6 ms·

Probably going to take some heat for this answer, especially as many of the comments here are very negatively Google, but I actually think that was pretty balan

by iamben 7y ago

Probably going to take some heat for this answer, especially as many of the comments here are very negatively Google, but I actually think that was pretty balanced. Sure they're (obviously) protecting their own interests, but realistically SO much of the web relies on advertising. I mean, how many startups did we watch over the last 20 years with no real source of revenue (but some of which were actually fun/useful) end up doing the whole "we'll just use ads" thing? And ultimately as a product owner (web or otherwise), you're not going to spend money on ads (and thus fund a whole load the Internet) if you a) can't make a return on your ad spend, and b) can't understand what and where performs best. Don't get me wrong, I hate the super spammy intrusive ads, and sometimes retargeting does feel like I'm being eavesdropped on, but I can't be the only one that prefers to see relevant ads? I'd much rather see ads for sneakers and watches (which I'll frequently click), than I would for some other junk that doesn't interest me. I genuinely don't mind ads if I know it's supporting the thing it's displaying ads on. And as for the cookie stuff - it's a complete mess now. I get that we as a community should probably be spearheading SOME sort of privacy to bubble down to those that don't 'get' it, but talk to the bulk of my non-tech friends and it's a non issue. All those cookie popups are clicked without being read (and they never will be read ever get, that behaviour has been established) - the brightest button gets the click and they can move on and get to actually looking at what they wanted. Literally nobody reads, cares or understands. Even the "they're selling my data" / "they're tracking me scandals" - maybe five minutes of outrage and then assuming you can still share cat memes and holiday photos, who cares? Yesterday people were all over Instagram sharing an outraged message that "Instagram have no permission to do what they want with my content" - and yet no one left IG. Everyone is still back today, business as usual. I think at least _exploring_ this whole thing in a way that's balanced towards the entire internet ecosystem is way more thoughtful than a knee-jerk "block everything, privacy everything" response. It's a pretty emotive topic, and close to a lot of our hearts, but we definitely need more talk. Just my 2c!

