6 ms·

Besides encouraging people to buy things you might think they don't need, what's an actual harm people experience from targeted ads as opposed to non targeted a

by cm2012 6y ago

Besides encouraging people to buy things you might think they don't need, what's an actual harm people experience from targeted ads as opposed to non targeted ads?

marricks 6y ago
I guess the choice could be fine, but the simple fact that every year it gets harder and to harder to opt is terrifying. And perhaps the terrifying privacy implications of such a system.
tomjen3 6y ago
If I see an ad for healing crystals on some rando website, then I just think the website is stupid. When I saw one on Facebook I was insulted, because Facebook thinks I am the kind of person who is so stupid they believe in them. You can write this of as not actual harm because it is only emotions, but it had a negative impact on me, which I consider actual harm. The other issue is information leakage. If you want to show an article on your phone to a buddy you don't want the ads to be for adult diapers.
- lovemenot 6y ago
  You are saying you'd rather be better targeted? For myself, I enjoy their failures. It's better to be wrongly identified. And that ad for adult diapers alongside another for a plausibly deniable grape de-seeding utensil... More entropy FTW!
kungito 6y ago
Personally I think that's one of the worst things you can do to a person: manipulate him into wanting more things. I fucking hate ads
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
(Disclaimer: I've been working in adtech for over 15 years.) Advertisers and publishers don't really want tracking and data collection. It carries huge costs (technical as well as social) with very little benefit for advertising. Advertisers want statistically significant and unbiased population samples, and that's not something you can arrive at by blindly throwing more data at it. Data collection by Google et al., is really because they eventually want to pivot from adtech to govtech - think "social credit" or "Minority Report". From their vantage point of course it's a much more lucrative and advantageous place to be than a mere seller of internet clickbait.
- 40four 6y ago
  I appreciate you disclosing your experience in the ad-tech industry. But I’m not sure I understand your point. It sounds like from your experience, the concept of FLoC from the main article is exactly where Google and other want to be? They want legit population samples versus the ‘noise’ of huge amounts of random individual use data? But when they are trying to market it to us as users, as a ‘privacy win’, that’s hard to swallow when you’re saying their end goal is some sort of ‘govtech’ or ‘social credit’ system.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    > It sounds like from your experience, the concept of FLoC from the main article is exactly where Google and other want to be? Yes, if it can be made into some objective standard, and not just another "trust me, I'm Google". > But when they are trying to market it to us as users, as a ‘privacy win’, that’s hard to swallow when you’re saying their end goal is some sort of ‘govtech’ or ‘social credit’ system. Yes, because Google is not just an adtech company. Obviously they are more than that. (Or at least they want to be.)
millsmob 6y ago
Former gambling addict and current mental health advocate here. For anyone with an addiction or a serious mental health problem, targeted advertising can be very dangerous. Think about the “filter bubble” effect that we experience on platforms like YouTube where we are always being “recommended” content that confirms our pre-existing beliefs. Targeted advertising is no different except that it follows you across multiple devices and multiple online platforms in order to sell your attention to the highest bidder. This might be fine if you are a capable, healthy and intelligent individual seeing ads for computer parts or shoes. What about the recovering alcoholic who is being “targeted” by alcohol advertising? Or the homeless schizophrenic girl I worked with a while ago who couldn’t escape a constant barrage of ads for highly addictive online gambling products? Our brains are all wired differently and not everyone has the same level of “free will” as you do. The entire purpose of the advertising industry is to push you away from reasoned decision making and towards compulsive consumption. As adtech becomes better at exploiting our psychological weaknesses and influencing human behaviour, I worry that we will not only see an increase in negative outcomes for the most vulnerable among us - but also an increase in mental illness among the general population as our borderline, compulsive and narcissistic traits are enabled and encouraged by soulless algorithms.
- mushbino 6y ago
  Just to add to this; I've been sober for a number of years and I remember reading about how alcohol companies specifically target people in recovery. After reading this, the targeted ads on TV and in magazines became very apparent. Knowingly contributing to ruining people's lives.
  - millsmob 6y ago
    I know for a fact this happens. Gambling companies often buy marketing data from porn websites and MLM schemes in order to better target people with “impulse control issues”. Kudos to you for your recovery and sobriety!
    - mushbino 6y ago
malikNF 6y ago
When ad-tech is mentioned we are not just talking about selling toothbrushes or cat food, its about how this technology can be used by companies and special interests groups to do damage to society, say for instance trying to target people who might be more likely to listen to an ideology that would inevitably fail our democracies. The Cambridge analyticas and the Russian bots happened because the average internet user was not paying attention to ad tech. We need better education around ad tech, we need more people to understand what these ad companies are enabling so more average internet users can stay better protected, and make better and more informed choices.
gostsamo 6y ago
Ads, tracking, and SEO content: promote low-quality information, allow all kinds of bad actors to profit from bad behavior, promote the use of adware, give economic advantage to actors who have access to big data, create market assimetries, waste my time and attention, make me stressed due to the need of locally filtering barrages of bad, dangerous, or malicious information targeted at me, put my wellbeing in danger because bad information is targeted at people around me that have influence over my everyday life. TLDR: The ad industry promotes shit content, finances fake news, and wastes my resources.
CaptainZapp 6y ago
The whole surveyance thingie and underhanded data gathering with all the implications when it comes to my privacy really seems mighty bad.
dbsmith83 6y ago
It's not just the ads. Do you actually trust the company that has personally identifying information about you? Do you trust the people working at said company? Any time you have information about someone, you can use it for nefarious purposes. > As described above, FLoC cohorts shouldn’t work as identifiers by themselves. However, any company able to identify a user in other ways—say, by offering “log in with Google” services to sites around the Internet—will be able to tie the information it learns from FLoC to the user’s profile.

