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" I understand you don't want to see ads. " That's not what this post is about, and not what most people here care about. I'm not attacking you here, but if yo

" I understand you don't want to see ads. " That's not what this post is about, and not what most people here care about. I'm not attacking you here, but if you think that's what we're saying "Sucks", then you're really missing the point. Sure, we don't really want to SEE ads, but they're everywhere, and they're just part of life. Most of us just ignore them. We absolutely positively do not want to be followed around by any number of AdTech companies profiling us and selling what we do and buy. Leaking all that to all the places it gets leaked. Trading our lives and what we do with others, all so someone can show us a "better" ad in the hopes we'll pay attention. Show us an ad, fine, we can ignore it. Stop profiling everything single we do and not giving us any realistic way to opt-out. We have no idea who has all this and what will be done with it, and there's nothing we can do. All is the name of showing us a better ad.

tomlockwood 7y ago
Author here! Well said! Yeah, I definitely think advertising has a place, and I sometimes engage with ads. I know that ads work. But that's definitely not what I'm arguing against. Advertising isn't inherently bad, but the implementation currently is in most cases.
- icxa 7y ago
  Hi author! I am actually not responding to claims made in your article (imagine that, comments that don't discuss the article!) but the broad brush painted by parent that "The ad industry is evil" I think this does a disservice to the world evil and trivializes it: Hitler is evil. War is evil. Ad tech.. Inconvenient? Frustrating? Possibly infringing on your civil liberties? All possible, likely depending on which ad company it is, but evil? Let's talk about those things! Let's avoid the extremist language what serves no one and only divides people further into their respective camps, and let's try to have an intellectually honest conversation on HN for once, but given the response to my comment, doesn't seem like today is the day.
  - tomlockwood 7y ago
    Hi ad industry member. I haven't used the word evil in any of my comments or posts so far.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - salawat 7y ago
    Evil: profoundly immoral and wicked I follow that with an interesting anecdote! During the filming of the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the actress playing Nurse Ratchett, the principle antagonist in the film, suffered a breakdown resulting from animosity built up amongst the film crew. Her mere portrayal and demonstration of wicked/evil tendencies was sufficient to taint the emotional atmosphere. Point being: When one is in an environment, and feels it necessary to try to say "I'm not evil! X, Y, and Z are evil! What I'm doing isn't!", it is generally a sign of cognitive dissonance being brushed up against. There is an argument to be made, that if what the AdTech industry does is so effective at bringing up feelings of hostility, revulsion, and repugnance once properly understood, it may very well be to an extent "evil" due to a demonstrated capacity to generate widespread feelings of immorality. It takes time, and effort to elucidate the various ways in which this industry triggers fundamental moral avoidance circuits. AdTech violates moral principles of "being a good host", "professional discretion", "unimpositive (not imposing on one's guests or making light of imposing on or dominating their attention)", "non-intrusion", "being courteous in the immediate term", and "conservative in taking actions that could have far reaching consequences in the long term". These are fundamental underpinnings of the fabric of positive societal interaction, and are to differing levels globally recognized. Taking and violating such fundamental precepts, and in ways difficult to understand and extrapolate by the Common person illustrates a callous disregard for what makes society work, and implicitly sets off those alarm bells you mentioned earlier. I'm not even being outright inflammatory; just pointing out the essential characteristics of the arrangement. If a barebones explication of what you do violates so many fundamental behavioral assumptions, and generates such animosity when brought out into the light of day, you really need to sit down and give it a long think. Is delivering a better Ad really worth throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Is delivering a better Ad worth endangering the framework that got us this far? If your answer is still yes after giving it intense thought, you need to spend more time amongst your detractors, because you've likely only seen one side of the matter at issue.
bunderbunder 7y ago
> and not giving us any realistic way to opt-out The opt-out model is inherently incompatible with the desire to not be tracked. If the default is that everyone is tracked, and you need to opt out, then just setting a flag in an HTTP header isn't enough, because your digital traces encompass far more than your HTTP requests. In order to make sure you're not following people, and not just browsers, you need to set up some sort of universal identification for adtech to. . . wait for it. . . track.
- contravariant 7y ago
  It's unenforceable (since it's way too easy for companies to just say claim they forgot you didn't want to be tracked), but that doesn't mean it is incompatible. It would work if ad companies were acting in good faith. The fact that ad companies are evidently not acting in good faith makes this a bit of a moot point, but morally it's important to point out that ad companies don't have to make it impossible to opt-out.

