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> The main concerns are not the ads themselves ^ This. > but the uncontrolled amounts of information that are being collected to tailor those ads ^ Especiall
by rayvy 8y ago
> The main concerns are not the ads themselves
^ This.
> but the uncontrolled amounts of information that are being collected to tailor those ads
^ Especially this. (side note: funny thing how so much of this information is gathered, yet targeting is still so bad)
> the emerging tendency to try to get users addicted to content so they can see more ads
Also very important. These platforms don't build features with "how to make things better for users" in mind, they do so with "how do we increase user engagement for ad spend" (see Snapchat as a prime example)
- ThrustVectoring 8y agoThe targeting only looks bad because you don't know how valuable a lead is in the relevant business. If you're a tenth as likely to click on something with ten times the customer acquisition cost, then from the platform's perspective these are equally profitable to show. Case in point: do some searches on mattresses and see what ads you see over the next weeks. Huge value per customer, so if you can plausibly be lumped into mattress firms' targeting options they'll win the auction.
- ilovetux 8y ago> do some searches on mattresses and see what ads you see over the next weeks. This sounds like an interesting experiment. I mean, the result seems obvious for a search on mattresses, but I think we can expand on this to search for more controversial or political topics. I'm going to start planning this experiment and I'd be very interested if anyone knows of an existing study along the same lines.