Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads | TechCrunch
Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads | TechCrunch
In other news, Perplexity has signed a deal with Motorola to have the browser preinstalled on their phones.
I appreciate him saying it upfront. Makes it easy to stay away from all of their products.
Companies are so removed from what users want, they only focus on what shareholders want to hear and don't consider that users will hate it.
Because there is legal precedent that says shareholders come first.
You can blame Dodge for this. Yes, that Dodge.
But then users use it anyway for some reason. Many people care so little.
Attention is invisible until you take the time to acknowledge it. People will never treat it as a resource of the same value as these companies, because they don't even recognize it as something being taken away from them (despite that it is actually the most precious resource - our literal lives), and that disparity will always be profitable.
Most people are unintelligent sacks of meat, not much critical thought about what they do runs through their minds.
It is legislation's work.
That’s like a cigarette brand marketing themselves as the most cancer-causing.
Oh yeah I'm definitely going to use that. He's a marketing genius.
When using my current browser, any guess as to how often I've said to myself "I need a browser that spies on me more"?
Beep boop, this is your browser speaking. You have stated that you need a browser that spies on you more one (1) times.
6?
Is Chrome not doing exactly this?
Chrome doesn't really collect much data directly. It just has no protection against all the trackers on nearly every website that do.
Chrome is relatively limited in scope compared to, say, a user on an instance of degoogled chromium just using the same Google services along with all the other browsing they do. The extra data that's gathered is generally going to be things like a little more DNS query information, (assuming your device isn't already set to default to Google's DNS server) links you visit that don't already have Google's trackers on them (very few) and some general information like when you're turning on your computer and Chrome is opening up.
The real difference is in how Chrome doesn't protect you like other browsers do, and it thus makes more of the collection that Google's services do indirectly, possible.
Perplexity is still being pretty vague here, but if I had to guess, it would essentially just be taking all the stuff that Google would usually get from tracking pixels and ad cookies, and baking that directly in to the browser instead of it relying on individual sites using it.
And people would voluntarily use this browser ....why?
Jesus, that escalated quickly...
Ok how long after this browser goes live till we hear it being used by the FBI to track criminals.
I hate when people post hyperpartisan reporting because it makes me do homework. In this case, you made me listen to almost an hour of a three hour podcast with three techbros chatting about techbro crap in techbro ways. You owe me years of life.
Anyway, so the conspicuously missing context here is he's asked if they will let go of the subscription model and go after an ad business model instead and he responds "hopefully not" and clarifies that he thinks the AI differentiator from Google search is that it doesn't feed people ads.
He then transitions into saying that you'd need a super hyperspecialized profile for it to make sense and then maybe it could work but they haven't figured out long term memory well enough for that, which is when he talks about why they'd want to have a browser to build that hyperspecialized profile.
This is my least favorite type of misinfo, too, because he's actually kinda saying what they say he's saying, just out of context. But more importantly, because he says some other shit that is more outrageous, too. For example, when explaining why he thinks the subscription business will grow more than the ad business the way he puts it is that "people see it as hiring someone", so they're more willing to spend, and he ponders "how much do people pay for personal assistants and assistant managers and nannies?" and suggests that they'll provide similar services for cheaper to people who can't afford human help.
Which may not be as clickbaity and I get he finds it positive-on-the-aggregate, but is certainly some cyberpunk dystopia stuff that didn't need the out of context quoting to be a thing.
A scholar and a gentleman!
You owe me years of life.
Best I can do is an upvote and a hearty thank you.
Thank you!
Thanks for you sacrifice and service (it does sound like, but it is NOT sarcastic)
We need more people like you, thank you
Thank you!
There is an implication, though, that they intend to collect as much data as possible regardless of which model they use? And in the article, he isn't selling any data, I think. Any mention of that?
To be clear, they ARE building an AI-forward browser and he is very plain about collecting a ton of user info. The way it's presented in context is that they intend to plug it in to their assistant/agent thing and surface relevant stuff to you on searches (which is the potential ad opportunity the article quotes as if it was the sole goal). But yeah, the implication is that they are collecting data regardless, even if the user profile ends up being used to cater AI responses to you specifically, to train models or whatever.
Hearing the guy talk about it I get the impression that he envisions an Apple-like ecosystem where they're constantly ingesting data and you're paying them to have their AI services act as a personal assistant and handle purchases and booking for you directly and so on, on top of anwering queries.
I would rather clip my toenails with a rusty chainsaw, myself, but that seems to be the idea.
Thank you!
This is really good information, now I know to avoid their browser like the plague.
Hey, look for that browser to fail instantly as no one will use it.
They don't want people to use it. They want Google to give them a big bag of money so they can integrate it into chrome.
