6 ms·

Personally, it really sucks to get ads targeted at my mental health diagnoses.

by rhcom2 7y ago

hello_friendos 7y ago
Agree, I don't need a million ads for a useless text therapist app.
- techntoke 7y ago
  You obviously need therapy if you don't want the advertisements. /s
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Is that how you really feel?
    - techntoke 7y ago
      The /s was supposed to mean sarcasm, however that is probably the direction that companies will try to take the mental health profession.
      - a_e_k 7y ago
        I suspect that GP was riffing on typical responses from a therapist chat-bot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
        perl4ever 7y ago
        Of course, someone developed a script for a patient too; I think it was called PARRY. Perhaps these could be combined in an adversarial learning setup...
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        Some are already offering text chat for a monthly fee as a cheaper alternative to a face-to-face talk with a therapist at an hourly rate. However, I don't know if anyone is charging for a bot yet.
techntoke 7y ago
Could you imagine being diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenic because you think there is some conspiracy to profile and target you with advertisements based on mental health? And your doctor must be in on it because instead of listening to you they just hand you drugs and tell you to take them.
- anonymfus 7y ago
  You just described Alex Jones's business model.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    C'mon, everyone knows AJ is controlled opposition.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I've seen online ads that mention tardive dyskinesia, which is a drug side effect that is particularly associated with psychiatric drugs such as antipsychotics. Of course, there's no way to tell exactly what algorithm/data this is based on, and whether it's my data or the data of people that I'm connected with. Seems like somewhere there should be a HIPAA violation, but that's pretty hopeless. I think it's safe to say that anyone who is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic is being targeted, which makes it all the more difficult to suppress feelings of paranoia and distinguish actual tracking from coincidences. I doubt there are any people who are perfectly sane driven mad by advertising, but it's quite plausible that it has a negative effect on people trying to cope at the margins.
ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
I am not excusing Google for this behavior but in case you didn't know, you can let Google know which types of Ads you don't want to see based on your profile. (Not Joking) This was vital to me at work, because I share my screen most of the day and I started getting ads for a Vacation Cruise that was sexual in nature that were unbelievably embarrassing. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2662856?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2662856?co=GENIE.... I would suggest turning off ALL personalized ads on your Google profile, but in case you like getting ads about Pet products and just don't want your health information shared you can just deselect all the "health", "diet", and "medicine" categories. It really sucks to target block ads this way and you might even need to stretch to blocking categories like "family and relationships", to get all the ads you don't like.
- Nullabillity 7y ago
  Why not just get an ad blocker?
  - msbarnett 7y ago
    Well, Google is taking steps to neuter those, so...
    - summm 7y ago
      I would be interested in more details
      - msbarnett 7y ago
        See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 for a link to the ublock origin author's take on Chrome's upcoming changes, and discussion
      - bduerst 7y ago
        They're not - its clickbait sensationalism. They're changing how extensions can access web requests, in order to increase user privacy and prevent phishing. This requires all extension devs to change how they handle web requests. ublock is making a stink about how it's "targeting them", despite it being a change that all devs have to make, and you can still block ads with the new version. Adblock plus works fine with the new changes, for example. More here: https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-manifest-v3-ad-blocker-extension-api/ https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-manifest-v3-ad-...
soared 7y ago
Ads are not targeted at your diagnosis - that is absurd. Ads are targeted at your browsing habits, which may reflect your diagnosis. One is illegal, one is legal. If we want to have an open discussion about advertising making claims like that only hurt privacy advocates.
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  It's absurd that you think advertisers can't generate this information: 1. Get addresses of mental care clinics and offices. 2. Geofence addresses 3. Correlate devices that visited geofence addresses (using LiveRamp data) with devices that saw your ads on Mental Health sites. 4. Bonus, look at the path on the pages to figure out what disease they were viewing when your ad was displayed if you weren't already targeting specific page content.
  - sambe 7y ago
    How would they access location data unless authorised by the user? ("absurd" is a strange word to use; it might be nicer to educate without condescension).
    - msbarnett 7y ago
      > How would they access location data unless authorised by the user? > > Correlate devices that visited geofence addresses (using LiveRamp data) LiveRamp is hooked into a lot of ad services and a user's location information will routinely make its way to them. Played some ad-supported mobile game on your phone while in the Doctor's waiting room? LiveRamp has that location data. Even if the user doesn't have GPS enabled for the game, they might have it enabled for some other background process that routinely asks for it, like Facebook or Twitter or FourSquare, who package that data for sale. Or you're on the Doctor's wifi, and most stable IPs like that are in location databases. Or they just buy it off your cell phone provider, since many happily sell location information. LiveRamp is a gigantic business built entirely on knowing approximately where you are any time you interact with their tracking servers.
    - Ensorceled 7y ago
afarrell 7y ago
I wish there was somewhere I could explicitly opt-in/sign-up for ads targeted at my mental health problems...or my problems in general. As someone who hates shopping, I've been really disappointed with the quality of ad targeting for the past decade. The ability to select categories of ads has improved things. But I wish I could just write some rule-based criteria and then take 3 hours, look through a bunch of ads, and give them ratings in order to train personalized machine learning models.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Why not use independent review sites? Those exist for a lot of categories of shopping. I'm not sure one exists for prescription drugs or mental health services, though--that would be an interesting idea.
- pkaye 7y ago
  Don't know about ads but I know Google has this feature where when something new about a particular keyword comes up it will email you with the links. I use it to track new research on my own health issue.
michaelmrose 7y ago
You could get "targeted" in the sense of a prospective employer not employing you as well.
body12 7y ago
To avoid this: Firefox with uBlock Origin and resist fingerprinting setting on. Use private mode whenever you don't need logins. Bonus: Use a $3/mo VPN to dodge your ISP's tracking (xandr.com and weep) or just use Tor Browser for browsing, it's pretty fast these days.
- aloknnikhil 7y ago
  If you're using Firefox, give the Firefox containers a try. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... Gives you everything you seek from a private session
droithomme 7y ago
> it really sucks to get ads targeted at my mental health diagnoses I am extremely cautious to never look up health info without using a VPN and to never discuss health in email exchanges. After receiving a diagnosis from my doctor some years ago for a condition, a week later I received a targeted snail mail ad for the condition using my full legal name, which only the DMV, my doctor, and the property assessor use. All web stuff, purchases, email, use a nickname instead. I discussed it with the doctor's office. They said they are HIPAA compliant and wouldn't say more other than referring me to their privacy policy. The privacy policy like ALL medical privacy statements these days contains vague information about "sharing" with third parties and partners in certain circumstances which as written don't appear to be selling private medical data for advertising, but clearly do. Currently when seeing new doctors I use a fake name, pay cash, and give them a phone number to a phone separate from my normal one, which I bought with cash and never associate with my own name. Works for prescriptions for the most part too since I pay cash for that as well and id is only required for narcotics. Since then, not so many targeted ads.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  a week later I received a targeted snail mail ad for the condition using my full legal name, which only the DMV, my doctor, and the property assessor use I had something similar happen. When I told my doctor, he blamed the drug store chain (Walgreens in this case) for selling the information. I don't know if that's true, but my doctor believes it.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I was unhappy that CVS sent me promotional snail mail based on my prescriptions, but I don't know what I can do about it, since I assume they have lawyers that told them it was legal under HIPAA. I also get text messages from them that have links that may or may not allow the retrieval of health information, which also bugs me inasmuch as there's no way to opt out (at least not without ending all text messages).