by cm2012 6y ago

Besides encouraging people to buy things you might think they don't need, what's an actual harm people experience from targeted ads as opposed to non targeted ads?

marricks 6y ago

I guess the choice could be fine, but the simple fact that every year it gets harder and to harder to opt is terrifying. And perhaps the terrifying privacy implications of such a system.

tomjen3 6y ago

If I see an ad for healing crystals on some rando website, then I just think the website is stupid. When I saw one on Facebook I was insulted, because Facebook thinks I am the kind of person who is so stupid they believe in them. You can write this of as not actual harm because it is only emotions, but it had a negative impact on me, which I consider actual harm. The other issue is information leakage. If you want to show an article on your phone to a buddy you don't want the ads to be for adult diapers.

lovemenot 6y ago
You are saying you'd rather be better targeted? For myself, I enjoy their failures. It's better to be wrongly identified. And that ad for adult diapers alongside another for a plausibly deniable grape de-seeding utensil... More entropy FTW!

kungito 6y ago

Personally I think that's one of the worst things you can do to a person: manipulate him into wanting more things. I fucking hate ads

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

(Disclaimer: I've been working in adtech for over 15 years.) Advertisers and publishers don't really want tracking and data collection. It carries huge costs (technical as well as social) with very little benefit for advertising. Advertisers want statistically significant and unbiased population samples, and that's not something you can arrive at by blindly throwing more data at it. Data collection by Google et al., is really because they eventually want to pivot from adtech to govtech - think "social credit" or "Minority Report". From their vantage point of course it's a much more lucrative and advantageous place to be than a mere seller of internet clickbait.

40four 6y ago
I appreciate you disclosing your experience in the ad-tech industry. But I’m not sure I understand your point. It sounds like from your experience, the concept of FLoC from the main article is exactly where Google and other want to be? They want legit population samples versus the ‘noise’ of huge amounts of random individual use data? But when they are trying to market it to us as users, as a ‘privacy win’, that’s hard to swallow when you’re saying their end goal is some sort of ‘govtech’ or ‘social credit’ system.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  > It sounds like from your experience, the concept of FLoC from the main article is exactly where Google and other want to be? Yes, if it can be made into some objective standard, and not just another "trust me, I'm Google". > But when they are trying to market it to us as users, as a ‘privacy win’, that’s hard to swallow when you’re saying their end goal is some sort of ‘govtech’ or ‘social credit’ system. Yes, because Google is not just an adtech company. Obviously they are more than that. (Or at least they want to be.)

millsmob 6y ago

Former gambling addict and current mental health advocate here. For anyone with an addiction or a serious mental health problem, targeted advertising can be very dangerous. Think about the “filter bubble” effect that we experience on platforms like YouTube where we are always being “recommended” content that confirms our pre-existing beliefs. Targeted advertising is no different except that it follows you across multiple devices and multiple online platforms in order to sell your attention to the highest bidder. This might be fine if you are a capable, healthy and intelligent individual seeing ads for computer parts or shoes. What about the recovering alcoholic who is being “targeted” by alcohol advertising? Or the homeless schizophrenic girl I worked with a while ago who couldn’t escape a constant barrage of ads for highly addictive online gambling products? Our brains are all wired differently and not everyone has the same level of “free will” as you do. The entire purpose of the advertising industry is to push you away from reasoned decision making and towards compulsive consumption. As adtech becomes better at exploiting our psychological weaknesses and influencing human behaviour, I worry that we will not only see an increase in negative outcomes for the most vulnerable among us - but also an increase in mental illness among the general population as our borderline, compulsive and narcissistic traits are enabled and encouraged by soulless algorithms.

mushbino 6y ago
Just to add to this; I've been sober for a number of years and I remember reading about how alcohol companies specifically target people in recovery. After reading this, the targeted ads on TV and in magazines became very apparent. Knowingly contributing to ruining people's lives.
- millsmob 6y ago
  I know for a fact this happens. Gambling companies often buy marketing data from porn websites and MLM schemes in order to better target people with “impulse control issues”. Kudos to you for your recovery and sobriety!
  - mushbino 6y ago

malikNF 6y ago

When ad-tech is mentioned we are not just talking about selling toothbrushes or cat food, its about how this technology can be used by companies and special interests groups to do damage to society, say for instance trying to target people who might be more likely to listen to an ideology that would inevitably fail our democracies. The Cambridge analyticas and the Russian bots happened because the average internet user was not paying attention to ad tech. We need better education around ad tech, we need more people to understand what these ad companies are enabling so more average internet users can stay better protected, and make better and more informed choices.

gostsamo 6y ago

Ads, tracking, and SEO content: promote low-quality information, allow all kinds of bad actors to profit from bad behavior, promote the use of adware, give economic advantage to actors who have access to big data, create market assimetries, waste my time and attention, make me stressed due to the need of locally filtering barrages of bad, dangerous, or malicious information targeted at me, put my wellbeing in danger because bad information is targeted at people around me that have influence over my everyday life. TLDR: The ad industry promotes shit content, finances fake news, and wastes my resources.

CaptainZapp 6y ago

The whole surveyance thingie and underhanded data gathering with all the implications when it comes to my privacy really seems mighty bad.

dbsmith83 6y ago

It's not just the ads. Do you actually trust the company that has personally identifying information about you? Do you trust the people working at said company? Any time you have information about someone, you can use it for nefarious purposes. > As described above, FLoC cohorts shouldn’t work as identifiers by themselves. However, any company able to identify a user in other ways—say, by offering “log in with Google” services to sites around the Internet—will be able to tie the information it learns from FLoC to the user’s profile.