facebook or Google work, at least not without some genius idea (which may not exist).