The problem with being tracked like this
is contained nicely in this paragraph from the article:
Salesforce told us: "We design and build our services with privacy at the forefront, providing our corporate customers with tools to help them comply with their own obligations under applicable privacy laws – including the EU GDPR – to preserve the privacy rights of their own customers.
Let's see now. I'm not Salesforce's customer and I'm probably not the customer of Salesforce's customer either. All I am is someone to profile.
As I have no relationship with either Salesforce, Salesforce's customers or their customer's customers, I cannot be asked for consent. Without any form of consent then tracking me must be something done without my express or implied consent. Even if I might be deemed to be a customer of Salesforce's customer by agreeing to the terms and conditions of using a particular web site, I always make sure that I do not consent to passing my data to third-parties. If Salesforce track me to other web sites that I'm not a customer of, they really have no legal right whatsoever to collect data about me on that site and add it to my profile.
Like other commentards, I'm not exactly in love with the idea of ambulance chasers, but if this is what it takes to rein in this kind of surveillance capitalism, then I'm all for it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
