this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Privacy

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[โ€“] coja@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those were my thoughts when I saw Gates bought waste managment stocks and saw the video of AI successfully sorting the items for recycling.

[โ€“] SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's interesting to think about. Banks can track where a person buys and how much is spent. Individual businesses gather data on customers in various ways that bigger corporations can pay to look at. But there's only so much one business sees. And they might not want to share that in the first place.

Scanning trash for logos, barcodes etc can give you nice "average consumer" stats for an area without paying a bunch of companies. It doesn't matter if a bottle of sunscreen came from a small business, walmart or bought online direct, they'll know people in your area bought it and used it.