Has anybody considered the idea that boosts from non-Meta properties to Threads could legally be used to build ad profiles? We already know they do that sort of account association with non-fedi accounts.
EDIT: Looks like that’s absolutely the plan. From the privacy policy
"Information From Third Party Services and Users: We collect information about the Third Party Services and Third Party Users who interact with Threads. If you interact with Threads through a Third Party Service (such as by following Threads users, interacting with Threads content, or by allowing Threads users to follow you or interact with your content), we collect information about your third-party account and profile (such as your username, profile picture, IP address, and the name of the Third Party Service on which you are registered), your content (such as when you allow Threads users to follow, like, reshare, or have mentions in your posts), and your interactions (such as when you follow, like, reshare, or have mentions in Threads posts).
We use the information we collect for Threads for the purposes described in the Meta Privacy Policy, including to provide, personalize, and improve Threads and other Meta Products (including seamless personalization of your experience across Threads and Instagram), to provide measurement, analytics and other business services (including ads), to promote safety, integrity and security, to communicate with you, and to research and innovate for social good."
https://help.instagram.com/515230437301944?helpref=faq_content
EDIT 2: After doing a little more thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that the general narrative about Threads plan to steal users from similar federated services ignore the fact that it’s certainly cheaper to let the volunteers of the fediverse take on the moderation costs while they monetize the data. Though the two certainly are not mutually exclusive.
I absolutely do not think you can avoid the big social ad complex with a cryptic username.
I don’t know how they would profile you? They don’t have your IP and Lemmy doesn’t have trackers. Still it’s best to not post stuff that you don’t want everyone to know. And don’t misunderstand me: I hate that everyone tries to monetize me but that is the world we live in. I don’t know how to change that so I stop moaning.
A lot more people need to learn to stop moaning LOL.
They do explicitly track your IP. Check the privacy statement listed in the OP.
Edit: Lol the way to change that is literally solidarity. They don’t have a god given right to monetize our existence.
Meta can’t track your IP if you post from your home instance. They don’t have access to that.