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This is the million (or trillion) dollar question. I doubt its 1%. In fact I think its more like 2-3-4x revenue from personalised ads. Just a hunch. (side que

by zpeti 6y ago

This is the million (or trillion) dollar question. I doubt its 1%. In fact I think its more like 2-3-4x revenue from personalised ads. Just a hunch. (side question - how do you do context ads for FB news feed? Because I can see it working well for youtube, if you know the topic of the video. Or google search, where you know the search. But I don't see how you can't NOT use personal ads in a newsfeed, whether on FB or twitter. There is no real context in a stream of random information)

messutied 6y ago
Can't you just use the context of the information? like put a technology related Ad right below a post related to technology, granted is not nearly as relevant, I think that's kind of like what Reddit does.
jon-wood 6y ago
I feel like whether particular data can be used for targeting should come down to whether there's a reasonable expectation of privacy. In the context of a Facebook news feed it seems reasonable to me that Facebook should have data on which news sources or groups I'm following, and so it's entirely reasonable for them to use that data for ad targeting. I don't feel like it's reasonable to expect that Facebook should have access to the history of all the websites I've visited, and data on the content of those websites, so it doesn't seem reasonable that they should be using that data to target ads at me. Similarly for Google, targeting ads based on things I've searched for on Google is entirely reasonable. Targeting them based on the fact Google Maps has picked up a BLE beacon saying I was in a particular shop seems a lot less reasonable - Google frankly have no business knowing that I was in that shop, especially given there's unlikely to be any signs up notifying me that my visit to that store is being tracked. I guess my underlying issue isn't in companies doing personalised ad targeting, its in the massive pools of seemingly unrelated data they're collecting to do that targeting. I've been immersed in the world of technology and aware of privacy issues around it for decades, and even I'm surprised by some of the things that are being correlated for the sake of a 0.25% increase in conversion rate. The average person doesn't have a hope of keeping track of what's being done, and changes like bringing that data collection front and centre when installed apps is a really positive move.

by zpeti 6y ago

messutied 6y ago

Can't you just use the context of the information? like put a technology related Ad right below a post related to technology, granted is not nearly as relevant, I think that's kind of like what Reddit does.

jon-wood 6y ago

I feel like whether particular data can be used for targeting should come down to whether there's a reasonable expectation of privacy. In the context of a Facebook news feed it seems reasonable to me that Facebook should have data on which news sources or groups I'm following, and so it's entirely reasonable for them to use that data for ad targeting. I don't feel like it's reasonable to expect that Facebook should have access to the history of all the websites I've visited, and data on the content of those websites, so it doesn't seem reasonable that they should be using that data to target ads at me. Similarly for Google, targeting ads based on things I've searched for on Google is entirely reasonable. Targeting them based on the fact Google Maps has picked up a BLE beacon saying I was in a particular shop seems a lot less reasonable - Google frankly have no business knowing that I was in that shop, especially given there's unlikely to be any signs up notifying me that my visit to that store is being tracked. I guess my underlying issue isn't in companies doing personalised ad targeting, its in the massive pools of seemingly unrelated data they're collecting to do that targeting. I've been immersed in the world of technology and aware of privacy issues around it for decades, and even I'm surprised by some of the things that are being correlated for the sake of a 0.25% increase in conversion rate. The average person doesn't have a hope of keeping track of what's being done, and changes like bringing that data collection front and centre when installed apps is a really positive move.