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Why should I be wary of my browsing data being sent to China? (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/asklemmy

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all,

I don’t really know how to ask this question. On one of my devices, I downloaded a web browser (Opera) and one of my friends made fun of me, saying that “you better like China knowing all the stuff you do online”.

I read the Opera website and it says it’s a Norwegian company, but on Wikipedia it does say it was bought by a Chinese company.

My question is: what does “China” do with my personal browsing data? Why is it useful for them? (and who are we referring to here, is that the Chinese government, a private company, who?)

I’m looking forward to learn more about digital privacy, but I don’t currently understand the “obviousness” of how it is wrong to use Opera.

I’m a tech enthusiast (hence why I’m here), but I’m cognizant that I have large knowledge gaps in some of these topics.

Thank you in advance.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's not about what country has it, it's about that they CAN have it, and what they could do with it.

We continue to spiral into a dystopian area. To say it won't happen to you, remember that period tracking apps are being used to track women and arrest them. If I was a Chinese data center grabbing data, this is a nice piece of info to sell and make a profit out of it.

But what about you? Surely you don't do anything. But lets think of a hypothetical. Maybe you visit sites in Opera that are anti-Russian, a news site that had a story about Putin shitting his pants. We'll with all the data stored, they can identify who you are. You're now on a Russian list of people who hate Russia. Maybe you'll go, "But I'll never go to Russia." But who knows?

When women were using those apps, they didn't expect it to be used to get them arrested.

People who practice good privacy have a significantly less chance of getting shit on. So why not?

[–] Cryophilia 4 points 2 months ago

Maybe you’ll go, “But I’ll never go to Russia.”

But maybe Trump wins the election and now the US government is starting to harass you because Trump is Putin's lapdog.

You just don't want that info out there.