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But what kinds of science and technology? Maybe our user has a bit of disposable income and wouldn't mind ads for high-end hardware he didn't happen to know abo

But what kinds of science and technology? Maybe our user has a bit of disposable income and wouldn't mind ads for high-end hardware he didn't happen to know about. Maybe she's interested in DLC for games she's passionate about, as measured for frequently of forum visits. Maybe our user runs a lab and would be very interested in high-end PCR machines. You can do much better than "interested in video games or technology" if you know a bit about your users. This tracking makes advertising much less annoying (occasionally veering into useful).

cm2187 11y ago
Advertisers just have to accept that when a customer walk through their door, they will not have access to his/her bank statements, sexual preferences, list of acquaintances, medical records, gps locations for the last two years, etc. What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  > Advertisers just have to accept Advertisers will adapt. What you have to accept is more annoying advertising coupled with increasingly error-prone code in both ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers. The only one that wins is Moloch; everyone else is worse off. > What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive. Is it? Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" along with pictures of Joe and said toasters. That's a strawman that the anti-tracking people love to hint at, but it doesn't actually work that way. What actually happens is that advertisers target broad categories. They say, "show this ad to midwesterners who've visited sites about toasters", and that's what happens. There's no secret dossier just waiting to be sold to the highest bidder for purposes always left unspecified. Yes, centralized trackers do end up learning a portion of your browsing history. But you don't have to accept third-party cookies. You can run with an ad blocker. And you can just reset your cookie[1] state every so often. You can do any of these things. You'll just pay for your paranoia with a shittier web. [1] Yes, I know about non-cookie trackers. Advertisers stashing information where it's hard to clear are scum. It's up to web browsers to make it easy to flush all server-visible state.
  - fauigerzigerk 11y ago
    >Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" But the likes of Google and Facebook know exactly that. They have it stored somewhere and it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen by organised criminals, religious fanatics or oppressive governments.
    - malka 11y ago
      This. Facebook and Google combined have probably enough data to blackmail most people in the first world.

cm2187 11y ago

Advertisers just have to accept that when a customer walk through their door, they will not have access to his/her bank statements, sexual preferences, list of acquaintances, medical records, gps locations for the last two years, etc. What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive.

rewqfdsa 11y ago
> Advertisers just have to accept Advertisers will adapt. What you have to accept is more annoying advertising coupled with increasingly error-prone code in both ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers. The only one that wins is Moloch; everyone else is worse off. > What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive. Is it? Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" along with pictures of Joe and said toasters. That's a strawman that the anti-tracking people love to hint at, but it doesn't actually work that way. What actually happens is that advertisers target broad categories. They say, "show this ad to midwesterners who've visited sites about toasters", and that's what happens. There's no secret dossier just waiting to be sold to the highest bidder for purposes always left unspecified. Yes, centralized trackers do end up learning a portion of your browsing history. But you don't have to accept third-party cookies. You can run with an ad blocker. And you can just reset your cookie[1] state every so often. You can do any of these things. You'll just pay for your paranoia with a shittier web. [1] Yes, I know about non-cookie trackers. Advertisers stashing information where it's hard to clear are scum. It's up to web browsers to make it easy to flush all server-visible state.
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  >Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" But the likes of Google and Facebook know exactly that. They have it stored somewhere and it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen by organised criminals, religious fanatics or oppressive governments.
  - malka 11y ago
    This. Facebook and Google combined have probably enough data to blackmail most people in the first world.