[AndreasHae]

> The industry is now even legally making money on many things that would've been considered outright malware just a decade ago.

Sounds a bit over the top. Can you name some examples?

[Nextgrid]

10 years ago if you made software that uses all kinds of lies and dark patterns to get access to a user's contacts list, uploads it to your server and then you did data mining on it, people would be concerned and consider the software malicious.

Likewise with analytics - tracking every single action you do in an app (along with generic metadata such as IP addresses - which often leaks your general location and your relationship with anyone on the same network since you'd be sharing the IP address with them) would have been considered spyware.

When there were talks of tracking people for ad targeting in the early days of the internet people (rightfully) freaked out, even though that tracking was really primitive by today's standards.

All of those things are now considered legitimate and are routinely done.

[WorldMaker]

I remember how often DoubleClick were the villains of tracking and privacy over-reach on early Slashdot, and then Google bought DoubleClick and became worse than DoubleClick ever were as top Slashdot villains and yet Google is still often called the heroes in the adtech space. (Though that sea is somewhat changing again as even more mainstream media catches up to tracking prevention.) It remains such a profound reversal to me.

[ndriscoll]

We also used to have a name for malware that injected ads into your computer: adware. Now ads are just part of Windows.

[JohnFen]

Indeed. When I look at how far things have fallen in this regard, it gets very hard to feel positive or optimistic about the internet.

[unethical_ban]

Instagram, for one.