Dumb and dumber will love it, ts,ts,ts. Some nerds...
Nothing wrong with typescript
some people will see this as a feature to be desired, not a bug
I would like for the people, who come up with these ideas, to dogfood their own product. Actually force them to try their own medicine. It would be a single digit percentage of acceptance then
You grossly underestimate how much some people truly love the idea of highly personalized ads. People who believe they are the best possible outcome and cannot fathom why anyone would have any problem with them at all. That's who you are asking to dogfood this product, and they would and would find no issues with it.
Why would I use such a browser?
Because some influencer say you should. Works this way for too many people.
"Because it really gets you, y'know?"
They've partnered with Motorla and probably Samsung to have it pre-installed. And a lot of people stick to the default one.
Once they are bought out by the singular mega corporation you will have only few choices left.
because it has AI omg this will make our lives so much easier for real
I imagine all of this data collection would greatly improve AI around browser use? That could be a feature with enough draw in the consumer space.
Rich CEOs will want all their employees using it and only web apps so that they can try to use that data to replace them. Their perplexity dashboard will have a list of all their employees, AI's fine-tuned on that employee's data.
The future is bright... /s
"Help us improve your User Experience by trying as hard as possible to induce to spend money you don't have on crap you don't need."
Where is the hacktivism when you need it? These companies need to be gutted from the inside out.
Begin, the AI wars have.
I think I read somewhere they want to buy Chrome from Google if they are forced to sell. So not many changes, just switching owners who ultimately do the same thing.
i’m not a Chrome user, so screw both google and perplexity.
OpenAI also wants to buy Chrome.
And Yahoo, lol
Can't sell reams and reams of customer data if you don't have any customers.
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Srinivas believes that Perplexity’s browser users will be fine with such tracking because the ads should be more relevant to them.
Believes it, or is just spinning it that way?
You could show me an ad for exactly what I want in that moment and I'd immediately not want it any more.
Enough already.
You could show me an ad for exactly what I want in that moment and I’d immediately not want it any more.
Depends, if it is an ad for an orbital laser that targets marketing executives it might work on me.
You could show me an ad for exactly what I want in that moment and I'd immediately not want it any more.
proceeds to show something you don't want at all
Exactly!
Damn, and I really liked them too. It's the most accurate LLM I've tried and it even accurately cites sources as well (unlike Copilot, which just makes shit up and then cites an unrelated source).
Surely people don’t actually want this, right?
These fuckers are just so delusional and out of touch with reality. Personalized ads my ass. We've been promised those for decades but pretty much all the ads I see on YouTube are from major retail chains with precisely zero relevance to me. They will show the ads of whoever pays for them. Your personal preferences are only relevant when it comes to targeting you with political propaganda.
I don't fucking want personalized ads no matter how relevant they are to me. I only have so much money to buy stupid materialistic bullshit and once that's gone all an ad can do is make me want something I can't have. Ads are just trying to make you discontent.
They just want you to spend more money in a failed attempt to be happier adding complexity to my life when I'd rather just be content with simplicity. And they work really fucking well on my wife. I automatically distrust anything someone is paying money to show me.
As a Lemmy user, I'm betting you do things differently than most people in general.
My friends and teenage children get very obviously targeted ads in the crap they do. I think maybe we are more discrete or something?
Oh, time to stop using any perplexity products
Perplexity is a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.
That's not gonna be hard, fortunately.
First time I hear about this actually so...
It's a three-pronged attack: Subliminal, liminal, and super-liminal
Chrome does that already anyway.
The selling point is that our product gives you AIDS, for free!
Haha..I can see this guy saying out loud to his friends..."and while everyone else is moving towards privacy I'll do the exact opposite, but to the extreme. Don't look at me like that Kyle, I've already sold my soul. We're gonna be so rich."
His only friends care about money. Everyone else walked away.
Well no thanks
Red Flag
When you quit talking to potential customers and go right for the unhinged investors.
Fucking Perplexity can't give away licenses. T-mobile is giving Perplexity AI Pro licenses for free (to subscribers), they advertise it as if it's something worth something, it's hilarious. Then obviously not many users took the bait because they sent a mass e-mail (from the University) to all of the faculty giving all employees (not just teaching personnel) these valuable Perplexity AI Pro licenses, only hurry up because there's only 20k of these and it's first come first served. Still haven't used their shit and actually don't know anyone who does.
I am perplexed at he. Why the hell would I want this?
Perplexity ? More like Debility.
I have gotten a year Perplexity pro subscription for free somewhen in summer last year. Guess, I won’t even think about split second about paying for this service or even using it after my free year has run its course.
A caveman-like idea from a caveman-lookin' mfer.