saagarjha 7y ago
> Don't get me wrong, I hate the super spammy intrusive ads, and sometimes retargeting does feel like I'm being eavesdropped on, but I can't be the only one that prefers to see relevant ads? I'd much rather see ads for sneakers and watches (which I'll frequently click), than I would for some other junk that doesn't interest me. I genuinely don't mind ads if I know it's supporting the thing it's displaying ads on. None of this fundamentally requires the surveillance apparatus that most ad scripts come with.
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  I think that's exactly Google's point. They're trying to build an alternative system which allows ad personalization, but blocks the sort of intrusive tracking prevalent in the modern-day advertising industry.
  - iamben 7y ago
    Agreed - this and allowing _enough_ tracking that publishers can actually understand where ad budget is best spent, without jeopardising an individual's privacy.
  - ignoramous 7y ago
    Au contraire, the proposed schemes increasingly hand the control over to browser vendors (Chrome) and BigTech (hint). It also does nothing to prevent user control and propaganda machine that has been built on top the mass privacy grave. The news papers have the right model (in terms of privacy): I'd rather online businesses who's revenue model is dependent on ads, do that instead. Like they did with AMP, Google could offer to peanlise websites in their search results that excessively fingerprint users? Show a red bad banner on Chrome? Not these workaround that warrant new mitigations techniques 'cause third-party cookie blocking won't be enough now.
    - Ajedi32 7y ago
      True, it does hand control to browser vendors. But I think I'd rather my browser have control over the information used to personalize ads served to me rather than that information being available to advertisers directly. Google is taking steps to stop excessive fingerprinting[1][2], so it's not like they're just adding new systems for ad personalization without closing off the existing, more intrusive ones. [1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2019/05/improving-privacy-and-security-on-web.html https://blog.chromium.org/2019/05/improving-privacy-and-secu... [2]: https://github.com/bslassey/privacy-budget https://github.com/bslassey/privacy-budget
      - blub 7y ago
Liquix 7y ago
Levelheaded and well-written. I personally am vehemently against all forms of tracking/targeted ads not due to ad preferences, but due to concerns over how much data is being collected and how little control we have over it. I too would prefer non-spammy targeted ads to 'dumb' ads - given that the data being collected and stored is used solely for this purpose. But that's never the case. Targeted advertising at first glance seems like a win-win-win: you're exposed to products aligned with your interests, the manufacturer makes a sale, Google takes a small cut. Thing is, the advertising giant's 'win' carries significantly more weight than yours or the manufacturer's: You get your product, you're pleased with it. Win! The manufacturer makes a sale. Win! The ad/tracking agency receives a juicy set of click/keystroke/impression/conversion data. They ingest it into their massive database and it's matched with a wealth of other information already collected on you. This is all combined and fed through a state-of-the-art machine learning system. This third party now has a full psychological profile of your interests, hobbies, lifestyle, connections, etc. They can use it to serve you better-targeted ads. Win! Or they can use it to influence you politically. Or they could sell it to the NSA. Or they could be hacked by a foreign nation state. Targeted advertising is one thing. Blanket surveillance + dragnet data collection + Google ML + PRISM is quite another.
apexalpha 7y ago
>but I can't be the only one that prefers to see relevant ads? Of course. Everyone wants relevant ads. But we want ads relevant to the site / subject we are browsing. Not to our past purchases, internet usages, exact location and what not. That's just too invasive.
- iamben 7y ago
  That's not true. If I'm reading a generic newspaper website, I don't want to see ads relating to the article or the newspaper. I'm more than happy to see ads for sneakers and watches.
  - Drdrdrq 7y ago
    Then we are different. But while the advertisers are happy to oblige to your wishes, I don't have a chance that they would respect mine.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      You can opt out of personalization industry wide with Adchoices.
pcwalton 7y ago
I think this response somewhat misses the point. The basic problem is that people instinctively feel that highly-targeted ads are creepy. People have a level of targeting that they feel is acceptable, and exceeding that level feels like an invasion of privacy. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with scenarios in which, say, highly targeted ads for divorce lawyers would feel unacceptably creepy to most people. That negative feeling can often outweigh any positive benefit people get from the targeting of ads. One difficulty with this entire debate is that privacy is a social problem as much as a technical one. Trying to come up with a rigidly-defined model that separates benign ad targeting from privacy violations is very hard if not impossible.
- deburo 7y ago
  >That negative feeling can often outweigh any positive benefit people get from the targeting of ads. If targeted ads really improve (in amount and in quality) the free content available on the internet because it drives revenue, then that's the real benefit.
  - pcwalton 7y ago
    Is the extra content worth the added discomfort resulting from highly targeted advertising? Maybe, maybe not! It's not a simple problem.
    - deburo 7y ago
      The unease is too abstract to me. I understand that it feels creepy at first, but personally that feeling faded away. As things stand personally, I'm consuming online services from Canada and I don't understand what's so bad about the current level of targeting. Most of my discomfort is based on potentialities, the what-if's, but I don't think I would demand complete privacy from corporations before anything severe happens. People distrust corporations immensely, but I'm more worried about politically motivated organizations, such as the government.
      - littlestymaar 7y ago
def_true_false 7y ago
> I genuinely don't mind ads if I know it's supporting the thing it's displaying ads on. I do. I'm pretty that sure there are other people who would rather not consume content if they can't do it without having ads shoved in their faces constantly. In fact, ads bother me irl more than online, since it's harder to avoid them. > All those cookie popups are clicked without being read (and they never will be read ever get, that behaviour has been established) Says you. Since the EU cookie popups are not required if you don't use third party cookies, having the popup is basically admitting you are selling out your users. As for the GDPR tracking opt-in popups -- most of the ones I've seen violate half of the GDPR requirements. Once the regulators start fining publishers for those violations, we might see an improvement. > I think at least _exploring_ this whole thing in a way that's balanced towards the entire internet ecosystem is way more thoughtful than a knee-jerk "block everything, privacy everything" response. Tbh, I don't really care about the for-profit content publishing part of the "internet ecosystem". Most of the interesting stuff I read is on personal sites with no ads or tracking anyway, so I don't even care if half the "publishers" disappear. I've yet to meet a single consumer who likes ads.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
> but realistically SO much of the web relies on advertising That appears to be mostly clickbait, blogspam, transparent marketing pretending to be content, and other forms of media that are driven to be as vapid as possible in order to maximize the number of ads they can show. I would promote adblocking specifically in order to destroy that part of the web.

by iamben 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago

> Don't get me wrong, I hate the super spammy intrusive ads, and sometimes retargeting does feel like I'm being eavesdropped on, but I can't be the only one that prefers to see relevant ads? I'd much rather see ads for sneakers and watches (which I'll frequently click), than I would for some other junk that doesn't interest me. I genuinely don't mind ads if I know it's supporting the thing it's displaying ads on. None of this fundamentally requires the surveillance apparatus that most ad scripts come with.

Ajedi32 7y ago
I think that's exactly Google's point. They're trying to build an alternative system which allows ad personalization, but blocks the sort of intrusive tracking prevalent in the modern-day advertising industry.
- iamben 7y ago
  Agreed - this and allowing _enough_ tracking that publishers can actually understand where ad budget is best spent, without jeopardising an individual's privacy.
- ignoramous 7y ago
  Au contraire, the proposed schemes increasingly hand the control over to browser vendors (Chrome) and BigTech (hint). It also does nothing to prevent user control and propaganda machine that has been built on top the mass privacy grave. The news papers have the right model (in terms of privacy): I'd rather online businesses who's revenue model is dependent on ads, do that instead. Like they did with AMP, Google could offer to peanlise websites in their search results that excessively fingerprint users? Show a red bad banner on Chrome? Not these workaround that warrant new mitigations techniques 'cause third-party cookie blocking won't be enough now.
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    True, it does hand control to browser vendors. But I think I'd rather my browser have control over the information used to personalize ads served to me rather than that information being available to advertisers directly. Google is taking steps to stop excessive fingerprinting[1][2], so it's not like they're just adding new systems for ad personalization without closing off the existing, more intrusive ones. [1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2019/05/improving-privacy-and-security-on-web.html https://blog.chromium.org/2019/05/improving-privacy-and-secu... [2]: https://github.com/bslassey/privacy-budget https://github.com/bslassey/privacy-budget
    - blub 7y ago

