4 ms·

>a flat out dismissal of Ads in general. Yes, I agree. That is indeed another unoriginal, stale perspective. The question for me isn't so much whether hear f

>a flat out dismissal of Ads in general. Yes, I agree. That is indeed another unoriginal, stale perspective. The question for me isn't so much whether hear from one side more than the other, but whether there is some new idea. For me, intellectual content matters much more than equal representation in (social) media. By this measure, the OP's post is equally trite. >In the context of Ads. Not all ads are large-scale collection of personal information. We're talking about Google ads here. Let's stop pretending otherwise. >Which is what FloC was ( AFAIK ) trying to solve. Leaving my skepticism aside for a moment, this may have been an opportunity for OP to provide some insight into how the adtech market is evolving, and make the case that it is headed in an ethical direction. He did not. There is no insight here, either. So again, I think a downvote is a pretty reasonable and measured response. The OP's post was unconvincing and cliched. No big deal. I've written plenty of stuff like that, myself.

jefftk 6y ago
> this may have been an opportunity for OP to provide some insight into how the adtech market is evolving, and make the case that it is headed in an ethical direction. He did not There's a section of post with "build browser APIs that will allow this kind of well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers, and then get rid of third-party cookies"; I'm curious what you think of it?
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  I personally am of the opinion that "targeted advertising" _is_ the problem. Random generic advertising is fine. It isn't as profitable but it doesn't exploit a person's mental weaknesses. Targeted advertising is straight up exploitation. Kids being bombarded with ads for plastic surgery nonestop on TikTok, radicalized individuals being targeted with fear-based ads. This is super toxic. And while advertising is a tale as old as human commerce, such insane targeted advertising is not.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    I agree those are bad, but those don't seem to be unique to user targeting? You would have the same thing with contextual ads (since what page someone is on is still pretty correlated with generic demographics like "is a kid" or "is a radicalized individual")
    - skinkestek 6y ago
      Since you work at Google, and on ads: The insanely annoying thing that I have seen for a long time is that despite the fact that you have more information on me than anyone else the ads have been either useless or even insulting for years. I remember bothering to click through the microscopic x in tve corner and select not relevant or something on Thai mail order brides. What did I get next? Filipino mail orders brides. Out of curiosity I marked a number of them as not relevant and I think I also saw: - Polish - Ukrainian - Chinese - and possibly a couple of more nationalities - later I got ads for older women near me - and then gay cruises This went on for years. Last year I finally started seing ads for electronics etc but now I feel no remorse for blocking ads anymore. I'm just fed up. Meanwhile Facebook, for all their faults and despite me blocking them for far longer than Google actually has had interesting ads. Edit: I've nothing against Filipino or Thais or gay people or anyone, but I have something against scantily clad women etc showing up on my monitor both at work and at home and I think it says something about Google that they think this was the most relevant ads they could show me for years.
      - lupire 5y ago
        That sounds a lot like a trojan installed in your browser, or perhaps someone who shares your computer has peculiar habits.
        skinkestek 5y ago
        Across a number of machines, tablets and phones. Work and personal. Much more likely explanation IMO (someone please correct me if I am wrong): Google get paid by the view these days and optimize for the most expensive views.

jefftk 6y ago

> this may have been an opportunity for OP to provide some insight into how the adtech market is evolving, and make the case that it is headed in an ethical direction. He did not There's a section of post with "build browser APIs that will allow this kind of well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers, and then get rid of third-party cookies"; I'm curious what you think of it?

Justsignedup 6y ago
I personally am of the opinion that "targeted advertising" _is_ the problem. Random generic advertising is fine. It isn't as profitable but it doesn't exploit a person's mental weaknesses. Targeted advertising is straight up exploitation. Kids being bombarded with ads for plastic surgery nonestop on TikTok, radicalized individuals being targeted with fear-based ads. This is super toxic. And while advertising is a tale as old as human commerce, such insane targeted advertising is not.
- jefftk 6y ago
  I agree those are bad, but those don't seem to be unique to user targeting? You would have the same thing with contextual ads (since what page someone is on is still pretty correlated with generic demographics like "is a kid" or "is a radicalized individual")
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    Since you work at Google, and on ads: The insanely annoying thing that I have seen for a long time is that despite the fact that you have more information on me than anyone else the ads have been either useless or even insulting for years. I remember bothering to click through the microscopic x in tve corner and select not relevant or something on Thai mail order brides. What did I get next? Filipino mail orders brides. Out of curiosity I marked a number of them as not relevant and I think I also saw: - Polish - Ukrainian - Chinese - and possibly a couple of more nationalities - later I got ads for older women near me - and then gay cruises This went on for years. Last year I finally started seing ads for electronics etc but now I feel no remorse for blocking ads anymore. I'm just fed up. Meanwhile Facebook, for all their faults and despite me blocking them for far longer than Google actually has had interesting ads. Edit: I've nothing against Filipino or Thais or gay people or anyone, but I have something against scantily clad women etc showing up on my monitor both at work and at home and I think it says something about Google that they think this was the most relevant ads they could show me for years.
    - lupire 5y ago
      That sounds a lot like a trojan installed in your browser, or perhaps someone who shares your computer has peculiar habits.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        Across a number of machines, tablets and phones. Work and personal. Much more likely explanation IMO (someone please correct me if I am wrong): Google get paid by the view these days and optimize for the most expensive views.