4 ms·

Micro Targeting can absolutely be abused and you have done a good job outlining the dark side of targeting. But to say nothing would be lost from banning it be

Micro Targeting can absolutely be abused and you have done a good job outlining the dark side of targeting. But to say nothing would be lost from banning it because its always used without regard for health and dignity is way to far. Brands like Zappos Adaptive which sells adult shoes that don't need to be tied to people with Autism. Its very hard to do this kind of sales without targeting people affected by disability. The same goes for companies innovating in Wheelchairs, diabetes care, etc..

inglor_cz 6y ago
Would "people who bought this book also bought books X,Y,Z" count as microtargeting? Because I actually find these recommendations valuable.
- hnick 6y ago
  I think it would, and it's in a similar category to YouTube constructing an alternate reality based on videos I watched. The difference is that it takes longer (and I personally have to overcome more inertia) to read a book than to binge watch outrage media or something on YouTube.
- dathinab 6y ago
  I think we might need to differ between advertisers choosing the micro targets and automatic context dependent microtargeting . And for the later we probably would need to differentiate between basing the automatic general purpose targeting based on the current context (the site you are on + what subsection of the site you are on + what you have in your shopping car and similar) with the actual context + history + ML based micro categorization. In general what I am against is advertisements where - the advertiser can choose targets based on too fine grained categories (micro categories) - people get classified with too fine grained categories (Both points are mostly the same.) So "people who bought this book also bought books X,Y,Z" is IMHO fine, even if it can sometime lead to bad situations as it can be abused much less. (EDIT: But that partially because it shows real products, "people who have seen XY news also see Z news" would be a different thing.)

inglor_cz 6y ago

Would "people who bought this book also bought books X,Y,Z" count as microtargeting? Because I actually find these recommendations valuable.

hnick 6y ago
I think it would, and it's in a similar category to YouTube constructing an alternate reality based on videos I watched. The difference is that it takes longer (and I personally have to overcome more inertia) to read a book than to binge watch outrage media or something on YouTube.
dathinab 6y ago
I think we might need to differ between advertisers choosing the micro targets and automatic context dependent microtargeting . And for the later we probably would need to differentiate between basing the automatic general purpose targeting based on the current context (the site you are on + what subsection of the site you are on + what you have in your shopping car and similar) with the actual context + history + ML based micro categorization. In general what I am against is advertisements where - the advertiser can choose targets based on too fine grained categories (micro categories) - people get classified with too fine grained categories (Both points are mostly the same.) So "people who bought this book also bought books X,Y,Z" is IMHO fine, even if it can sometime lead to bad situations as it can be abused much less. (EDIT: But that partially because it shows real products, "people who have seen XY news also see Z news" would be a different thing.)