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The advertising industry has done a terrible job explaining its role in the open internet and how personal the data collected actually gets. "Surveillance" imp

The advertising industry has done a terrible job explaining its role in the open internet and how personal the data collected actually gets. "Surveillance" implies that someone is actually watching you, knows and cares who you are as an individual. This can't be further from the truth- no one cares about "you" as an individual, that kind of identifying data is absolutely useless because you by yourself aren't worth anything from a data perspective. You as an anonymous member of a data segment containing tens of thousands (or more) anonymous individuals is what's worth something. So the data collected can't be used to identify you. For those of you saying "ban all ads" are living in a fantasy land. Most popular content and services online are supported by advertising. Email, search, maps, entertainment, news, etc. The vast majority of global internet users can't afford to pay for these services and content. "They don't need to waste time on X" you may say, but why do you get to decide?

throwaway3699 5y ago
There's also a large cohort of people that aren't against targeted ads, but are against large companies like Google and Facebook. The problem is removing 3rd-party targeted ads would not hurt the giants, but embolden them, as 1st-parties will be able to use this data with impunity.
chalst 5y ago
> that kind of identifying data is absolutely useless because you by yourself aren't worth anything from a data perspective. I hate to get all Godwin's law on you, but you don't think, say, Jews in the 1930s might have had reason to worry about the business model of third-party analytics companies if they existed back then?
- olegious 5y ago
  It is a stretch to connect anonymized data collection that can't be used to ID anyone to the Holocaust.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    It is a stretch, but then "anonymized data collection that can't be used to ID anyone" is also not an accurate description of what the advertising industry does.
    - olegious 5y ago
      If you take an individual ID from a group of 100K IDs that represent a data segment, how do you back that out into PII?
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  They did exist, that's where the connection to IBM census machines comes in. The earlier census made targeting undesirables easy.

throwaway3699 5y ago

There's also a large cohort of people that aren't against targeted ads, but are against large companies like Google and Facebook. The problem is removing 3rd-party targeted ads would not hurt the giants, but embolden them, as 1st-parties will be able to use this data with impunity.

chalst 5y ago

> that kind of identifying data is absolutely useless because you by yourself aren't worth anything from a data perspective. I hate to get all Godwin's law on you, but you don't think, say, Jews in the 1930s might have had reason to worry about the business model of third-party analytics companies if they existed back then?

olegious 5y ago
It is a stretch to connect anonymized data collection that can't be used to ID anyone to the Holocaust.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  It is a stretch, but then "anonymized data collection that can't be used to ID anyone" is also not an accurate description of what the advertising industry does.
  - olegious 5y ago
    If you take an individual ID from a group of 100K IDs that represent a data segment, how do you back that out into PII?
mixmastamyk 5y ago
They did exist, that's where the connection to IBM census machines comes in. The earlier census made targeting undesirables easy.