Some people are "dirtying" their own data to confuse the algorithm The practice is known as "data obfuscation" and aims to make users' advertising profiling less accurate
Deliberately misspelling one's name on online forms; searching Google for products one has no real interest in; telling a voice assistant you are passionate about a particular sport when you actually couldn't care less: these are some of the methods used by certain users in an attempt to "dirty" the personal data automatically collected by platforms. The principle behind this practice — known as data obfuscation — is fairly straightforward: deliberately introducing inaccurate information into data collection and analysis systems, so as to make advertising profiling less precise.
The fact remains that advertising systems process a great deal of information simultaneously and observe user behaviour over time: the goal of data obfuscation is therefore to generate a sufficient number of contradictory signals to make algorithmic inference less accurate; rather than concealing a piece of data, the aim is to make it harder to interpret.
Everything there is to know about AdNauseam
One of the most popular tools among those who practise data obfuscation is AdNauseam, a browser extension designed to make user tracking for advertising purposes less effective. It works by combining some of the typical features of ad blockers with a specific technique. Rather than simply blocking ads, AdNauseam can hide them and simulate background clicks on a portion of them, thereby generating artificial interactions with advertising systems: the requests generated do not actually open the ad pages, but are sent directly to the relevant ad servers; in this way, the system produces an artificial sequence of interactions that can make it harder for platforms to distinguish the user's genuine interests from those generated by the extension.
AdNauseam is built on the technology of uBlock Origin, an open-source browser extension that blocks advertisements, trackers, and other unwanted page elements, with a particular focus on keeping memory and resource consumption low. AdNauseam uses this same filtering system, but adds a mechanism that generates artificial interactions with ads. In January 2017, however, Google removed it from the Chrome Web Store, deeming it non-compliant with the platform's rules. The project is still being developed and distributed for other browsers, including Firefox.
What about the GDPR?
@europeanparliament Your name, location, and other data can all be collected while you surf the web! That’s where EU law comes in - it makes sure that your personal information is safe while you browse. #europeanparliament #dataprotection #ai #eu #dsa #dma Hip Hop Background(814204) - Pavel
If data obfuscation is an informal way of attempting to regain control over the data that platforms collect and use to profile users, the GDPR represents the primary regulatory instrument through which the European Union has sought to strengthen that control on a legal level. The General Data Protection Regulation, better known as the GDPR, was introduced in 2018 by the European Union to harmonise the rules on the handling of personal data and strengthen the privacy protection of European citizens. The GDPR is still considered one of the most comprehensive and detailed pieces of legislation ever introduced in the field of personal data protection, to the point of becoming a reference point beyond Europe's borders.
The regulation is fairly complex, but it is founded on a simple principle: people must be informed about the collection and use of their personal data and, where applicable, must be able to give or withhold their consent, as well as having the ability to withdraw it. The GDPR also grants every European citizen the right of access to their own data, allowing them to ask a company what information it holds and, under certain circumstances, to obtain a copy of it. It is partly for this reason that many websites and apps have introduced tools enabling users to download the data associated with their account — as Instagram did a few years ago, for example.
Today the GDPR is far from outdated or weakened on a regulatory level: it continues to be fully enforced and remains one of the cornerstones of digital regulation in Europe. In the meantime, the European regulatory framework has expanded with new measures, including the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act, which address other aspects of the power of major platforms, data management, and artificial intelligence.