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What is a "partner" these days?

Historically, when I heard the word "partner" I would think of a person's close confident. Someone who knows you well and could potentially represent you to the outside world in your absence. That could be a boyfriend, girlfriend, the person you married, etc. In the business world, perhaps someone you trusted enough to start a company with, tying your economy to their own financial well being in some sense. In all cases a person you implicitly trust.

Given the level of trust a partner historically implied, how many simultaneous partners are realistic? I would think a very low number.

Are these 865 "partners" like that? Or when they write this do they actually mean, these are 865 companies with whom we are sharing all the data we can collect on you, for a tiny financial kickback or other minor benefit to run our website.

I feel like they should be forced to write,

"We and the 865 companies we are selling you out to…"

Don't lie and call them "partners" to make it sound like the person using your website should trust all these companies. Companies who you likely know very little about and have not vetted. Your "partners"… really? Fuck you!

In the real world still, if a person says to you, "This is my partner", that basically means something like, "If you trust me, you can trust them" and/or "this person can speak on my behalf because they know me really well".

But online "partner" apparently now just means "a collection of companies whose names I could not even recount without looking them up in a database or spreadsheet I have somewhere".

I only share my economy with one person and my highest level of trust is with that same person. It's my wife. She is the one person in this world I would give the label "partner".

Apparently I am holding myself back. I need to go out and find another 800+ people or companies that I trust at this level.

LOL, it has been 6 days since I started this thread and I clicked on another of these links. Now it is 870 partners. They are gaining new partners at almost 1 new one per day.

I don't like to slut shame… but seriously. A new partner every day?