3 ms·

No, it's not a terrible question. It is a general question about the business of online advertising, something that Sundar Pichai is unquestionably an expert a

by blhack 6y ago

No, it's not a terrible question. It is a general question about the business of online advertising, something that Sundar Pichai is unquestionably an expert about since he is the CEO of the largest company in the world that sells online advertising, and for all you know it could have been a web game that the grand daughter was playing in a chrome browser. A reasonable, non-combative answer to this question may have been something along the lines of: Senator, ad providers have little control over what the content of the ads that are going into these applications is. While I'm not sure what the specific ad that your granddaughter saw was, I can tell you that at google, there is a system where a user can report an ad as inappropriate. Again I'm not sure what the specific ad that you saw was, or if it was part of google's advertising platform, but if it was, you could have reported that to google for review, and I can understand why that would have been an uncomfortable experience for you.

squeaky-clean 6y ago
Strong disagree, it's a terrible question, most likely not entirely factual, and there's no reason to dignify it with an in depth answer as it would require breaking down multiple company's ad ecosystems for one question. You're re-interpreting the question as something he didn't actually say. The question, as it is in the official record is "how does that show up on a 7 year old's iPhone". > Senator, ad providers have little control over what the content of the ads that are going into these applications is. This isn't really true, and also if interpreted in the most negative way it can be, this is opening up a big can of worms that isn't true. To say that they have little control over whether an ad somehow finds a picture of your grandfather and shows it to you is just straight up false. The only ad network where this is possible is Facebook and the advertisers do not get access to those images or know what names they are using to affiliate with their ads. Only that they can show names from a user's friends list. I still think the most likely assumption is that the ad showed an old man and the 7 year old assumes any elderly man is her grandpa, or that the congressman made up the scenario based on something similar happening (seeing an ad in a facebook feed with a photo of the grandpa). It's a combative question and deserves a combative answer. It's like when my mom calls me to say her iPhone is showing an error on the screen, but she can't remember what it was. So I ask her to write it down on a piece of paper and then call me next time it happens. It is always "A new version of iOS is available for your device. Press OK to upgrade to iOS x.x.x." Edit: If they were chatting at the bar about how ad networks work, it's one thing. But this is a congressional hearing and there's no reason you should need to potentially implicate yourself on a situation that doesn't even exist.
- blhack 6y ago
  Let's look at the possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant. Question: "how does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone". Interpretation 1: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone" Senator, the iphone has a component on the front of it called an LED screen. LED stands for "light emitting diode", and the screen itself, which is similar in composition to a piece of glass, contains millions of these LEDs. The software in the phone selectively turns these LEDs (called pixels) on and off in patterns which your eyes interpret as images and text. Interpretation 2: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone" Senator, there is a complex system of interactions between the user and the device they are using which influences the things that show up on the phone. I'm not sure what specific actions your grand daughter took to cause that specific ad to show up on her phone; one of the goals of interface design is to allow the user to precisely indicate to the device or software system what it is that they wish to see, or have the system produce. Likely there were some actions that your grand daughter took that caused the ad you are concerned about to appear, and some of these actions were likely tracked as a part of an advertising network which takes into account previous actions, location, browsing histo.. <Speaker the senators time is expired> Interpretation 3: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone" Senator I am not sure how the age of your granddaughter is effecting that advertisements that she is seeing in this specific case, however I can tell you that at google, age is certainly a part of the algorithm we use to select which ads we show to children. Interpretation 4: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone" Senator my company doesn't make the iphone.
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    > possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant. This is not how things work legally. If they want better answers they need better questions. It's not about interpreting what they meant but never actually said. Especially when what they said it accusatory of Google and very likely false. He asked a terrible question, and you're bending over backwards to interpret it in the most charitable way possible. That's fine on HN, or in a group of friends. That is not how things work at a congressional hearing. If I was Sundar, my answer would be that without photographic proof I don't believe this ever actually happened. Cheers to whomever is downvoting my responses. It doesn't change the fact that it was a bad question and it got a deservedly snarky answer. I'm leaving this thread, it's clear most people here don't want to understand ads and just want to be angry at the big corp.

by blhack 6y ago

squeaky-clean 6y ago

Strong disagree, it's a terrible question, most likely not entirely factual, and there's no reason to dignify it with an in depth answer as it would require breaking down multiple company's ad ecosystems for one question. You're re-interpreting the question as something he didn't actually say. The question, as it is in the official record is "how does that show up on a 7 year old's iPhone". > Senator, ad providers have little control over what the content of the ads that are going into these applications is. This isn't really true, and also if interpreted in the most negative way it can be, this is opening up a big can of worms that isn't true. To say that they have little control over whether an ad somehow finds a picture of your grandfather and shows it to you is just straight up false. The only ad network where this is possible is Facebook and the advertisers do not get access to those images or know what names they are using to affiliate with their ads. Only that they can show names from a user's friends list. I still think the most likely assumption is that the ad showed an old man and the 7 year old assumes any elderly man is her grandpa, or that the congressman made up the scenario based on something similar happening (seeing an ad in a facebook feed with a photo of the grandpa). It's a combative question and deserves a combative answer. It's like when my mom calls me to say her iPhone is showing an error on the screen, but she can't remember what it was. So I ask her to write it down on a piece of paper and then call me next time it happens. It is always "A new version of iOS is available for your device. Press OK to upgrade to iOS x.x.x." Edit: If they were chatting at the bar about how ad networks work, it's one thing. But this is a congressional hearing and there's no reason you should need to potentially implicate yourself on a situation that doesn't even exist.

blhack 6y ago
Let's look at the possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant. Question: "how does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone". Interpretation 1: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone" Senator, the iphone has a component on the front of it called an LED screen. LED stands for "light emitting diode", and the screen itself, which is similar in composition to a piece of glass, contains millions of these LEDs. The software in the phone selectively turns these LEDs (called pixels) on and off in patterns which your eyes interpret as images and text. Interpretation 2: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone" Senator, there is a complex system of interactions between the user and the device they are using which influences the things that show up on the phone. I'm not sure what specific actions your grand daughter took to cause that specific ad to show up on her phone; one of the goals of interface design is to allow the user to precisely indicate to the device or software system what it is that they wish to see, or have the system produce. Likely there were some actions that your grand daughter took that caused the ad you are concerned about to appear, and some of these actions were likely tracked as a part of an advertising network which takes into account previous actions, location, browsing histo.. <Speaker the senators time is expired> Interpretation 3: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone" Senator I am not sure how the age of your granddaughter is effecting that advertisements that she is seeing in this specific case, however I can tell you that at google, age is certainly a part of the algorithm we use to select which ads we show to children. Interpretation 4: >"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone" Senator my company doesn't make the iphone.
- squeaky-clean 6y ago
  > possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant. This is not how things work legally. If they want better answers they need better questions. It's not about interpreting what they meant but never actually said. Especially when what they said it accusatory of Google and very likely false. He asked a terrible question, and you're bending over backwards to interpret it in the most charitable way possible. That's fine on HN, or in a group of friends. That is not how things work at a congressional hearing. If I was Sundar, my answer would be that without photographic proof I don't believe this ever actually happened. Cheers to whomever is downvoting my responses. It doesn't change the fact that it was a bad question and it got a deservedly snarky answer. I'm leaving this thread, it's clear most people here don't want to understand ads and just want to be angry at the big corp.