tomlockwood 7y ago

Author here! Well said! Yeah, I definitely think advertising has a place, and I sometimes engage with ads. I know that ads work. But that's definitely not what I'm arguing against. Advertising isn't inherently bad, but the implementation currently is in most cases.

icxa 7y ago
Hi author! I am actually not responding to claims made in your article (imagine that, comments that don't discuss the article!) but the broad brush painted by parent that "The ad industry is evil" I think this does a disservice to the world evil and trivializes it: Hitler is evil. War is evil. Ad tech.. Inconvenient? Frustrating? Possibly infringing on your civil liberties? All possible, likely depending on which ad company it is, but evil? Let's talk about those things! Let's avoid the extremist language what serves no one and only divides people further into their respective camps, and let's try to have an intellectually honest conversation on HN for once, but given the response to my comment, doesn't seem like today is the day.
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  Hi ad industry member. I haven't used the word evil in any of my comments or posts so far.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- salawat 7y ago
  Evil: profoundly immoral and wicked I follow that with an interesting anecdote! During the filming of the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the actress playing Nurse Ratchett, the principle antagonist in the film, suffered a breakdown resulting from animosity built up amongst the film crew. Her mere portrayal and demonstration of wicked/evil tendencies was sufficient to taint the emotional atmosphere. Point being: When one is in an environment, and feels it necessary to try to say "I'm not evil! X, Y, and Z are evil! What I'm doing isn't!", it is generally a sign of cognitive dissonance being brushed up against. There is an argument to be made, that if what the AdTech industry does is so effective at bringing up feelings of hostility, revulsion, and repugnance once properly understood, it may very well be to an extent "evil" due to a demonstrated capacity to generate widespread feelings of immorality. It takes time, and effort to elucidate the various ways in which this industry triggers fundamental moral avoidance circuits. AdTech violates moral principles of "being a good host", "professional discretion", "unimpositive (not imposing on one's guests or making light of imposing on or dominating their attention)", "non-intrusion", "being courteous in the immediate term", and "conservative in taking actions that could have far reaching consequences in the long term". These are fundamental underpinnings of the fabric of positive societal interaction, and are to differing levels globally recognized. Taking and violating such fundamental precepts, and in ways difficult to understand and extrapolate by the Common person illustrates a callous disregard for what makes society work, and implicitly sets off those alarm bells you mentioned earlier. I'm not even being outright inflammatory; just pointing out the essential characteristics of the arrangement. If a barebones explication of what you do violates so many fundamental behavioral assumptions, and generates such animosity when brought out into the light of day, you really need to sit down and give it a long think. Is delivering a better Ad really worth throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Is delivering a better Ad worth endangering the framework that got us this far? If your answer is still yes after giving it intense thought, you need to spend more time amongst your detractors, because you've likely only seen one side of the matter at issue.

bunderbunder 7y ago

> and not giving us any realistic way to opt-out The opt-out model is inherently incompatible with the desire to not be tracked. If the default is that everyone is tracked, and you need to opt out, then just setting a flag in an HTTP header isn't enough, because your digital traces encompass far more than your HTTP requests. In order to make sure you're not following people, and not just browsers, you need to set up some sort of universal identification for adtech to. . . wait for it. . . track.

contravariant 7y ago
It's unenforceable (since it's way too easy for companies to just say claim they forgot you didn't want to be tracked), but that doesn't mean it is incompatible. It would work if ad companies were acting in good faith. The fact that ad companies are evidently not acting in good faith makes this a bit of a moot point, but morally it's important to point out that ad companies don't have to make it impossible to opt-out.