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>Since tracking people took off in the late ’00s, adtech has grown to become a four-dimensional shell game played by hundreds (or, if you include martech, thous

>Since tracking people took off in the late ’00s, adtech has grown to become a four-dimensional shell game played by hundreds (or, if you include martech, thousands) of companies, none of which can see the whole mess, or can control the fraud, malware and other forms of bad acting that thrive in the midst of it. Fraud? Malware? What does this have to do with adtech? >And that’s on top of the main problem: tracking people without their knowledge, approval or a court order is just flat-out wrong. The fact that it can be done is no excuse. Nor is the monstrous sum of money made by it. What a compelling argument /s. Is it wrong if I sit on my porch and record in a notebook the hair color of different people? Is it wrong if I observe that one of my coworkers has a Harley Davidson sticker on his laptop? There is no AdTech bubble given that Adtech is a completely viable business model. These laws may shut down third party trackers but Ads are here to stay. If the EU ads were to create regulation such that Ads become an inviable business model they would simply tank their own economy given how many services/ content creators rely on ads. edit: also I have to laugh since I was downvoted less than 20 seconds after posting. I'll post another statement that will make people mad Ads are the reason the web is open and the reason poor people have free access to information. An ad free web is a web that only rich people can use.

simion314 8y ago
The laws would hopefully stop the tracking of users. IS there a good reason why you can't analyze the page you put your ad in and decide what category on ads will fit, so on tech pages put tech related ads. Tracking me and creating a profile on me should be illegal. Showing ads is perfectly fine
- lajhsdfkl 8y ago
  > IS there a good reason why you can't analyze the page you put your ad in and decide what category on ads will fit, so on tech pages put tech related ads. There isn't and this is what many people do. But that isn't the argument is it? Can you tell me why observing what people do on my website is unethical and why it should be made illegal? Also can you explain why information that is placed on my server belongs to someone else if I didn't enter into a contract with them specifying that was the case? If someone has access to your laptop and downloads their photos onto it, who do those photos belong to? Put another way, if someone shows you a photo, who does the memory of that photo belong to?
  - alkonaut 8y ago
    > Also can you explain why information that is placed on my server belongs to someone Isn’t this more or less the gist of GDPR and “right to be forgotten” laws? That my personal data doesn’t automatically “belong” to anyone else just because I entered it onto a server? > If someone has access to your laptop and downloads their photos onto it, who do those photos belong to? Rights to creative works, unlike personal data already has rather well functioning legal frameworks. The author of a creative work doesn’t give up any right to the photo without very specific circumstances.
    - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
      >Isn’t this more or less the gist of GDPR and “right to be forgotten” laws? That my personal data doesn’t automatically “belong” to anyone else just because I entered it onto a server? Yes the EU invented a new right for its citizens which is the prerogative of the EU because of their bastardized idea of what constitutes privacy. Privacy is a basic human right, that much is obvious. There is no human right however to be forgotten and there is no human right to not be observed when you are in public. >Rights to creative works, unlike personal data already has rather well functioning legal frameworks. The author of a creative work doesn’t give up any right to the photo without very specific circumstances. The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully.
      - alkonaut 8y ago
        > The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully. A valid point - the rights only address the USE of the photos. You can use them privately all you want and would not have to delete them (unless ordered by a court for whatever odd legal reason such as if they were stolen not uploaded). The difference with personal info is that the lawmakers saw two choices: prevent the use or the keeping of the data. They chose to outlaw the keeping of the data - which is why this law is huge, invasive and clumsy. But it’s also the only reason it makes a difference at all imho. I don’t trust anyone to keep the personal data of millions of people safe.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  The funny thing to me is even at the height of me allowing tracking... Ads based on my data were never good. Is there really a value being lost if we make ads non-personalized, or is this just a myth perpetrated to ensure data collection houses control the ad market?
- geocar 8y ago
  KYC. Google almost rabidly doesn't want to connect who is sponsoring with what they're sponsoring. I'm an ad network that does (some) tracking of users. I make it a point to connect advertisers with the publishers I work with because I know all of my publishers. I think this service has value. Whilst I charge substantially more than Google does, I'm confident I don't participate in any ad fraud. If a Google rep. suggests they don't serve ad fraud, let me know, because I have proof otherwise.
  - simion314 8y ago
    Can't you start a new kind of targeting, instead of tracking and analyzing the users you use your past expertise plus your data from non EU countries and profile the content, so on cat pictures you know what ads work well, on car sites you know what ads work, it would make more sense then seeing an IDE ad on a porn site.
    - geocar 8y ago
