Slight spoiler for Neal Stephenson's book "Fall (or: Dodge in Hell)".
That idea is used early-ish in the book to muddy the waters and regain some privacy for a significant character. There’s a subplot involving a conspiracy theory being intentionally spread through online message boards and this character becomes a target of harassment. By flooding the sites with a full spectrum of scandals and red herrings, they’re able to drown out the pieces of legitimate personal info and confuse people enough that they move on to new topics.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 9 months ago
There already are tools out there that obfuscate your data by making it purposefully wrong, e.g. adnauseam.io is an ad blocker that also clicks every single ad sent your way.
redballooon@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Also benefiting the ad companies who charge per click, while not ever leading to a sale.
Dr_Cog@mander.xyz 9 months ago
It mostly benefits the website that is being visited. If an ad company sells ad spots that don’t convert to sales, the organizations buying the ad spots will be less likely to buy them in the future, potentially hurting the ad company
Kimano@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah but this also results in the site receiving less money from ads, also hurting them in the long run. Really the solution is to pay for the services you enjoy, and acknowledge the age-old “if the service is free, you are the product”.