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I suspect Google doesn't want to tip their hand and show just how unreliable their demographic data is. There's a perception among the public that these compani

I suspect Google doesn't want to tip their hand and show just how unreliable their demographic data is. There's a perception among the public that these companies siphoning up so much data must be able to know everything about individual users, and in fact Google's largest revenue stream relies on this perception. If I'm right, then when the house of cards falls on this Big Data Bubble it will be painful for a lot of tech companies, Facebook and Google especially.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Fair, Google may not trust their inferences to the point of them becoming a legal liability.
- iamaelephant 7y ago
  Do you believe that relying on their creators to be honest about the content is a better bet?
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    I would imagine Google's legal team would answer that with a resounding "yes."
    - iamaelephant 7y ago
      I'm not talking about Google's legal team. We already know which way their going due to the article. I'm talking about reality.
      - robbrown451 7y ago
        Ok but the post you replied to was speculating on Google's motivations, and therefore talking about legal liability. I guess if you are speaking of "what is best for society", ok, but that's a completely different thing. It sure seemed like you were debating the post above, but I guess not.
        iamaelephant 7y ago
        > Ok but the post you replied to was speculating on Google's motivations, and therefore talking about legal liability. It was my own post and it had nothing to do with legal liability. As I said (clearly, I thought), I think Google is reluctant to show the world just how unreliable their demographic data is.
halflings 7y ago
Tangent: What does it matter how reliable your demographic data is when you're doing digital marketing? At the end of the day what matters is your ROI from placing ads; whether they are shown to the demographic you had in mind or not is more of a detail (you might think 24-30 women should be your best demographic, but maybe the real decision function is non-linear and more fuzzy algorithms get you a better ROI)
- iamaelephant 7y ago
  Determining ROI in marketing is a famously hard problem. As the old saying goes, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half".
ggggtez 7y ago
>I suspect they don't want to tip their hand I think that's a bridge too far. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone would actually want a world where ad-targetting data could be used as a form of ID to prove your age... If you want the data to be as good as an ID... then everyone would need to offer some kind of government issued ID in order to create an online account, in order to make sure they weren't a child. Anything short of that, and you're going to have accounts that porport to be 21 when the 'real' user is only 12. Or maybe you think they should use Machine Learning? So you then monitor every youtube video the 21 year old user watches, and determine that they are watching My Little Pony content over and over... so surely they must be a child. And then lock down the account and prevent them from making comments/purchases/etc? The child protection laws are very strict. I don't think any of us would like a world where you get treated like a child (e.g. no right to view or participate on most of the internet) because of some algorithm. Civil suits against content creators seems like one of the only viable ways forward to me, as stupid as it is.
- iamaelephant 7y ago
  I don't think any of these things, no. I think content, tracking and engagement restrictions should be performed on the Youtube Kids app, and that parents should be responsible for ensuring their kids are using the appropriate apps/accounts. I think restricting features based on the content of the video is doomed to failure, as many have discussed in this thread.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

Fair, Google may not trust their inferences to the point of them becoming a legal liability.

iamaelephant 7y ago
Do you believe that relying on their creators to be honest about the content is a better bet?
- robbrown451 7y ago
  I would imagine Google's legal team would answer that with a resounding "yes."
  - iamaelephant 7y ago
    I'm not talking about Google's legal team. We already know which way their going due to the article. I'm talking about reality.
    - robbrown451 7y ago
      Ok but the post you replied to was speculating on Google's motivations, and therefore talking about legal liability. I guess if you are speaking of "what is best for society", ok, but that's a completely different thing. It sure seemed like you were debating the post above, but I guess not.
      - iamaelephant 7y ago
        > Ok but the post you replied to was speculating on Google's motivations, and therefore talking about legal liability. It was my own post and it had nothing to do with legal liability. As I said (clearly, I thought), I think Google is reluctant to show the world just how unreliable their demographic data is.

halflings 7y ago

Tangent: What does it matter how reliable your demographic data is when you're doing digital marketing? At the end of the day what matters is your ROI from placing ads; whether they are shown to the demographic you had in mind or not is more of a detail (you might think 24-30 women should be your best demographic, but maybe the real decision function is non-linear and more fuzzy algorithms get you a better ROI)

iamaelephant 7y ago
Determining ROI in marketing is a famously hard problem. As the old saying goes, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half".

ggggtez 7y ago

>I suspect they don't want to tip their hand I think that's a bridge too far. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone would actually want a world where ad-targetting data could be used as a form of ID to prove your age... If you want the data to be as good as an ID... then everyone would need to offer some kind of government issued ID in order to create an online account, in order to make sure they weren't a child. Anything short of that, and you're going to have accounts that porport to be 21 when the 'real' user is only 12. Or maybe you think they should use Machine Learning? So you then monitor every youtube video the 21 year old user watches, and determine that they are watching My Little Pony content over and over... so surely they must be a child. And then lock down the account and prevent them from making comments/purchases/etc? The child protection laws are very strict. I don't think any of us would like a world where you get treated like a child (e.g. no right to view or participate on most of the internet) because of some algorithm. Civil suits against content creators seems like one of the only viable ways forward to me, as stupid as it is.

iamaelephant 7y ago
I don't think any of these things, no. I think content, tracking and engagement restrictions should be performed on the Youtube Kids app, and that parents should be responsible for ensuring their kids are using the appropriate apps/accounts. I think restricting features based on the content of the video is doomed to failure, as many have discussed in this thread.