      Sure, but I (as an advertiser) don't want to buy advertising on cat pages, but to reach people who like cat pages. Google tells me this is their interest; that they have exhibited behaviours that lead them to believe this is their interest, and because they can make self-driving cars, I believe them. ... but: The truth is, it's just a cookie that is held by people who visited pages about cats, and people who like money.
wukerplank 8y ago
Bunch of strawmen here. > Is it wrong if I sit on my porch and record in a notebook the hair color of different people? If you only count the number of redheads, you are in the clear. If you follow them around, find out where else they go, where they live, how many people live in their household, the household income, etc., you might violate some laws. > Is it wrong if I observe that one of my coworkers has a Harley Davidson sticker on his laptop? Of course not.
- lajhsdfkl 8y ago
  >Bunch of strawmen here. Learn the definition of the words you are using before using them. The only thing this statement shows is you are arguing in bad faith, have no interest in attempting to gain new perspective and simply want to shut my argument down since it doesn't agree with your priors. >If you only count the number of redheads, you are in the clear. If you follow them around, find out where else they go, where they live, how many people live in their household, the household income, etc., you might violate some laws. I'm not following them around. In fact, I'm having a bunch of people come to my server and leaving their ip address, name, birthday, etc and I am not coercing them in any way and I am providing them a service. Then I use this information to target ads at them. So again, explain how it is unethical for me to use information that I have observed from my porch?
  - vilmosi 8y ago
    I'm a bit baffled how you think that recording personal information of people you see from your porch, without even telling them what or why are you doing it, is anything but unethical.
    - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
      If you are so baffled by it you can explain in simple terms why it's unethical?
      - FooBarWidget 8y ago
solomatov 8y ago
>What a compelling argument /s. Is it wrong if I sit on my porch and record in a notebook the hair color of different people? Is it wrong if I observe that one of my coworkers has a Harley Davidson sticker on his laptop? As far as I know, there's an invasion of privacy tort in common law: https://torts.uslegal.com/intentional-torts/invasion-of-privacy/ https://torts.uslegal.com/intentional-torts/invasion-of-priv... P.S. I am not a lawyer.
- lajhsdfkl 8y ago
  I do not see how that applies to observing people when they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. And when using all these websites I'm pretty sure they put at the top of the ToS that they will be using your information.
fardo 8y ago
>Fraud? Malware? What does this have to do with adtech? A lot, actually. There are many vectors in which adtech and fraud/malware intermingle: > XSS Attacks: When your website loads HTML into a page without encoding it first, someone can insert HTML script tags that your browser will parse successfully, allowing arbitrary Javascript to execute in your browser. Malicious actors will then usually redirect you to further unsafe pages that will initiate more downloads or (depending on circumstances) compromise your active user session or credentials. All you need is an ad network that didn't take precautions for a malicious ad and you're serving malware to all downstream users. >True Clickbait with a malware payload: Less common nowadays in the sense I mean: Ads that are literally designed for you to click on them, giving the same result as above. We're talking things like "Punch out Osama Bin Laden!" from the early 2000s or "Click here to win a prize!" affairs, where there's no reason a user ought to be clicking on the ad except that they were, quite literally, baited into doing so. >Normal Clickbait with a malware payload Create some "interesting content", that just happens to also do all of the above. Miracle cures, "BIG cost savings", poorly vetted porn-ads, and so on. A lot of internet chum is of this type, and there's a great article analyzing it [1] >Literal Scams: Many ads presented on websites prey on low information individuals, the elderly, or the young, all of whom are less likely to know any better. My point is, all of the above is served, with some regularity, over many ad networks today. This means in some sense, many ad networks are responsible for the ads they serve and the damage they cause their users; if not legally, at least morally. [1] https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum/ https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern...
- jamiequint 8y ago
  > XSS Attacks Not true with safeframes The latter two can happen on the internet in general, third-party advertising is in no way a unique delivery vector.
  - fardo 8y ago
    >safeframes Safe frames are not the general solution that you make them out to be. First, site owners have to actively choose to use safeframes. My personal opinion, just based on people I've spoken with about this, is that most businesses and individuals who run websites treat their ads as a black box and their security as an afterthought. This means any solution for security that isn't by-default and that non-technical site owners have to turn on themselves, with near total certainty, isn't going to be protecting users. Plus, not all ad networks support it as of June 2017 [1]. In my view, it's less a solution than a "literally-crafted-by-the-ad-industry" [2] externalization of responsibility for users getting hacked due to poor network policing. [1]https://www.monetizemore.com/blog/should-you-use-dfp-safe-frames/ https://www.monetizemore.com/blog/should-you-use-dfp-safe-fr... [2] Page two of https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SafeFrames_v1.1_final.pdf https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SafeFrames_v1...

