Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perplexity-ceo-says-its-browser-will-track-everything-users-do-online-to-sell-hyper-personalized-ads/Open linkView original on lemm.ee
78 replies
Sad to think there will be real people who are fine with the privacy invasive spyware
my ex fiance loved personalized ads because that's how she found out about products she wanted and i was like… but you didn't want it before you knew it existed. you were just living your life perfectly fine and now you're $20 poorer
You obviously need a privacy-conscious fiance
my new one is much wiser
Haha yup the amount of times I've tried to educate friends/family only to feel like banging my head against a brick wall would be more effective are far too many
And they want to buy Chrome
Hell to the absolute fuckin' no.
Fuck Chrome anyways
It's still the most widely used browser, even if it doesn't individually effect you doesn't mean it's not bad
Chrome is already pretty close to this. People still using it are a mystery to me as it is.
There's also Chrome-derivatives and Chromium and whether those could excise the AI spyware and how deep that gets embedded into it.
Blip. Just like that, they are dead to me. I know our society has decided super invasive data collection for ads is okay... I've decided that is another part of the social contract we need to revisit. With prejudice.
never mind about accepting the things we cannot change, it's time to start changing the things we cannot accept
I still haven't come down to terms with ads being accepted
Nah, I won't give them my clicks, nor my data.
Nor my axe!
Never use Perplexity, got it.
I'm old, I don't browse the web on my phone, anyway.
And I used to recommend it to people over ChatGPT. 😭 Because it doesn't require you to log in. Enshittification really is everywhere now.
Even by CEO standards, why would you state that out loud?
He's so out of touch that he believes their users are going to be excited by this.
The personal integrity of others is a concept completely lost on this person, it seems.
If you have no integrity yourself, it's hard to understand that others do.
The message is aimed at his customers (ie. his advertisers), not for the potential users of the browser.
Maybe he's really drank the kool aid and ACTUALLY thinks people want ads and no privacy. Which then, as an investor, might actually be a giant red flag that he's a complete imbecile.
Obviously, but it's still not something you want getting out. Like you'd tell your clients at a vendor dinner but wouldn't put it in an email or video conference.
You are just mistaken about this. They have surveys showing 76% of people say they want personalized ("relevant") ads. Companies think this is something almost everyone wants.
Maybe I am wrong about this.
Personally, I don't want any ads, I'm broke I buy as little as I can get away with.
So should subtractions!
while I hate ads as much as everyone else what do you propose funds all the sites people use that are high in operating costs? I doubt many people will pay five bucks a month for every site they use. The internet will just be more retro, which I think would be fine.
Brave had a novel solution, but I think it's mostly dead now.
It was all ad based, just you could pay it forward to the site themselves. The problem was that this clean generate any money due to no click through and the target audience wasn't marketable.
capitalism inspiring innovation right before our eyes.
Fuck that guy sucking my time with his ads. If I want to buy a ladder I'll go online, or go to the store and buy one. Once all this world ending shit dies down let's get rid of "advertising" as an economic concept. We don't need any more socio/economic engineering, we need humanity and ecology.
Ads after you buy a ladder: "Yes, you've had one ladder, but what about a second ladder?"
Based on your former shopping, here’s what other shoppers have looked.
i think some form of advertising is useful no matter the structure of your society: if you have a cool idea for a new product, getting the word out is an important way of making it a reality
what we don’t need is the constant, and ever-present repetitive drone of advertising mundane things that you already know about
I presume this browser is going to have an install base of about 1? Depending on how many testers they have.
Testing is doubting anyways, amirite?
So user error, should have got Linux.
ghoul
Firefox forks and uBlock Origin all day.
Damn, you'd really think these bozos would have learned to read a room by now, you know?
Nearly half of the country is dumb enough to support Trump. I think he is reading the room.
I want to say a thing that I want to happen to this ceo but it would get me banned.
Just say "I wish for this man, his ideas and his life work to slide into disregard and irrelevance and become nothing more than a footnote on idiocy".
"Also, may he be abducted by aliens, whisked away to a distant galaxy, and put on permanent display in an alien zoo as an example of the greed of homo sapiens."
And give him free atention? Nah.
Do you think this guy would avoid saying a thing? No, he'd come right out and tell you if he wanted you dead. As long as he could provide your with personalised ads in the afterlife.
Sent to the glue factory?
Send more blue shells?
Send more blue shells
Ok then say it.
Well im definitely not gonna use it then. It's also apparently being built on top of Chromium so its not like its a brand new browser engine or anything. I wonder if they even had human programmers work on it, or just let their own AI churn out some slop for them.
I can't speak for anyone else but no, I would not be fine with that
ad tracking is only as personalized as the company running the ads
If I'm advertising fake nails, it's personalized if you like fake nails and I advertise to fake nail fans, but if I advertise to all femme people - then it's no longer personalized, and advertisers tend to do the latter.
So is this another tech-bro sniffing his own farts, or does he have some plan to force the browser on people?
Edit: After reading the article, it's both.
He's basically talking about toppling google in terms of ads and saying that users will be fine with the tracking because the ads will be more relevant. There's also a Motorla partnership and it will come pre-installed on their Razr series. There is talks of one with Samsung as well, and they would have zero issue forcing that browser on their customers as long as they get a copy of the data.
That is one major reason I will no longer use a phone that doesnt let me easily uninstall their garbage. It is all spyware.
I read that as "Perplexed CEO" and it kind of fits IMO.
Neat. Can we have access to everything he does online?
So it's not going to be available in the EU and UK? That's fine.
As I understand it, the GDPR would require explicit consent from the subject before this data could be gathered in the first place, with some significant fines if breached.
For the last time I don’t want Jenna Haze shower curtains!!!!
That’s not what the restraining order says.
"Does Jenna Haze still have a restraining order on me"
Damnit! More naked pictures!
No thanks
"Nobody liked that."
perplexed about the value proposition here
Oh fuck right off, you ghoul.
Will he be perplexed when his browser fails?
I'm morbidly curious as to how well they could do trying to get my profoundly cheap self to spend money.
He is openly and honestly trying to out Google, Google!
Doing well so far...
google has been dying to do this for ages, they might just follow perplexity example.
Once it becomes popular ... then they'll play down their focus on wanting to track everything ... dress it up in pretty colours and some kind of swoosh ... then sell it as a feel good product ... five years later everyone is complaining that they are being tracked and that the company is using hyper personalized ads
I don't know what Perplexity is but I know I don't want it.
Let me guess, two guys in a garage, both Linked In "CEO"s, strapping more spyware to Chromium?
I even went to the website. It doesn't what they are, but it's something to do with AI, which figures...
Oh just what I wanted. Perplexing,ayoooo
Guess I'll cancel my free trial.
inb4 they try to take control of Chromium
To be fair, they're targeting people who WANT to be tracked, in return for personalized ads. If that's not you (or me), just ignore their entire platform.
Bold move. Let's see how it pans out.
Which is, according to their cooked market surveys, most people. 76% prefer "relevant" ads.
Have you heard of the term "enshittyfication" ?
They make some solid devices