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You're making an argument, but I think you take it for granted that everyone knows what "the problems" are. I'm still not sure what that is! Also, why is it im

You're making an argument, but I think you take it for granted that everyone knows what "the problems" are. I'm still not sure what that is! Also, why is it important to trace the problems back to Larry/Sergey? What about the early engineers who worked on adsense? The early PMs? Surely they are just as culpable for "the problems" (which ones again?) as anyone else? I guess they aren't household names? Also, adsense/doubleclick revenue accounts for 14.9% of total company revenue as per the last 10-Q filed. So it's a misrepresentation to discuss adsense/doubleclick as anything other than an important, but not critical, part of Google. Google could, in theory, lose all that revenue and still remain in the black.

yuhong 8y ago
There are also Google Analytics/Urchin though. Part of the point of the essay (and one of the hardest parts for me to write) is to figure out when they merged the tracking data after the acquisition. I would consider the DoubleClick one worse than AdSense BTW, which is part of the point of the essay.
- ryanobjc 8y ago
  Except, you’re wrong. Ga data is never joined with other data sets.
  - yuhong 8y ago
    What I was referring to is the sharing of remarketing lists. One example: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/06/remarketing-lists-for-search-ads.html https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/06/remarketing-lists-f... https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/11/share-google-analytics-data-and.html https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/11/share-google-analyt...
    - ryanobjc 8y ago
      Well later in the essay you write that google analytics is merged with ad data in an unqualified statement. That’s what I was reacting to. Remarketing lists is a feature that would be google neutral. I could imagine such a feature working for self hosted analytics.
      - yuhong 8y ago
        And I mentioned in the essay that "In many cases, advertisers managed “remarketing” lists of “anonymous” visitors that was being tracked by cookies from a central console without thinking of the privacy problems, treating visitors almost as numbers." I wonder if such a use would comply with the GDPR BTW.

yuhong 8y ago

There are also Google Analytics/Urchin though. Part of the point of the essay (and one of the hardest parts for me to write) is to figure out when they merged the tracking data after the acquisition. I would consider the DoubleClick one worse than AdSense BTW, which is part of the point of the essay.

ryanobjc 8y ago
Except, you’re wrong. Ga data is never joined with other data sets.
- yuhong 8y ago
  What I was referring to is the sharing of remarketing lists. One example: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/06/remarketing-lists-for-search-ads.html https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/06/remarketing-lists-f... https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/11/share-google-analytics-data-and.html https://analytics.googleblog.com/2015/11/share-google-analyt...
  - ryanobjc 8y ago
    Well later in the essay you write that google analytics is merged with ad data in an unqualified statement. That’s what I was reacting to. Remarketing lists is a feature that would be google neutral. I could imagine such a feature working for self hosted analytics.
    - yuhong 8y ago
      And I mentioned in the essay that "In many cases, advertisers managed “remarketing” lists of “anonymous” visitors that was being tracked by cookies from a central console without thinking of the privacy problems, treating visitors almost as numbers." I wonder if such a use would comply with the GDPR BTW.