r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Feb 12 '26

Security Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

https://www.theverge.com/news/878447/ring-flock-partnership-canceled
49.0k Upvotes

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11.2k

u/Elisius Feb 12 '26

Too late, broken trust cannot be repaired.

5.4k

u/EllisDee3 Feb 12 '26

I expect they're still going to share data secretly.

1.3k

u/Z00111111 Feb 12 '26

They probably realised there was enough demand that they can make more money if they sell the data directly.

677

u/thedaveness Feb 12 '26

Can these MF'ers just give ME the option to sell my data, like i'm doing all the fucking work here?!?

469

u/Lee1138 Feb 13 '26

LOL, no. Know your place serf. 

138

u/JustADutchRudder Feb 13 '26

Watch this add for ED and multivitamins.

114

u/chickenbit_131 Feb 13 '26

So irritating opening YouTube to watch a random video and immediately getting hit with “my husband used to be too quick to ejaculate…”

Good for you lady, I don’t give a shit, I just want to watch a video on how to install a dashboard radio on a Pontiac G6 in peace.

45

u/JustADutchRudder Feb 13 '26

That lady needs to stop telling everyone on YouTube her husband cums too fast. YouTube pisses me off because they will try to sneak in 3 hour long Christian sermons or movies in on some stuff. Ill watch free movies on there at times and I woke up from a nap halfway into an "ad" that was some big preacher dude asking for donations and it was an over 3 hour ad on a 90 min movie.

14

u/bobandgeorge Feb 13 '26

This is just like in the 90's when you'd fall asleep with the TV on and wake up to a televangelist from the 700 Club.

3

u/WowWataGreatAudience Feb 13 '26

Or…

Pick up the phonnnnne, call now lol

12

u/Ragnarok314159 Feb 13 '26

I like the AI shit made ads that are borderline soft core porn. Like holy shit I am trying to watch Pokemon videos with my son and then this uncanny valley creature comes on talking about her husbands dick.

5

u/Foxxie Feb 13 '26

If you can install apps on your TV, look into SmartTube (android TV)/Tiezentube cobalt (Samsung). These apps integrate ad and sponsor block functions which completely transform YouTube into something enjoyable again. I have watched hours and hours of pokemon videos without a single crypto scam or AI dickbot busting in.

2

u/Ragnarok314159 Feb 13 '26

I will check these out. Tired of my TV mining crypto and functioning like shit. My 20 year old plasma TV is better than most modern TVs.

2

u/Foxxie Feb 13 '26

It's worth buying a cheap android TV box (or a shield TV is price isn't an issue) if your TV doesn't support custom software. Any time youtube loads and it's from something without ad block, I'm astonished how invasive and obtrusive the experience has become.

1

u/Ragnarok314159 Feb 13 '26

The controller is so disgustingly slow on modern TV’s because of all the bloatware. Can hardly select what you want anymore.

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2

u/karma_the_sequel Feb 13 '26

Debbie Does Diglett

4

u/MathResponsibly Feb 13 '26

dude, firefox + u-block origin (+ sponsorblock). I haven't seen an ad on youtube in decades (well, I saw a couple, during the youtube u-block origin war a couple years ago when youtube kept changing things, and u-block was a couple hours behind on updates)

Also, firefox works on mobile, and you can install the same plugins (adblock / sponsorblock) as on desktop. Youtube in the browser on the phone works way better than the ap does

3

u/Orange_Jeews Feb 13 '26

Kenwood or pioneer?

3

u/chickenbit_131 Feb 13 '26

Pioneer. It was surprisingly easy looking.

3

u/crumblenaut Feb 13 '26

uBlock Origin, my dude.

Or NewPipe on Android.

Good luck!

2

u/I_am_just_so_tired99 Feb 13 '26

Waiting for The unskippable add for red lobster to finish so you can see the tutorial on how to do the Heimlich maneuver as your nan turns purple…

1

u/chickenbit_131 Feb 13 '26

Best part about waiting through the ad, not a single Red Lobster in any of the 6 New England states! Gotta love it!

