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What exactly is wrong with excluding certain areas from seeing your ad? If I'm selling high end jewelry, for example, I don't want my ad shown to people in low

What exactly is wrong with excluding certain areas from seeing your ad? If I'm selling high end jewelry, for example, I don't want my ad shown to people in low income areas, because every click is a waste of money. Similarly, a discount store in a bad part of town may want to exclude wealthy neighborhoods, as people from those neighborhoods are unlikely to come to the store. That doesn't seem like something anyone should be upset about...it's common sense. I guess it's a little more murky when it comes to housing, but how many people in downtown Watts are going to be legitimate potential leads to rent a house in Beverly Hills? I'm not sure that advertisers should be forced to pay for ads to be shown to people that cannot afford or would otherwise not be interested in what they are trying to sell.

roel_v 8y ago
You're arguing about how you think things should be, which is boring and trite, because opinions are like assholes - everybody's got one and most of them stink. What this is about, is how things are, and how they are is that redlining is illegal. So if you would take some time to look into the socioeconomic and legal history of this issue, you will find explained (ad nauseum) why certain choices were made in the past.
- rocqua 8y ago
  A common trend when tech companies are hit by regulation outside their direct business is to argue the regulation shouldn't apply. Sometimes the reasoning is that the issues of regulation are solved by tech, sometimes it is that the regulations impede innovation, sometimes the reasoning states that the net benefit outweighs the occasional loss. Often such arguments are just trying to prevent regulation, but there are situations where regulation wasn't written with this tech in mind and therefore doesn't quite apply. At the very least, the discussion can be fruitful.
- downandout 8y ago
  My comment was in response to a specific comment criticizing the exclusion of certain zip codes. To my knowledge, zip codes are not legally protected discrimination criteria. I suppose one could argue that they can be a proxy for excluding people based on criteria that is legally protected, however, that argument is unlikely to be successful if the primary motivation for using zip codes was to target those of certain income levels, which is also not legally protected. In the future, before saying such snarky things (which are of little value to the discussion), perhaps you should read the comment you are responding to. The first sentence of my comment limited its scope to the location issue: What exactly is wrong with excluding certain areas from seeing your ad?
  - tekromancr 8y ago
    Because zip codes can, in many cases for many historical reasons, strongly correlate with brown and black folks, which are legally protected classes. As much as you might think you are being clever by just saying "Oh, I'm just excluding AREAS, not people" you are still running afoul of the law since you are effectively using zip codes as a proxy for race. This has been tried before and the courts aren't really fooled by it. So, no, there is nothing inherently wrong with excluding certain areas from seeing your ad, unless you are using the area exclusion mechanism as a proxy for excluding based on race/sexuality/religion or some other protected status.
    - downandout 8y ago
      you are still running afoul of the law The point is that you are not necessarily running afoul of the law by excluding zip codes in the absence of other evidence that you intended to discriminate. Excluding poor neighborhoods from seeing a $10 million home listing is common sense, not discrimination.

roel_v 8y ago

You're arguing about how you think things should be, which is boring and trite, because opinions are like assholes - everybody's got one and most of them stink. What this is about, is how things are, and how they are is that redlining is illegal. So if you would take some time to look into the socioeconomic and legal history of this issue, you will find explained (ad nauseum) why certain choices were made in the past.

rocqua 8y ago
A common trend when tech companies are hit by regulation outside their direct business is to argue the regulation shouldn't apply. Sometimes the reasoning is that the issues of regulation are solved by tech, sometimes it is that the regulations impede innovation, sometimes the reasoning states that the net benefit outweighs the occasional loss. Often such arguments are just trying to prevent regulation, but there are situations where regulation wasn't written with this tech in mind and therefore doesn't quite apply. At the very least, the discussion can be fruitful.
downandout 8y ago
My comment was in response to a specific comment criticizing the exclusion of certain zip codes. To my knowledge, zip codes are not legally protected discrimination criteria. I suppose one could argue that they can be a proxy for excluding people based on criteria that is legally protected, however, that argument is unlikely to be successful if the primary motivation for using zip codes was to target those of certain income levels, which is also not legally protected. In the future, before saying such snarky things (which are of little value to the discussion), perhaps you should read the comment you are responding to. The first sentence of my comment limited its scope to the location issue: What exactly is wrong with excluding certain areas from seeing your ad?
- tekromancr 8y ago
  Because zip codes can, in many cases for many historical reasons, strongly correlate with brown and black folks, which are legally protected classes. As much as you might think you are being clever by just saying "Oh, I'm just excluding AREAS, not people" you are still running afoul of the law since you are effectively using zip codes as a proxy for race. This has been tried before and the courts aren't really fooled by it. So, no, there is nothing inherently wrong with excluding certain areas from seeing your ad, unless you are using the area exclusion mechanism as a proxy for excluding based on race/sexuality/religion or some other protected status.
  - downandout 8y ago
    you are still running afoul of the law The point is that you are not necessarily running afoul of the law by excluding zip codes in the absence of other evidence that you intended to discriminate. Excluding poor neighborhoods from seeing a $10 million home listing is common sense, not discrimination.