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Old: Google collected data, kept it on their servers, and sold advertising against that data. They don't ask permission, they don't let you black out categories

Old: Google collected data, kept it on their servers, and sold advertising against that data. They don't ask permission, they don't let you black out categories you don't want to see advertising against. Nor do they (effectively) prevent malicious actors from using that advertising to sell content to manipulate people. Now: Exactly the same, only Google uses your hard drive to store the data. There are some privacy issues addressed by this, but it doesn't address many of the issues with personalized targeting. It's neat when you are talking about things like fishing, but targeted advertising has also been used in multiple countries to manipulate elections by outside governments. It's also been used to out gay people and racist marketing.

ehsankia 5y ago
If your problem is targeted advertising, then yes, this definitely isn't trying to solve that. The goal here is to solve your data being leaked all over the internet. We can have an entirely separate discussion on whether the value of targeted ads. You named a few downside but are completely ignoring the upsides. The fact that without them, anyone other than large corporations would be entirely cut out of advertising their product. Any small business or creator with a niche demographic is basically screwed. If you make an app for some video game, a cure for some specific disease, gear for a specific sport, all those people would basically be locked out of advertising their products.
- ogre_codes 5y ago
  You can’t attack the problems online advertising presents one by one, any solution needs to think about the other issues around it. It isn’t just about privacy. If there was a reasonable sized white list of fairly harmless “interests”, then maybe. The way things are now, interest groups are too fine grained and far too personal. I’m not convinced at all that granting small businesses access to this kind of targeted advertising is worth the risks it introduces.
- hakfoo 5y ago
  > The fact that without them, anyone other than large corporations would be entirely cut out of advertising their product I don't follow your premise. Big ad networks and targeting make advertising slicker, but that's different from making it possible at all. In the world of Google ads and targeted profiles, you ask for demographic units, and buy a handful of impressions on a thousand random sites that you've been promised are to relevant viewers. Without profiling, you'd have to focus on where you want the ads to appear-- either by negotiation with individual publishers, or using an ad network that lets you select publishers by category or requesting page-level keyword matches.
pizzazzaro 5y ago
Yes, google is now offloafing the storage requirements for our data onto... Us. One problem for google: physical access is the highest trump card in security. I cant wait to see a third-party chrome plugin that exists to poison the data en masse. Our hard drive gives us actual control. Think deleting cookies changed the browsing experience? Imagine being able to intentionally spoof this floc. Until we develop this capability? It is an absolute privacy loss. Afterwards? "Incognito mode," eat your heart out.

ehsankia 5y ago

If your problem is targeted advertising, then yes, this definitely isn't trying to solve that. The goal here is to solve your data being leaked all over the internet. We can have an entirely separate discussion on whether the value of targeted ads. You named a few downside but are completely ignoring the upsides. The fact that without them, anyone other than large corporations would be entirely cut out of advertising their product. Any small business or creator with a niche demographic is basically screwed. If you make an app for some video game, a cure for some specific disease, gear for a specific sport, all those people would basically be locked out of advertising their products.

ogre_codes 5y ago
You can’t attack the problems online advertising presents one by one, any solution needs to think about the other issues around it. It isn’t just about privacy. If there was a reasonable sized white list of fairly harmless “interests”, then maybe. The way things are now, interest groups are too fine grained and far too personal. I’m not convinced at all that granting small businesses access to this kind of targeted advertising is worth the risks it introduces.
hakfoo 5y ago
> The fact that without them, anyone other than large corporations would be entirely cut out of advertising their product I don't follow your premise. Big ad networks and targeting make advertising slicker, but that's different from making it possible at all. In the world of Google ads and targeted profiles, you ask for demographic units, and buy a handful of impressions on a thousand random sites that you've been promised are to relevant viewers. Without profiling, you'd have to focus on where you want the ads to appear-- either by negotiation with individual publishers, or using an ad network that lets you select publishers by category or requesting page-level keyword matches.

pizzazzaro 5y ago

Yes, google is now offloafing the storage requirements for our data onto... Us. One problem for google: physical access is the highest trump card in security. I cant wait to see a third-party chrome plugin that exists to poison the data en masse. Our hard drive gives us actual control. Think deleting cookies changed the browsing experience? Imagine being able to intentionally spoof this floc. Until we develop this capability? It is an absolute privacy loss. Afterwards? "Incognito mode," eat your heart out.