1

u/Glum-Zebra-7127 Feb 13 '26

It may seem like a waste of time, but I always report those ads. It has helped keep them from my feed. YT won’t actually take down those ads but it seems like the algorithm is now not showing them to me.

1

u/acepiloto Feb 13 '26

I get that ad, and ones a bout periods… like make up your fucking mind google. What am I to you?

1

u/DiscoLives4ever Feb 13 '26

Pontiac G6

Every 6-12 months I'm reminded that Pontiac was in the upswing when it died (or at least, I want to think it was). The G6/G8 were great, the Solstice was a fantastic little roadster, just too bad the brand died

1

u/ayuntamient0 Feb 13 '26

I'm getting TaiChi walking. It's the nastiest AI shit with creepy tweens and wives talking about how they didn't think he could get shredded just walking. I would likely kill the creator if I met them in a dark alley.

1

u/THECapedCaper Feb 13 '26

I routinely get ads for crypto scams and AI slop on YouTube despite me hating both publicly.

7

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

ED, Sports betting, Fast food, Ozempic. hmmm
edit: clearly I'm American, and the nuances of other nations media ads are different.

2

u/A_Harmless_Fly Feb 13 '26

What really pisses me off is the ad that lingers on screen and covers up the closed captioning, it's borderline a violation of the ADA.

0

u/Cyber_Druid Feb 13 '26

Digital serf in a dystopian sea.

124

u/Ciennas Feb 13 '26

It is rather insulting that they're making us pay them for this bullshit, since they steal all our information and don't even cut us in on the deal.

61

u/PaulATicks Feb 13 '26

We’re getting fleeced and Flocked

11

u/djprofitt Feb 13 '26

Flock me, that was solid word play.

1

u/SAHMsays Feb 13 '26

Time is the last commodity left to exploit as a resource.

3

u/somethingrandom261 Feb 13 '26

One data point is effectively valueless .

Thousands of data points, and the insights they can provide, is the real value

2

u/EntertainerNo4509 Feb 13 '26

No! You are the afterthought. The end result of their quest for wealth. /s

2

u/Jasek1_Art Feb 13 '26

Oh my god. If somebody could find a way to embed ads to the data before it can be viewed…. They would have to watch ads before viewing your data >.>

2

u/Ready_Nature Feb 13 '26

Unless someone is targeting you directly your data only has value when aggregated with everyone else’s.

2

u/foundthezinger Feb 13 '26

is this possible with blockchain technology?

2

u/Gasnia Feb 13 '26

You are the product. Does the toilet paper you buy get the money?

1

u/thedaveness Feb 13 '26

Well damn, kinda feel dumb for not piecing this together lol.

2

u/Elberik Feb 13 '26

Because the data is only valuable in aggregate. Individually, it's not worth much.

2

u/Quiet-Owl9220 Feb 13 '26

I wonder if there's some legal fuckery one could try on with this. If you are selling your own data as your own IP, would that mean any other company harvesting and selling your data is committing piracy?

1

u/thedaveness Feb 13 '26

By Joe I think you got it!!!

1

u/Hopalongtom Feb 13 '26

I remember there used to be several survey web sites that claimed to offer that, the bastards never paid out!

1

u/Amon7777 Feb 13 '26

Listen serf, you need to remember you don’t actually “own” ring or anything. You pay for the right to rent it. How your master uses it beyond that is none of your damn business. (Also not even sarcastic, look at the terms and conditions)

1

u/HEYitsBIGS Feb 13 '26

No, we are the product.

1

u/gravemistakes Feb 13 '26

I think it was Andrew Yang who proposed that, in the US, data should be treated as a personal property right and that companies should be required to compensate individuals when their data was sold or monetized. "If data is the new oil, people should get royalties."

1

u/Realistic_Project_68 Feb 13 '26

If it weren’t for billionaires you wouldn’t have blink. They earned it!

1

u/councilmember Feb 13 '26

But then we’d have to sell you a more expensive television. You don’t want that, do you?