Personally, it really sucks to get ads targeted at my mental health diagnoses.

by rhcom2 7y ago

Personally, it really sucks to get ads targeted at my mental health diagnoses.

hello_friendos 7y ago

Agree, I don't need a million ads for a useless text therapist app.

techntoke 7y ago
You obviously need therapy if you don't want the advertisements. /s
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Is that how you really feel?
  - techntoke 7y ago
    The /s was supposed to mean sarcasm, however that is probably the direction that companies will try to take the mental health profession.
    - a_e_k 7y ago
      I suspect that GP was riffing on typical responses from a therapist chat-bot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        Of course, someone developed a script for a patient too; I think it was called PARRY. Perhaps these could be combined in an adversarial learning setup...
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Some are already offering text chat for a monthly fee as a cheaper alternative to a face-to-face talk with a therapist at an hourly rate. However, I don't know if anyone is charging for a bot yet.

techntoke 7y ago

Could you imagine being diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenic because you think there is some conspiracy to profile and target you with advertisements based on mental health? And your doctor must be in on it because instead of listening to you they just hand you drugs and tell you to take them.

anonymfus 7y ago
You just described Alex Jones's business model.
- techntoke 7y ago
  C'mon, everyone knows AJ is controlled opposition.
perl4ever 7y ago
I've seen online ads that mention tardive dyskinesia, which is a drug side effect that is particularly associated with psychiatric drugs such as antipsychotics. Of course, there's no way to tell exactly what algorithm/data this is based on, and whether it's my data or the data of people that I'm connected with. Seems like somewhere there should be a HIPAA violation, but that's pretty hopeless. I think it's safe to say that anyone who is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic is being targeted, which makes it all the more difficult to suppress feelings of paranoia and distinguish actual tracking from coincidences. I doubt there are any people who are perfectly sane driven mad by advertising, but it's quite plausible that it has a negative effect on people trying to cope at the margins.

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago

I am not excusing Google for this behavior but in case you didn't know, you can let Google know which types of Ads you don't want to see based on your profile. (Not Joking) This was vital to me at work, because I share my screen most of the day and I started getting ads for a Vacation Cruise that was sexual in nature that were unbelievably embarrassing. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2662856?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2662856?co=GENIE.... I would suggest turning off ALL personalized ads on your Google profile, but in case you like getting ads about Pet products and just don't want your health information shared you can just deselect all the "health", "diet", and "medicine" categories. It really sucks to target block ads this way and you might even need to stretch to blocking categories like "family and relationships", to get all the ads you don't like.