simion314 8y ago

The laws would hopefully stop the tracking of users. IS there a good reason why you can't analyze the page you put your ad in and decide what category on ads will fit, so on tech pages put tech related ads. Tracking me and creating a profile on me should be illegal. Showing ads is perfectly fine

lajhsdfkl 8y ago
> IS there a good reason why you can't analyze the page you put your ad in and decide what category on ads will fit, so on tech pages put tech related ads. There isn't and this is what many people do. But that isn't the argument is it? Can you tell me why observing what people do on my website is unethical and why it should be made illegal? Also can you explain why information that is placed on my server belongs to someone else if I didn't enter into a contract with them specifying that was the case? If someone has access to your laptop and downloads their photos onto it, who do those photos belong to? Put another way, if someone shows you a photo, who does the memory of that photo belong to?
- alkonaut 8y ago
  > Also can you explain why information that is placed on my server belongs to someone Isn’t this more or less the gist of GDPR and “right to be forgotten” laws? That my personal data doesn’t automatically “belong” to anyone else just because I entered it onto a server? > If someone has access to your laptop and downloads their photos onto it, who do those photos belong to? Rights to creative works, unlike personal data already has rather well functioning legal frameworks. The author of a creative work doesn’t give up any right to the photo without very specific circumstances.
  - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
    >Isn’t this more or less the gist of GDPR and “right to be forgotten” laws? That my personal data doesn’t automatically “belong” to anyone else just because I entered it onto a server? Yes the EU invented a new right for its citizens which is the prerogative of the EU because of their bastardized idea of what constitutes privacy. Privacy is a basic human right, that much is obvious. There is no human right however to be forgotten and there is no human right to not be observed when you are in public. >Rights to creative works, unlike personal data already has rather well functioning legal frameworks. The author of a creative work doesn’t give up any right to the photo without very specific circumstances. The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully.
    - alkonaut 8y ago
      > The author of a creative work doesn't have the right to force me to delete something from my laptop if I obtained it lawfully. A valid point - the rights only address the USE of the photos. You can use them privately all you want and would not have to delete them (unless ordered by a court for whatever odd legal reason such as if they were stolen not uploaded). The difference with personal info is that the lawmakers saw two choices: prevent the use or the keeping of the data. They chose to outlaw the keeping of the data - which is why this law is huge, invasive and clumsy. But it’s also the only reason it makes a difference at all imho. I don’t trust anyone to keep the personal data of millions of people safe.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
The funny thing to me is even at the height of me allowing tracking... Ads based on my data were never good. Is there really a value being lost if we make ads non-personalized, or is this just a myth perpetrated to ensure data collection houses control the ad market?
geocar 8y ago
KYC. Google almost rabidly doesn't want to connect who is sponsoring with what they're sponsoring. I'm an ad network that does (some) tracking of users. I make it a point to connect advertisers with the publishers I work with because I know all of my publishers. I think this service has value. Whilst I charge substantially more than Google does, I'm confident I don't participate in any ad fraud. If a Google rep. suggests they don't serve ad fraud, let me know, because I have proof otherwise.
- simion314 8y ago
  Can't you start a new kind of targeting, instead of tracking and analyzing the users you use your past expertise plus your data from non EU countries and profile the content, so on cat pictures you know what ads work well, on car sites you know what ads work, it would make more sense then seeing an IDE ad on a porn site.
  - geocar 8y ago
    Sure, but I (as an advertiser) don't want to buy advertising on cat pages, but to reach people who like cat pages. Google tells me this is their interest; that they have exhibited behaviours that lead them to believe this is their interest, and because they can make self-driving cars, I believe them. ... but: The truth is, it's just a cookie that is held by people who visited pages about cats, and people who like money.

