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Yes, this is true, but I suggest it's because despite the privacy invasion, we don't know that much about individuals. We don't need to though. Literally just

by jariel 6y ago

Yes, this is true, but I suggest it's because despite the privacy invasion, we don't know that much about individuals. We don't need to though. Literally just basic demographics, plus a few interest points ... that's all I think we need to do well of those could be reliable.

cm2012 6y ago
This is incredibly not true. For one, the best data point FB has on predicting personal likelihood to click an ad is which ads that person has clicked in the past.
- jariel 6y ago
  I don't know what you are objecting to i.e. Social Media surprisingly not knowing a lot about us - or - the need only for relatively small amount of solid demo data. On the first point - they just don't know that much about us. That's what the whole post is about (!) They were lying advertisers ad to the probabilistic estimates of who we are. Go here: https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en Google will show what they know about you if you have that on. It's not very accurate at all. It's very fuzzy. For me they have wrong age, a lot of wrong interests. So they surprisingly don't know a lot, just because someone clicks on an add ... that is not a lot of information - there's so many reasons we click on ads. Google thinks I'm into cars and I don't even drive, I hate cars! As for basic targeting - it's mostly what advertisers need. So age, education, income, zip code (or zip code classification), rough location would be great. Plus just a few, solid interests (real ones, not estimated) - and that would be a big step forward for ads. So yes - our privacy is fairly aggressively invaded at the same time they can only glean so much from it. Seems like a Paradox.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  > the best data point FB Do you have any evidence to back this up? I can't find any published literature where Facebook has hinted this, including this paper [0] saying: > As expected the most important thing is to have the right features: those capturing historical information about the user or ad dominate other types of features. 0. https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical-lessons-from-predicting-clicks-on-ads-at-facebook.pdf https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical...

by jariel 6y ago

cm2012 6y ago

This is incredibly not true. For one, the best data point FB has on predicting personal likelihood to click an ad is which ads that person has clicked in the past.

jariel 6y ago
I don't know what you are objecting to i.e. Social Media surprisingly not knowing a lot about us - or - the need only for relatively small amount of solid demo data. On the first point - they just don't know that much about us. That's what the whole post is about (!) They were lying advertisers ad to the probabilistic estimates of who we are. Go here: https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en Google will show what they know about you if you have that on. It's not very accurate at all. It's very fuzzy. For me they have wrong age, a lot of wrong interests. So they surprisingly don't know a lot, just because someone clicks on an add ... that is not a lot of information - there's so many reasons we click on ads. Google thinks I'm into cars and I don't even drive, I hate cars! As for basic targeting - it's mostly what advertisers need. So age, education, income, zip code (or zip code classification), rough location would be great. Plus just a few, solid interests (real ones, not estimated) - and that would be a big step forward for ads. So yes - our privacy is fairly aggressively invaded at the same time they can only glean so much from it. Seems like a Paradox.
tomnipotent 6y ago
> the best data point FB Do you have any evidence to back this up? I can't find any published literature where Facebook has hinted this, including this paper [0] saying: > As expected the most important thing is to have the right features: those capturing historical information about the user or ad dominate other types of features. 0. https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical-lessons-from-predicting-clicks-on-ads-at-facebook.pdf https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical...