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I wish more people understood this. We're in the middle of an unsubstantiated moral panic, like the old "video games will make kids into killers" panic that tur

I wish more people understood this. We're in the middle of an unsubstantiated moral panic, like the old "video games will make kids into killers" panic that turned out to be totally false. MySpace used to have animated DoubleClick style untargeted ads. It sucked. Facebook crushed them partly because it's a much cleaner experience and Facebook ads are so much higher quality. The problem with all the people claiming this sort of move is great is it doesn't ring true, they sound almost in physical pain over "tracking" (a scary word for very primitive and broad-brush techniques, by and large). But where are the people who have actually suffered concrete, quantifiable harm? Some real, unarguable case where someone suffered because of ad targeting? If there were a real harm here, given the enormous scale of the internet, there should be millions of such stories but the only one I can think of was years ago, about a supermarket that discovered that women who buy X, Y and Z things together are very likely to be pregnant. They caused a minor family drama by sending a teenager adverts for baby stuff when her parents didn't know. Arguably this is a hole the teenager dug for themselves, but even so, it wasn't even internet based stuff from what I recall. And as far as harm goes, that's about it. I've never been harmed by ads. I've never met anyone else who has been either. But I remember a LOT of people complaining back in the bad old days about the barrel-scraping punch the monkey inventory that typified the web experience.

u90g4u8904 8y ago
Here's someone who was harmed: http://gawker.com/5671582/how-facebooks-targeted-ads-revealed-one-users-sexuality http://gawker.com/5671582/how-facebooks-targeted-ads-reveale...
- repolfx 8y ago
  Interesting research but no actual harm was done - the researcher experimented on a friend whom she already knew was gay, and Facebook made changes to close that glitch. Being able to do such things is certainly not an intentional part of their ad system. I only skimmed parts of the paper but I also question the premise. It seems the attack is entirely dependent on you being 100% sure your ad is so carefully targeted it'll only show to a single person. If there's any doubt at all that it might match even two people, the attack doesn't work. Seems rather hard to pull off in anything other than lab conditions.
birksherty 8y ago
It's neither "moral panic" nor people oppose targeted ads because it will harm us. The base of your comment is wrong.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  > It's neither "moral panic" nor people oppose targeted ads because it will harm us Then just don't access any ad-sponsored content. You are the one deciding to use it, just make that call. I hate ads like anyone else, but I know that ads pay for the services and content I access. As much as I'd love for them to go away, I don't want it because I know the impact it would have on the availability of content and services.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    > Then just don't access any ad-sponsored content I’m trying hard not to. My wallet is always open when there’s an option to not have my privacy violated. The issue? Most services don’t allow me to pay, and the ones that do still try to track me after I’ve paid. The result? My adblocker is happily giving them the middle finger and I can’t wait for adtech to die in a fire.
    - ucaetano 8y ago
      > The result? My adblocker is happily giving them the middle finger and I can’t wait for adtech to die in a fire. You do realize that with adtech dying those sites and services will go out of business, right? Or you didn't think that through?
      - birksherty 8y ago
        Businesses existed before targeted ads. There were tv, news papers, magazines without tracking selling user data. Your comment makes it seem like these businesses are invented recently. I'm tired of these excuses of business dying.The online ad tech industry brought it themselves. Also I care more about people than a corporation that exploits people; which is opposite of American culture.
ryandrake 8y ago
If someone parks their van across the street from my home, sits there writing down everything they see me do, following me to work to do the same, I can’t show you tangible harm. I think most people can agree that it’s reasonable to object to this, no matter what the stalker’s benign stated purpose is.
- repolfx 8y ago
  It's only reasonable to object because of the inference that the stalker in question is about to do something much worse. There are other cases where no such inference is possible, for example, if the person writing things down is a tax inspector investigating benefits fraud. In that case objections on privacy grounds would be ignored.

u90g4u8904 8y ago

Here's someone who was harmed: http://gawker.com/5671582/how-facebooks-targeted-ads-revealed-one-users-sexuality http://gawker.com/5671582/how-facebooks-targeted-ads-reveale...

repolfx 8y ago
Interesting research but no actual harm was done - the researcher experimented on a friend whom she already knew was gay, and Facebook made changes to close that glitch. Being able to do such things is certainly not an intentional part of their ad system. I only skimmed parts of the paper but I also question the premise. It seems the attack is entirely dependent on you being 100% sure your ad is so carefully targeted it'll only show to a single person. If there's any doubt at all that it might match even two people, the attack doesn't work. Seems rather hard to pull off in anything other than lab conditions.

birksherty 8y ago

It's neither "moral panic" nor people oppose targeted ads because it will harm us. The base of your comment is wrong.

ucaetano 8y ago
> It's neither "moral panic" nor people oppose targeted ads because it will harm us Then just don't access any ad-sponsored content. You are the one deciding to use it, just make that call. I hate ads like anyone else, but I know that ads pay for the services and content I access. As much as I'd love for them to go away, I don't want it because I know the impact it would have on the availability of content and services.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  > Then just don't access any ad-sponsored content I’m trying hard not to. My wallet is always open when there’s an option to not have my privacy violated. The issue? Most services don’t allow me to pay, and the ones that do still try to track me after I’ve paid. The result? My adblocker is happily giving them the middle finger and I can’t wait for adtech to die in a fire.
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    > The result? My adblocker is happily giving them the middle finger and I can’t wait for adtech to die in a fire. You do realize that with adtech dying those sites and services will go out of business, right? Or you didn't think that through?
    - birksherty 8y ago
      Businesses existed before targeted ads. There were tv, news papers, magazines without tracking selling user data. Your comment makes it seem like these businesses are invented recently. I'm tired of these excuses of business dying.The online ad tech industry brought it themselves. Also I care more about people than a corporation that exploits people; which is opposite of American culture.

ryandrake 8y ago

If someone parks their van across the street from my home, sits there writing down everything they see me do, following me to work to do the same, I can’t show you tangible harm. I think most people can agree that it’s reasonable to object to this, no matter what the stalker’s benign stated purpose is.

repolfx 8y ago
It's only reasonable to object because of the inference that the stalker in question is about to do something much worse. There are other cases where no such inference is possible, for example, if the person writing things down is a tax inspector investigating benefits fraud. In that case objections on privacy grounds would be ignored.