wukerplank 8y ago

Bunch of strawmen here. > Is it wrong if I sit on my porch and record in a notebook the hair color of different people? If you only count the number of redheads, you are in the clear. If you follow them around, find out where else they go, where they live, how many people live in their household, the household income, etc., you might violate some laws. > Is it wrong if I observe that one of my coworkers has a Harley Davidson sticker on his laptop? Of course not.

lajhsdfkl 8y ago
>Bunch of strawmen here. Learn the definition of the words you are using before using them. The only thing this statement shows is you are arguing in bad faith, have no interest in attempting to gain new perspective and simply want to shut my argument down since it doesn't agree with your priors. >If you only count the number of redheads, you are in the clear. If you follow them around, find out where else they go, where they live, how many people live in their household, the household income, etc., you might violate some laws. I'm not following them around. In fact, I'm having a bunch of people come to my server and leaving their ip address, name, birthday, etc and I am not coercing them in any way and I am providing them a service. Then I use this information to target ads at them. So again, explain how it is unethical for me to use information that I have observed from my porch?
- vilmosi 8y ago
  I'm a bit baffled how you think that recording personal information of people you see from your porch, without even telling them what or why are you doing it, is anything but unethical.
  - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
    If you are so baffled by it you can explain in simple terms why it's unethical?
    - FooBarWidget 8y ago

solomatov 8y ago

>What a compelling argument /s. Is it wrong if I sit on my porch and record in a notebook the hair color of different people? Is it wrong if I observe that one of my coworkers has a Harley Davidson sticker on his laptop? As far as I know, there's an invasion of privacy tort in common law: https://torts.uslegal.com/intentional-torts/invasion-of-privacy/ https://torts.uslegal.com/intentional-torts/invasion-of-priv... P.S. I am not a lawyer.

lajhsdfkl 8y ago
I do not see how that applies to observing people when they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. And when using all these websites I'm pretty sure they put at the top of the ToS that they will be using your information.

fardo 8y ago

>Fraud? Malware? What does this have to do with adtech? A lot, actually. There are many vectors in which adtech and fraud/malware intermingle: > XSS Attacks: When your website loads HTML into a page without encoding it first, someone can insert HTML script tags that your browser will parse successfully, allowing arbitrary Javascript to execute in your browser. Malicious actors will then usually redirect you to further unsafe pages that will initiate more downloads or (depending on circumstances) compromise your active user session or credentials. All you need is an ad network that didn't take precautions for a malicious ad and you're serving malware to all downstream users. >True Clickbait with a malware payload: Less common nowadays in the sense I mean: Ads that are literally designed for you to click on them, giving the same result as above. We're talking things like "Punch out Osama Bin Laden!" from the early 2000s or "Click here to win a prize!" affairs, where there's no reason a user ought to be clicking on the ad except that they were, quite literally, baited into doing so. >Normal Clickbait with a malware payload Create some "interesting content", that just happens to also do all of the above. Miracle cures, "BIG cost savings", poorly vetted porn-ads, and so on. A lot of internet chum is of this type, and there's a great article analyzing it [1] >Literal Scams: Many ads presented on websites prey on low information individuals, the elderly, or the young, all of whom are less likely to know any better. My point is, all of the above is served, with some regularity, over many ad networks today. This means in some sense, many ad networks are responsible for the ads they serve and the damage they cause their users; if not legally, at least morally. [1] https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum/ https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern...

jamiequint 8y ago
> XSS Attacks Not true with safeframes The latter two can happen on the internet in general, third-party advertising is in no way a unique delivery vector.
- fardo 8y ago
  >safeframes Safe frames are not the general solution that you make them out to be. First, site owners have to actively choose to use safeframes. My personal opinion, just based on people I've spoken with about this, is that most businesses and individuals who run websites treat their ads as a black box and their security as an afterthought. This means any solution for security that isn't by-default and that non-technical site owners have to turn on themselves, with near total certainty, isn't going to be protecting users. Plus, not all ad networks support it as of June 2017 [1]. In my view, it's less a solution than a "literally-crafted-by-the-ad-industry" [2] externalization of responsibility for users getting hacked due to poor network policing. [1]https://www.monetizemore.com/blog/should-you-use-dfp-safe-frames/ https://www.monetizemore.com/blog/should-you-use-dfp-safe-fr... [2] Page two of https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SafeFrames_v1.1_final.pdf https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SafeFrames_v1...