Nullabillity 7y ago
Why not just get an ad blocker?
- msbarnett 7y ago
  Well, Google is taking steps to neuter those, so...
  - summm 7y ago
    I would be interested in more details
    - msbarnett 7y ago
      See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 for a link to the ublock origin author's take on Chrome's upcoming changes, and discussion
    - bduerst 7y ago
      They're not - its clickbait sensationalism. They're changing how extensions can access web requests, in order to increase user privacy and prevent phishing. This requires all extension devs to change how they handle web requests. ublock is making a stink about how it's "targeting them", despite it being a change that all devs have to make, and you can still block ads with the new version. Adblock plus works fine with the new changes, for example. More here: https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-manifest-v3-ad-blocker-extension-api/ https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-manifest-v3-ad-...

soared 7y ago

Ads are not targeted at your diagnosis - that is absurd. Ads are targeted at your browsing habits, which may reflect your diagnosis. One is illegal, one is legal. If we want to have an open discussion about advertising making claims like that only hurt privacy advocates.

Ensorceled 7y ago
It's absurd that you think advertisers can't generate this information: 1. Get addresses of mental care clinics and offices. 2. Geofence addresses 3. Correlate devices that visited geofence addresses (using LiveRamp data) with devices that saw your ads on Mental Health sites. 4. Bonus, look at the path on the pages to figure out what disease they were viewing when your ad was displayed if you weren't already targeting specific page content.
- sambe 7y ago
  How would they access location data unless authorised by the user? ("absurd" is a strange word to use; it might be nicer to educate without condescension).
  - msbarnett 7y ago
    > How would they access location data unless authorised by the user? > > Correlate devices that visited geofence addresses (using LiveRamp data) LiveRamp is hooked into a lot of ad services and a user's location information will routinely make its way to them. Played some ad-supported mobile game on your phone while in the Doctor's waiting room? LiveRamp has that location data. Even if the user doesn't have GPS enabled for the game, they might have it enabled for some other background process that routinely asks for it, like Facebook or Twitter or FourSquare, who package that data for sale. Or you're on the Doctor's wifi, and most stable IPs like that are in location databases. Or they just buy it off your cell phone provider, since many happily sell location information. LiveRamp is a gigantic business built entirely on knowing approximately where you are any time you interact with their tracking servers.
  - Ensorceled 7y ago

afarrell 7y ago

I wish there was somewhere I could explicitly opt-in/sign-up for ads targeted at my mental health problems...or my problems in general. As someone who hates shopping, I've been really disappointed with the quality of ad targeting for the past decade. The ability to select categories of ads has improved things. But I wish I could just write some rule-based criteria and then take 3 hours, look through a bunch of ads, and give them ratings in order to train personalized machine learning models.

kerkeslager 7y ago
Why not use independent review sites? Those exist for a lot of categories of shopping. I'm not sure one exists for prescription drugs or mental health services, though--that would be an interesting idea.
pkaye 7y ago
Don't know about ads but I know Google has this feature where when something new about a particular keyword comes up it will email you with the links. I use it to track new research on my own health issue.

michaelmrose 7y ago

You could get "targeted" in the sense of a prospective employer not employing you as well.

body12 7y ago

To avoid this: Firefox with uBlock Origin and resist fingerprinting setting on. Use private mode whenever you don't need logins. Bonus: Use a $3/mo VPN to dodge your ISP's tracking (xandr.com and weep) or just use Tor Browser for browsing, it's pretty fast these days.

aloknnikhil 7y ago
If you're using Firefox, give the Firefox containers a try. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... Gives you everything you seek from a private session

droithomme 7y ago

> it really sucks to get ads targeted at my mental health diagnoses I am extremely cautious to never look up health info without using a VPN and to never discuss health in email exchanges. After receiving a diagnosis from my doctor some years ago for a condition, a week later I received a targeted snail mail ad for the condition using my full legal name, which only the DMV, my doctor, and the property assessor use. All web stuff, purchases, email, use a nickname instead. I discussed it with the doctor's office. They said they are HIPAA compliant and wouldn't say more other than referring me to their privacy policy. The privacy policy like ALL medical privacy statements these days contains vague information about "sharing" with third parties and partners in certain circumstances which as written don't appear to be selling private medical data for advertising, but clearly do. Currently when seeing new doctors I use a fake name, pay cash, and give them a phone number to a phone separate from my normal one, which I bought with cash and never associate with my own name. Works for prescriptions for the most part too since I pay cash for that as well and id is only required for narcotics. Since then, not so many targeted ads.

reaperducer 7y ago
a week later I received a targeted snail mail ad for the condition using my full legal name, which only the DMV, my doctor, and the property assessor use I had something similar happen. When I told my doctor, he blamed the drug store chain (Walgreens in this case) for selling the information. I don't know if that's true, but my doctor believes it.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I was unhappy that CVS sent me promotional snail mail based on my prescriptions, but I don't know what I can do about it, since I assume they have lawyers that told them it was legal under HIPAA. I also get text messages from them that have links that may or may not allow the retrieval of health information, which also bugs me inasmuch as there's no way to opt out (at least not without ending all text messages).