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I don't fully get your statement. Why are AdWords harder to compete with due to GDPR? Care to expand please? Thanks.

obmelvin 8y ago
Generally regulation like GDPR require a fair amount of engineering to comply with, so it is easier for larger companies to comply.
- chii 8y ago
  If your service already doesn't do much in terms of using excessive private data outside of providing the service, GDPR compliance is not as onerous to implement. But of course, most adtech services do make use of a multitude of private data for profit, and that's why they are having a hard time.
  - nsp 8y ago
    Ugh, I feel like this is a common and overly simplistic take. While it's definitely true that GDPR is harder to comply with if you're doing a ton of evil shit or selling user data, it can definitely be quite onerous to comply with even if you're not. The company I work for (Teachable) is a specialized site builder for course content. We make all of our revenue from people either paying us directly for a plan, or transaction fees on people buying from our customers, no ads or data selling. Nevertheless, complying with GDPR still took well over a month of some of our best engineers time. Even if you don't sell data, the odds you had a plan prior to GPDR for how to handle right to be forgotten - how do you delete PII (which is defined broadly, including ip addresses) from db backups without ruining their integrity? If you use something with an immutable log, like Kafka, how do you remove the data there? Etc, etc
    - twblalock 8y ago
      Plus, even if you do all of those things properly, you will still need to field GDPR data requests, and when you tell users that you don't have any data, they might not believe you. You also might be falsely accused of violating the GDPR, and just saying "no we aren't violating the GDPR" without relying on legal advice is not a good approach if you care about the future of the company.
- nsp 8y ago
  While this is true, and generally true for all regulations (they tend to help the existing players as it creates a moat for new entrants), GDPR entrenches FB/Google further because a lot of the law focuses on sharing data with third parties. Google and FB already have their scripts and tracking tags loaded on a plurality of sites you visit, but since they're only sharing it with themselves, it does not impact them as much as it impacts smaller players who would have to rely on data brokers and third parties to approach similar coverage and data.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
x0x0 8y ago
There's lots of reasons. 1 - google is the only company (bing to a much much lesser extent) with access to primary search data. If you believe that the original pagerank algorithm is too easy to fool and that it has been massively deprioritized in favor of gathering intent data created by user actions on google, this makes them a natural monopoly. Any other attempt to gather the data to make intent targeting work will be hindered by the lack of consumer touch points. 2 - see consumer touch points above -- very few companies have them. Eg the new eprivacy law (depending on which draft -- there are conflicts between Council / Commission / Parliament), will be a virtual monopoly guarantee for FB / Google / yahoo. One of the features is that company 1 can't ask for consent on behalf of company 2, so, again, only companies with an end-user touch point can get legitimate consent. Thus all 3rd party adtech dies. This seems in direct conflict with pro-competition rules in the EU. 3 - Adsense also becomes much harder to compete against. Google does intent extraction -- buttressed by the data from search -- better than anyone else. You can, of course, attempt to compete algorithmically, but you lack the data. 4 - GA allows to extract behavior post click from within the site. No one else has this. You don't even really need personal data for this to be amazingly useful; merely aggregate is very powerful.
manigandham 8y ago
Walled gardens like Google and Facebook have more personal data than any other independent companies. Because of the services they offer, they also have more direct relationships to users and are more likely to get consent from all of them for their ads. Meanwhile, all other marketing companies are further blocked from interacting with users because of the lack of consent and direct relationships. This makes the existing monopolies even stronger, and makes it much harder for newer companies to even attempt to compete.

Generally regulation like GDPR require a fair amount of engineering to comply with, so it is easier for larger companies to comply.

chii 8y ago
If your service already doesn't do much in terms of using excessive private data outside of providing the service, GDPR compliance is not as onerous to implement. But of course, most adtech services do make use of a multitude of private data for profit, and that's why they are having a hard time.
- nsp 8y ago
  Ugh, I feel like this is a common and overly simplistic take. While it's definitely true that GDPR is harder to comply with if you're doing a ton of evil shit or selling user data, it can definitely be quite onerous to comply with even if you're not. The company I work for (Teachable) is a specialized site builder for course content. We make all of our revenue from people either paying us directly for a plan, or transaction fees on people buying from our customers, no ads or data selling. Nevertheless, complying with GDPR still took well over a month of some of our best engineers time. Even if you don't sell data, the odds you had a plan prior to GPDR for how to handle right to be forgotten - how do you delete PII (which is defined broadly, including ip addresses) from db backups without ruining their integrity? If you use something with an immutable log, like Kafka, how do you remove the data there? Etc, etc
  - twblalock 8y ago
    Plus, even if you do all of those things properly, you will still need to field GDPR data requests, and when you tell users that you don't have any data, they might not believe you. You also might be falsely accused of violating the GDPR, and just saying "no we aren't violating the GDPR" without relying on legal advice is not a good approach if you care about the future of the company.
nsp 8y ago
While this is true, and generally true for all regulations (they tend to help the existing players as it creates a moat for new entrants), GDPR entrenches FB/Google further because a lot of the law focuses on sharing data with third parties. Google and FB already have their scripts and tracking tags loaded on a plurality of sites you visit, but since they're only sharing it with themselves, it does not impact them as much as it impacts smaller players who would have to rely on data brokers and third parties to approach similar coverage and data.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

x0x0 8y ago

There's lots of reasons. 1 - google is the only company (bing to a much much lesser extent) with access to primary search data. If you believe that the original pagerank algorithm is too easy to fool and that it has been massively deprioritized in favor of gathering intent data created by user actions on google, this makes them a natural monopoly. Any other attempt to gather the data to make intent targeting work will be hindered by the lack of consumer touch points. 2 - see consumer touch points above -- very few companies have them. Eg the new eprivacy law (depending on which draft -- there are conflicts between Council / Commission / Parliament), will be a virtual monopoly guarantee for FB / Google / yahoo. One of the features is that company 1 can't ask for consent on behalf of company 2, so, again, only companies with an end-user touch point can get legitimate consent. Thus all 3rd party adtech dies. This seems in direct conflict with pro-competition rules in the EU. 3 - Adsense also becomes much harder to compete against. Google does intent extraction -- buttressed by the data from search -- better than anyone else. You can, of course, attempt to compete algorithmically, but you lack the data. 4 - GA allows to extract behavior post click from within the site. No one else has this. You don't even really need personal data for this to be amazingly useful; merely aggregate is very powerful.

manigandham 8y ago

Walled gardens like Google and Facebook have more personal data than any other independent companies. Because of the services they offer, they also have more direct relationships to users and are more likely to get consent from all of them for their ads. Meanwhile, all other marketing companies are further blocked from interacting with users because of the lack of consent and direct relationships. This makes the existing monopolies even stronger, and makes it much harder for newer companies to even attempt to compete.