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> The same is not really true of companies like Google or Facebook. Collecting and making money off your personal data is the foundation of their business. Stro

> The same is not really true of companies like Google or Facebook. Collecting and making money off your personal data is the foundation of their business. Strongly protecting your privacy would require them to change their entire way of making money. For Facebook maybe, but Google was a large and successful business before its 'personalized' targeting was really that advanced. AdWords ran for a full four years without any kind of search personalization, and up until 2012, it was possible to turn off search personalization entirely. Google made $37bn in 2011. [1] Google Display Network, the area of Google's business that would most obviously be disrupted by a move toward strong user privacy, only makes a fraction of that still. [2] While I completely agree that Facebook would struggle without behavioral targeting, being able to buy ads on a PPC basis for users with 'intent' will always be a valuable product for advertisers, regardless of targeting. [1] https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/23/google-revenues https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/23/google-revenue... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266245/advertising-revenue-of-google-network-sites/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266245/advertising-reven...

mtgx 9y ago
Indeed. Google never really had to go this "ultra-targeted ads" approach. Perhaps it's the difference between Google making $30 billion in profit a year and "only" $10 billion in profit a year, and the difference between them mainly sticking to the search business and them paying for all of these failed projects like the $12 billion Motorola acquisition, Boston Dynamics, (even Nest, I'd say), and so on. But as a company it never really needed to do those. Heck, Google doesn't even need to be in the self-driving business. I think it's a failure of competition and anti-trust laws that companies are allowed to grow this big to get their fingers into all the pies out there. The only reason they even go into all of these different industries is because they've made so much money they don't know what to do with it. Sooner or later we're going to have to deal with this rampant increase in monopolies and we'll have to take some drastic measures to do it. We may even have to break-up companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, Comcast, Disney, Goldman Sachs, and others, because they were never supposed to turn into such large conglomerates. The fact that they did was a failure of competition laws to stop them from growing this big in the first place. Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon are now allowed to spy on you, then buy media and ad companies, and then use that data to manipulate you for political purposes so you end-up voting for the candidates that will help them further consolidate their power. We should have put a stop to that along the way.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Motorola wasn't the failure you think it was. That was, as I understand it, about patent acquisition. They got what they want and then dumped what they didn't. Per Thiel's "theory" (as seen in Zero to One) most of Google's "failures" are a cover for their search monopoly.
propogandist 9y ago
GDN is not the only piece of business that'll be impacted by strong user privacy. Search and YT will also be impacted, given there's ability to buy ads based on users being in-market for a product/service etc [1] You can also be targeted with ads based on emails you receive in Gmail - it was possible to target down to keywords in emails, but that was discontinued. Now, the emails you receive, domains your getting them from etc. influence signals, that puts you into an 'audience' that can be used for targeting across the Google network. Without the ability to do targeting, or personalization, as Google calls it, their business will fall apart. Everything they do is geared to collecting more information about users to improve "personalization" - from Google Assistant, to Google Home [2]. It's so advanced that your experience (results) on their platfrom, especially within Search -- will be unique to you. Google will fight alongside AT&T, Comcast, etc to protect their business model, in-fact Google is trying to reach their ranks with the 5G war [3] [1] https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-in-market-audiences-search-campaigns-275611 https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-in-market-audien... [2] https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/864293485439893505 https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/864293485439893505 [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/google-led-plan-to-upend-wireless-industry-gains-momentum https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/google-le... - (search for: Spectrum Access System )

mtgx 9y ago

Indeed. Google never really had to go this "ultra-targeted ads" approach. Perhaps it's the difference between Google making $30 billion in profit a year and "only" $10 billion in profit a year, and the difference between them mainly sticking to the search business and them paying for all of these failed projects like the $12 billion Motorola acquisition, Boston Dynamics, (even Nest, I'd say), and so on. But as a company it never really needed to do those. Heck, Google doesn't even need to be in the self-driving business. I think it's a failure of competition and anti-trust laws that companies are allowed to grow this big to get their fingers into all the pies out there. The only reason they even go into all of these different industries is because they've made so much money they don't know what to do with it. Sooner or later we're going to have to deal with this rampant increase in monopolies and we'll have to take some drastic measures to do it. We may even have to break-up companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, Comcast, Disney, Goldman Sachs, and others, because they were never supposed to turn into such large conglomerates. The fact that they did was a failure of competition laws to stop them from growing this big in the first place. Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon are now allowed to spy on you, then buy media and ad companies, and then use that data to manipulate you for political purposes so you end-up voting for the candidates that will help them further consolidate their power. We should have put a stop to that along the way.

chiefalchemist 9y ago
Motorola wasn't the failure you think it was. That was, as I understand it, about patent acquisition. They got what they want and then dumped what they didn't. Per Thiel's "theory" (as seen in Zero to One) most of Google's "failures" are a cover for their search monopoly.

propogandist 9y ago

GDN is not the only piece of business that'll be impacted by strong user privacy. Search and YT will also be impacted, given there's ability to buy ads based on users being in-market for a product/service etc [1] You can also be targeted with ads based on emails you receive in Gmail - it was possible to target down to keywords in emails, but that was discontinued. Now, the emails you receive, domains your getting them from etc. influence signals, that puts you into an 'audience' that can be used for targeting across the Google network. Without the ability to do targeting, or personalization, as Google calls it, their business will fall apart. Everything they do is geared to collecting more information about users to improve "personalization" - from Google Assistant, to Google Home [2]. It's so advanced that your experience (results) on their platfrom, especially within Search -- will be unique to you. Google will fight alongside AT&T, Comcast, etc to protect their business model, in-fact Google is trying to reach their ranks with the 5G war [3] [1] https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-in-market-audiences-search-campaigns-275611 https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-in-market-audien... [2] https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/864293485439893505 https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/864293485439893505 [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/google-led-plan-to-upend-wireless-industry-gains-momentum https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/google-le... - (search for: Spectrum Access System )