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Look at it this way: Say tracking is perceived to add some value over content-based ad selection (doesn't matter if it actually does). Say it also provides a b
by asark 8y ago
Look at it this way:
Say tracking is perceived to add some value over content-based ad selection (doesn't matter if it actually does). Say it also provides a bunch of important looking metrics for middle managers and execs to play with, whether or not any of it means anything (that it certainly does). Say the price premium charged by Google and FaceBook and friends is under what companies value this stuff at, in dollar terms. There's a small premium to it, say 10%, some of which goes to the sites displaying the ads.
Boom, practically all advertising is now of the spyware variety. That's all it takes. Competing without spying (and without a huge trove of data or a way to get it fast) is now nigh-impossible.
Now outlaw all the tracking crap. "Oh no the Web is doomed no one will be able to pay for anything!" you will hear/read from a disturbingly large number of people. They are dumb. It'll be fine. That 10% premium goes away, yeah. Content advertising is back. Having a huge trove of user data is no longer a moat, or indeed much advantage at all, in the ad space, so Google'd need to scale back and/or learn how to launch a product that can stand on its own without the backing of their spyware empire. IOW yeah they'll probably actually be in serious trouble, but there's no good reason for them to be. FaceBook might die or have to pivot hard. But that does not mean the end of the web, or anything like it! It just means the ad money goes somewhere else. Probably to a bunch of much smaller (though still maybe quite large) companies.
Anyway TL;DR it's difficult to succeed with non-spying ads in a spying-is-allowed world, but it's 100% for sure a viable business model that can support more or less the same junk we have now if you outlaw that sort of bad behavior. To the extent DDG's succeeding I assume it's their dark patterns and maybe (I am just guessing on this second one) they also do that extorting-companies-into-buying-ads-for-themselves thing like Google does.