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If differential privacy solutions lead to things consumers want more, like better products (think: more accurate search results without uniquely targeted tracki

If differential privacy solutions lead to things consumers want more, like better products (think: more accurate search results without uniquely targeted tracking), then is blocking all tracking viable?

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Can we not pretend your employer wants to use this for better search results and be up front that it's about better ad revenue, which isn't beneficial or desirable to consumers?
- kalleboo 7y ago
  As an independent developer I really want to know what features of my app are actually being used (and what devices they're using it on, OS versions, etc). I try to talk to my users but you only hear from the loud annoying ones, not the silent majority and the conclusions are inevitably wrong. I'd love a tool like differential privacy to gather statistics in a provably anonymous way. Without a tool like that, only companies with shedloads of money (like Google, Microsoft, Apple) can afford the market research (or the amount of spaghetti to throw at the wall) to compete.
- summerlight 7y ago
  > which isn't beneficial or desirable to consumers? Why? They're paying moneys through conversions, which is a pretty significant commitment and proof of its usefulness. You can argue that there's no real incrementality here, but I can tell you that at least half of ad revenues in general very likely have causal relationships from my observation.
l0b0 7y ago
Yes. Millions are already doing it. Considering how much press privacy enhancements such as ad blocking gets, and how basically nobody is discussing how their search result quality went down afterwards, it seems pretty clear what people have chosen.
JohnFen 7y ago
I don't understand -- why wouldn't it continue to be viable? Nothing about this proposal provides me with any reason to stop blocking tracking.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  To rephrase: as a business, not as a consumer. If differential privacy leads to products consumers prefer over those with no tracking, a business with no tracking would be nonviable, or less viable than one that does some privacy concious, let's call it, tracking.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > If differential privacy leads to products consumers prefer over those with no tracking Why would that happen? DP is a compromise. For people who are concerned about data collection, surely "none" is preferable to that compromise.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

Can we not pretend your employer wants to use this for better search results and be up front that it's about better ad revenue, which isn't beneficial or desirable to consumers?

kalleboo 7y ago
As an independent developer I really want to know what features of my app are actually being used (and what devices they're using it on, OS versions, etc). I try to talk to my users but you only hear from the loud annoying ones, not the silent majority and the conclusions are inevitably wrong. I'd love a tool like differential privacy to gather statistics in a provably anonymous way. Without a tool like that, only companies with shedloads of money (like Google, Microsoft, Apple) can afford the market research (or the amount of spaghetti to throw at the wall) to compete.
summerlight 7y ago
> which isn't beneficial or desirable to consumers? Why? They're paying moneys through conversions, which is a pretty significant commitment and proof of its usefulness. You can argue that there's no real incrementality here, but I can tell you that at least half of ad revenues in general very likely have causal relationships from my observation.

l0b0 7y ago

Yes. Millions are already doing it. Considering how much press privacy enhancements such as ad blocking gets, and how basically nobody is discussing how their search result quality went down afterwards, it seems pretty clear what people have chosen.

JohnFen 7y ago

I don't understand -- why wouldn't it continue to be viable? Nothing about this proposal provides me with any reason to stop blocking tracking.

joshuamorton 7y ago
To rephrase: as a business, not as a consumer. If differential privacy leads to products consumers prefer over those with no tracking, a business with no tracking would be nonviable, or less viable than one that does some privacy concious, let's call it, tracking.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > If differential privacy leads to products consumers prefer over those with no tracking Why would that happen? DP is a compromise. For people who are concerned about data collection, surely "none" is preferable to that compromise.