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Yep! I was shocked when I got the data packet. I had no idea that I could get that much data on individuals. Some other notes about the data: you can get addit

by rfc 7y ago

Yep! I was shocked when I got the data packet. I had no idea that I could get that much data on individuals. Some other notes about the data: you can get additional hydrations 2-4x/yr @ $50k per pull. The data can be passed via API but they expressed to me that MOST data is doing via SFTP in Excel spreadsheets. They purchase data from any and all vendors possible. Another insane data provide is Datalogix by Oracle. They were some of the first to have a deep relationship with Facebook. They do identity merges across all the Oracle touch points. This includes POS data, auto data (including sensitive data), and their overall marketing cloud. It's insane to me that these other guys are not front and center in this debate.

bertil 7y ago
I'm still undecided if the most shocking part of all that is how bad their data is, dedup-wise; how ancient is their tech; how unethical it all is; or how much every journalist or researcher working on AI and Ethics could not care less about this.
- rfc 7y ago
  What sucks is that I get the reason why the researchers don't care or gloss over it. It's why I initially got into the space: there's something magical about working on massive data sets and unlocking possibilities with it. I worked on the largest social data set available from the major providers (~20PB or so) and it was super cool (from a PM perspective) to unlock the possibilities around analyzing the data set. The idea that I can unlock insights and change behaviors is an alluring concept until it is used improperly or inappropriately. That was ultimately why I left the data/marketing world.
  - bogwog 7y ago
    When is using data on people to manipulate their behaviors _not_ inappropriate? That's straight up evil.
    - bertil 7y ago
      There’s are companies trying to help you lose bad habits that let you program alerts, set budgets, etc. - Freedom, RescueTime do that for your web-use; - my bank (Monzo) and a stealth company by alumni thereof do it for your spending. There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator. I’m involved in several of those projects.
      - bogwog 7y ago
        > There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator. The other examples are decent (if you explicitly opt-in, not just mindlessly click a checkbox), but that Facebook one...seriously? It is extremely disappointing to see someone use that as an example of "good manipulation" on a site like this non-sarcastically. How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product? Especially a product that is known to negatively affect mental health. It's hardly any different from Joe Camel trying to push kids to smoke.
        bertil 7y ago
        > How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product? The effort was precisely to offer a different objective than time spent on the site, that is a reasonable first approximation for usability and relevance, but not a good self-referential objective. There is evidence that mirroring content has a positive psychological impact.
    - com2kid 7y ago
      When they opt in. Going to the gym more, stopping smoking (or other bad habits), driving safer, cutting down on media consumption. Unfortunately positive change is harder to elicit than negative change.
    - 7y ago

by rfc 7y ago

bertil 7y ago

I'm still undecided if the most shocking part of all that is how bad their data is, dedup-wise; how ancient is their tech; how unethical it all is; or how much every journalist or researcher working on AI and Ethics could not care less about this.

rfc 7y ago
What sucks is that I get the reason why the researchers don't care or gloss over it. It's why I initially got into the space: there's something magical about working on massive data sets and unlocking possibilities with it. I worked on the largest social data set available from the major providers (~20PB or so) and it was super cool (from a PM perspective) to unlock the possibilities around analyzing the data set. The idea that I can unlock insights and change behaviors is an alluring concept until it is used improperly or inappropriately. That was ultimately why I left the data/marketing world.
- bogwog 7y ago
  When is using data on people to manipulate their behaviors _not_ inappropriate? That's straight up evil.
  - bertil 7y ago
    There’s are companies trying to help you lose bad habits that let you program alerts, set budgets, etc. - Freedom, RescueTime do that for your web-use; - my bank (Monzo) and a stealth company by alumni thereof do it for your spending. There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator. I’m involved in several of those projects.
    - bogwog 7y ago
      > There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator. The other examples are decent (if you explicitly opt-in, not just mindlessly click a checkbox), but that Facebook one...seriously? It is extremely disappointing to see someone use that as an example of "good manipulation" on a site like this non-sarcastically. How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product? Especially a product that is known to negatively affect mental health. It's hardly any different from Joe Camel trying to push kids to smoke.
      - bertil 7y ago
        > How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product? The effort was precisely to offer a different objective than time spent on the site, that is a reasonable first approximation for usability and relevance, but not a good self-referential objective. There is evidence that mirroring content has a positive psychological impact.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    When they opt in. Going to the gym more, stopping smoking (or other bad habits), driving safer, cutting down on media consumption. Unfortunately positive change is harder to elicit than negative change.
  - 7y ago