What did you do in the garden today?

[littledog]

Facebook, Google, etc. all track you too. I know because Safari blocks tracking software and tells me who’s trying to track me. Mostly it’s just random sites but there’s also a lot of FB and Google etc. It’s not just China. JS.

Agree absolutely, they do. I use Safari as well, and get the same messages.
But at least their tracking is aimed at targeting ads to me to sell me more products, not to steal my credit-card information, SS# to get into my banking app, and do the same to whatever random people I do business with, and steal intellectual property rights from them if they're a larger company.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

Wait, what? Who has been down on small dairy and our backyard flocks? My governor just signed a thing allowing backyard chickens all over or something to that affect

Government "intervention" has affected many. It is not widespread...yet.

https://thatoregonlife.com/2024/03/...as-new-cafo-definitions-threaten-livelihoods/

I've heard a few local stories here, small farmers have been struggling desperately & are just eventually losing, which is why we see farmland being sold off to conglomerates (oddly enough, many buyers are from China) or developed for housing, at an alarming rate nationwide. It may not have happened in your neck of the woods, but it is happening.

https://www.farmaid.org/blog/dairys-decline-harsh-reality-for-farmers/

https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/

 

[Liz Birdlover]

Agree absolutely, they do. I use Safari as well, and get the same messages.
But at least their tracking is aimed at targeting ads to me to sell me more products, not to steal my credit-card information, SS# to get into my banking app, and do the same to whatever random people I do business with, and steal intellectual property rights from them if they're a larger company.

I use Duck Duck Go browser mostly. Sometimes I have to use Google Chrome but yeah, we are being tracked & it's not just for advertising purposes.

 

[igorsMistress]

The highs today are forecasted to be in the mid 70’s. Great weather to get out and get a lot accomplished today.

I’m jealous!

 

[igorsMistress]

Government "intervention" has affected many so it is not widespread...yet.

https://thatoregonlife.com/2024/03/...as-new-cafo-definitions-threaten-livelihoods/

Yes, water is a big issue. Not only in the US but all over the world. I imagine we will see a lot more of this type of thing as time goes on. I see both sides of the argument.

I think it would make more sense to kick Nestle and Coke and Pepsi out of the US. A 12oz can of soda uses three times as much water to make. There are towns allowing Nestle to bottle their water and sell it all over the world because the people need jobs. That’s great for now, but what about when those people need that water to live? Let’s put it off on the next generation because I need it now is the way people think though.

 

[chicken opey]

Oh, my fig tree has figs and you can already smell them! Let’s see if I get any or if raccoons get all!

 

[ShrekDawg]

Agree absolutely, they do. I use Safari as well, and get the same messages.
But at least their tracking is aimed at targeting ads to me to sell me more products, not to steal my credit-card information, SS# to get into my banking app, and do the same to whatever random people I do business with, and steal intellectual property rights from them if they're a larger company.

I use Duck Duck Go browser mostly. Sometimes I have to use Google Chrome but yeah, we are being tracked & it's not just for advertising purposes.
View attachment 3875470

I used to use that but it was annoying having to open a separate app lol

 

[littledog]

Why do you think the Chinese government would care what we do? We aren’t important people. TikTok is one thing, there’s a way influence public opinion because people are stupid, but Temu?

Same thing as TT. TT might have an influence on public opinion (among some demographics) but for the Chinese government, that's just to identify and influence the latest trends.
They don't necessarily care what each of us do or buy, or where we go on the internet, as individuals, because just as you say, most of us aren't important people.
What they do care about is the aggregated information from millions of us unimportant people. What are the current "lifestyle" trends that people actually buy, and how much of those are driven or influenced by TT or other influencer-driven sites? How can they make TT more influential? What brands do the most people buy from and how should they imitate them or steal their intellectual property without getting caught, what price points are the cut-off for a certain percentage of people, what quality defects are red-flags for the most amount of people? And what quality defects can they get away with for the highest percentage of overseas buyers? What is the exact percentage of cheap crap they can get away with selling, and how many fake reviews does it take to drive up that percentage point into how much profitability?
Yes, Amazon and other sellers, pretty much everyone who sells things online (the company I work for as well) does their best to do the same, by analyzing aggregated customer information.
But!
I believe the stealing of CC information and intellectual property rights are not directly done or paid for by the Chinese government, only because they don't want to be seen as breaking International Trade treaties. I DO believe they outsource many of these aggregated-information-analysis tasks to hacking companies, and turn a blind eye to other things those companies may be doing or generating profits from, like selling CC card information, names and addresses to hackers, getting in the backdoor of smaller sellers who might not be able to afford sophisticated security protocols to steal their intellectual property rights.

Sorry this was so TL,DR! It just happened to be today, that at work I had to take a class about all this stuff to keep our logistics compliant with Customs and border controls and internet security. The class didn't point out anything negative about China at all, I just couldn't help but draw conclusions.

 

[chicken opey]

I used to use that but it was annoying having to open a separate app lol

I don’t use Google except for my work email.
I use Brave and Duck Duck Go. You should do some searches and see what you get via DDG and Google. It’s not that they are tracking you, they push the stuff they want you to see - manipulate. FB manipulates by the way you can’t discuss some things - censoring.
In the last 5 years it has become outrageous how bias and manipulative they are

 

[ShrekDawg]

I don’t use Google except for my work email.
I use Brave and Duck Duck Go. You should do some searches and see what you get via DDG and Google. It’s not that they are tracking you, they push the stuff they want you to see - manipulate. FB manipulates by the way you can’t discuss some things - censoring.
In the last 5 years it has become outrageous how bias and manipulative they are

Oh wow!! I didn’t realize that