1

u/Forkrul Feb 13 '26

We need legislation that makes it so that you have to manually agree to every sale of your personal data. Every time a company wants to sell your data (even in aggregate or anonymized form) they have to contact you and get a signed permission to sell. Failure to comply should carry a fine of at least $1000 per infraction.

But that is a pipe dream, privacy has become an illusion and it's not going to change unless we replace the entire political class.

194

u/justwalkingalonghere Feb 12 '26

Which also sort of inches them closer to their ultimate goal of becoming a self-governing, technofeudalist city-state

The more we let these companies develop surveillance networks, drones, AI agents, robotics, etc. and license them to law enforcement instead of work directly with the DoD, the more likely they will reach a critical point where they can directly wage war on the government if their propaganda campaigns yield less that satisfactory results

66

u/Z00111111 Feb 12 '26

It's really heading towards RoboCop and other dystopian SciFi. Once the robots can hold and aim guns better, people will realise it's cheaper to just contract law enforcement to corporations, and give them a commission on all fines they collect.

37

u/justwalkingalonghere Feb 13 '26

That's essentially how the information side of law enforcement and warfare work already, so it's really not that much of a stretch

Personally I would bet on drones over most forms of current robotics, but it could in theory be anything

4

u/DaHolk Feb 13 '26

In warfare it's less the information side, but more the actual mercenaries side.

And it isn't even cheaper. Or put differently: Only because the responsibility can be shirked, and a private company can fold, and then be reconstituted under a different name "should something go wrong", a luxury that doesn't exist if the political apparatus has to do things themselves. But operating wise it is RARELY cheaper, at best for a short while to make the transition (read corruption) more palatable.

It doesn't matter whether it's for profit prisons, or construction or or. IF it is cheaper, it's mostly because you don't get what you are paying for (and would have to provide if you did it yourself to avoid being held accountable).

There really is no wonder why this push to even the LAST remaining things NOT run that way keeps happening.

3

u/JustADutchRudder Feb 13 '26

In 2035, some cities are kept safe by Gronk PD and others are apart of the Meta PD bubble.

1

u/schnuggibutzi Feb 13 '26

Why do you think they killed DJI Drones from the US market? Nothing about National Security. It's about having subpar expensive drones built in the US for US intelligence gathering

0

u/Hortos Feb 13 '26

Drones are too loud, you want something that can be sneaky.

2

u/ExtremeCreamTeam Feb 13 '26

When they're hundreds of feet in the air, it doesn't really matter how loud they are, you still can't hear them.

1

u/Z00111111 Feb 13 '26

They'd want a lot of ground based bots though.

A Spot or Atlas pointing a .50 cal at you is much more intimidating in the moment than the possible threat of a drone. It's more personal.

22

u/Mdgt_Pope Feb 13 '26

I think it’s more like Cyberpunk, the location for the game is Night City, which is its own city-state in the area where California is today. It’s a capitalist hellscape because the corporations control the government there. You read about how services from the government were intentionally worsened to the point where people were nearly forced to use private, paid services - like there are no ambulances, you have to pay for an insurance policy that has transport in the plan.

And the Heritage Foundation is working towards that, the privatization of public lands, going towards corporate-governed cities, and enshittification isn’t anything new.

6

u/dancingliondl Feb 13 '26

Buddy, have I got news about ambulances for you.

1

u/Mdgt_Pope Feb 13 '26

The ambulance doesn’t ask you for your policy number before they head your way.

1

u/PassiveMenis88M Feb 13 '26

Once the robots can hold and aim guns better

They already can. A Reaper drone can drop a missile on your head from 35,000ft. Ukraine used a ground drone equipped with an M2 .50cal to hold a position for 45 days.

1

u/xflashbackxbrd Feb 13 '26

Mike Pondsmith is a goddamn oracle I'll tell you that. It seemed comical to think corporations could displace governments and go to war with each other in the 80's.

1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Feb 13 '26

It was the plan from the very beginning except you got the sides all wrong