5 ms·

To play devil's advocate - how do you determine what constitutes research to figure out what your "target audience" actually is, versus "privacy violation/GDPR

To play devil's advocate - how do you determine what constitutes research to figure out what your "target audience" actually is, versus "privacy violation/GDPR no-no"? I can imagine say, readers of Golf Digest are probably interested in golf. That's about the extent of the research that can be done by a traditional magazine. But there's an entire ad industry (for better or worse) to minimize 'wasted' impressions, and there's a large chasm between "male 25-35" and "specifically John Doe who looked at #9 clubs yesterday but hesitated to buy them, maybe we can win him over". Clearly the later example is prohibited in the spirit of the GDPR, but it's broad enough that it kills the former as well (and puts the extent of information available to the industry back to "golf digest readers play golf"). Not that I am particularly sympathetic to advertising agencies and the machinations of what online ad-tech has become, but I am sensitive to legislation that puts entire industries (I.e. real people's jobs) under a coal fire of "maybe we as a company literally have no viable path forward".

quickben 7y ago
Well, say that I want to know if you are interested in golf. Do you prefer me asking if you can fill in a questionnaire, or should I just pop where you live and take pictures from inside your house? You really don't have to play devil's advocate, one of them is illegal. If a company has no viable way forward, and has to resort to what the rest of us deemed illegal, it should stop existing. Not all companies should survive at any cost, that's not utilitiatian or desirable.
- akersten 7y ago
  Certainly, spying on someone's domicile is illegal. But it wasn't really the analogy I was going for. I'm going to be purposefully obtuse and set up a contrived hypothetical, but to me it's really more like: you came to my store today, but I saw you at the golf shop yesterday. Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. I happen to also sell golf things and maybe I want to peddle them to you. So I really go all in on my sales pitch and single you out while you're shopping. That's legal in meatspace. What makes "the same thing, but do it on a computer" illegal and unethical? I think it's a real important question for legislators to answer. Is it the scale? The fact that it can be automated? That we're really not actually comfortable with the meatspace example but didn't have a good way to ban it before? Just food for thought. I'm mostly neutral on the GDPR, I appreciate the intention but I think we as a society need to define consistent expectations about privacy.
  - buckminster 7y ago
    > Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. If creepy shopkeepers following you round was a thing I suspect it would be illegal already.
    - akersten 7y ago
      That's the precipice of the argument though, right? It's not illegal to observe interactions that you witness, or take notes about customers you saw shopping your competition. You could even hire someone to wander around your competing stores and take lots of notes about the people they saw. "Red shirt guy shopping around for slim fit pants". Unlikely scenario, but legal to do and to use that information. My whole thing is - what makes the scenarios different enough that one is prohibited and one is allowed? Certainly if we told folks they must forget their observations about others upon request, that would face some baseline rebuttal about their own autonomy.
      - earthboundkid 7y ago
        It wasn't necessary to make this behavior illegal before because it was impractical, but now that computers have made mass surveillance practical, it should be illegal.
      - buckminster 7y ago
        The difference is that one is an actual problem and the other isn't. That's it. There isn't some deep legal theory driving lawmaking.
  - karoofish 7y ago
    Following me around all over town like you did yesterday is considered stalking in my books.
    - akersten 7y ago
      I was careful to say only that I saw you at the other store rather than implying I followed everywhere, since that's a fair line to draw and I wanted to avoid that particular connotation. But even still, hiring a private investigator is not illegal - it's just observational.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> I am sensitive to legislation that puts entire industries (I.e. real people's jobs) under a coal fire of "maybe we as a company literally have no viable path forward". Good that you're sensitive, but some jobs simply deserve to die. It happened in the past; behind leaded gasoline, or CFCs, or poisons sold as miracle drugs, were real people with real jobs. Advertising as an industry proved itself to have cancerous nature and grew to do incredible damage to people; it deserves to be burned down to the ground.

quickben 7y ago

Well, say that I want to know if you are interested in golf. Do you prefer me asking if you can fill in a questionnaire, or should I just pop where you live and take pictures from inside your house? You really don't have to play devil's advocate, one of them is illegal. If a company has no viable way forward, and has to resort to what the rest of us deemed illegal, it should stop existing. Not all companies should survive at any cost, that's not utilitiatian or desirable.

akersten 7y ago
Certainly, spying on someone's domicile is illegal. But it wasn't really the analogy I was going for. I'm going to be purposefully obtuse and set up a contrived hypothetical, but to me it's really more like: you came to my store today, but I saw you at the golf shop yesterday. Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. I happen to also sell golf things and maybe I want to peddle them to you. So I really go all in on my sales pitch and single you out while you're shopping. That's legal in meatspace. What makes "the same thing, but do it on a computer" illegal and unethical? I think it's a real important question for legislators to answer. Is it the scale? The fact that it can be automated? That we're really not actually comfortable with the meatspace example but didn't have a good way to ban it before? Just food for thought. I'm mostly neutral on the GDPR, I appreciate the intention but I think we as a society need to define consistent expectations about privacy.
- buckminster 7y ago
  > Maybe I watched you closely to learn exactly what you were thinking about buying. If creepy shopkeepers following you round was a thing I suspect it would be illegal already.
  - akersten 7y ago
    That's the precipice of the argument though, right? It's not illegal to observe interactions that you witness, or take notes about customers you saw shopping your competition. You could even hire someone to wander around your competing stores and take lots of notes about the people they saw. "Red shirt guy shopping around for slim fit pants". Unlikely scenario, but legal to do and to use that information. My whole thing is - what makes the scenarios different enough that one is prohibited and one is allowed? Certainly if we told folks they must forget their observations about others upon request, that would face some baseline rebuttal about their own autonomy.
    - earthboundkid 7y ago
      It wasn't necessary to make this behavior illegal before because it was impractical, but now that computers have made mass surveillance practical, it should be illegal.
    - buckminster 7y ago
      The difference is that one is an actual problem and the other isn't. That's it. There isn't some deep legal theory driving lawmaking.
- karoofish 7y ago
  Following me around all over town like you did yesterday is considered stalking in my books.
  - akersten 7y ago
    I was careful to say only that I saw you at the other store rather than implying I followed everywhere, since that's a fair line to draw and I wanted to avoid that particular connotation. But even still, hiring a private investigator is not illegal - it's just observational.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> I am sensitive to legislation that puts entire industries (I.e. real people's jobs) under a coal fire of "maybe we as a company literally have no viable path forward". Good that you're sensitive, but some jobs simply deserve to die. It happened in the past; behind leaded gasoline, or CFCs, or poisons sold as miracle drugs, were real people with real jobs. Advertising as an industry proved itself to have cancerous nature and grew to do incredible damage to people; it deserves to be burned down to the ground.