Liquix 7y ago

Levelheaded and well-written. I personally am vehemently against all forms of tracking/targeted ads not due to ad preferences, but due to concerns over how much data is being collected and how little control we have over it. I too would prefer non-spammy targeted ads to 'dumb' ads - given that the data being collected and stored is used solely for this purpose. But that's never the case. Targeted advertising at first glance seems like a win-win-win: you're exposed to products aligned with your interests, the manufacturer makes a sale, Google takes a small cut. Thing is, the advertising giant's 'win' carries significantly more weight than yours or the manufacturer's: You get your product, you're pleased with it. Win! The manufacturer makes a sale. Win! The ad/tracking agency receives a juicy set of click/keystroke/impression/conversion data. They ingest it into their massive database and it's matched with a wealth of other information already collected on you. This is all combined and fed through a state-of-the-art machine learning system. This third party now has a full psychological profile of your interests, hobbies, lifestyle, connections, etc. They can use it to serve you better-targeted ads. Win! Or they can use it to influence you politically. Or they could sell it to the NSA. Or they could be hacked by a foreign nation state. Targeted advertising is one thing. Blanket surveillance + dragnet data collection + Google ML + PRISM is quite another.

apexalpha 7y ago

>but I can't be the only one that prefers to see relevant ads? Of course. Everyone wants relevant ads. But we want ads relevant to the site / subject we are browsing. Not to our past purchases, internet usages, exact location and what not. That's just too invasive.

iamben 7y ago
That's not true. If I'm reading a generic newspaper website, I don't want to see ads relating to the article or the newspaper. I'm more than happy to see ads for sneakers and watches.
- Drdrdrq 7y ago
  Then we are different. But while the advertisers are happy to oblige to your wishes, I don't have a chance that they would respect mine.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    You can opt out of personalization industry wide with Adchoices.

pcwalton 7y ago

I think this response somewhat misses the point. The basic problem is that people instinctively feel that highly-targeted ads are creepy. People have a level of targeting that they feel is acceptable, and exceeding that level feels like an invasion of privacy. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with scenarios in which, say, highly targeted ads for divorce lawyers would feel unacceptably creepy to most people. That negative feeling can often outweigh any positive benefit people get from the targeting of ads. One difficulty with this entire debate is that privacy is a social problem as much as a technical one. Trying to come up with a rigidly-defined model that separates benign ad targeting from privacy violations is very hard if not impossible.

deburo 7y ago
>That negative feeling can often outweigh any positive benefit people get from the targeting of ads. If targeted ads really improve (in amount and in quality) the free content available on the internet because it drives revenue, then that's the real benefit.
- pcwalton 7y ago
  Is the extra content worth the added discomfort resulting from highly targeted advertising? Maybe, maybe not! It's not a simple problem.
  - deburo 7y ago
    The unease is too abstract to me. I understand that it feels creepy at first, but personally that feeling faded away. As things stand personally, I'm consuming online services from Canada and I don't understand what's so bad about the current level of targeting. Most of my discomfort is based on potentialities, the what-if's, but I don't think I would demand complete privacy from corporations before anything severe happens. People distrust corporations immensely, but I'm more worried about politically motivated organizations, such as the government.
    - littlestymaar 7y ago

def_true_false 7y ago

> I genuinely don't mind ads if I know it's supporting the thing it's displaying ads on. I do. I'm pretty that sure there are other people who would rather not consume content if they can't do it without having ads shoved in their faces constantly. In fact, ads bother me irl more than online, since it's harder to avoid them. > All those cookie popups are clicked without being read (and they never will be read ever get, that behaviour has been established) Says you. Since the EU cookie popups are not required if you don't use third party cookies, having the popup is basically admitting you are selling out your users. As for the GDPR tracking opt-in popups -- most of the ones I've seen violate half of the GDPR requirements. Once the regulators start fining publishers for those violations, we might see an improvement. > I think at least _exploring_ this whole thing in a way that's balanced towards the entire internet ecosystem is way more thoughtful than a knee-jerk "block everything, privacy everything" response. Tbh, I don't really care about the for-profit content publishing part of the "internet ecosystem". Most of the interesting stuff I read is on personal sites with no ads or tracking anyway, so I don't even care if half the "publishers" disappear. I've yet to meet a single consumer who likes ads.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

> but realistically SO much of the web relies on advertising That appears to be mostly clickbait, blogspam, transparent marketing pretending to be content, and other forms of media that are driven to be as vapid as possible in order to maximize the number of ads they can show. I would promote adblocking specifically in order to destroy that part of the web.