4 ms·

Give me a break. This isn't evil marketers hiding in their underground lair. This is web developers, designers, and product managers gaining insight about the

by teej 15y ago

Give me a break. This isn't evil marketers hiding in their underground lair. This is web developers, designers, and product managers gaining insight about their users. They don't package this information and sell it wholesale to advertisers. They use it to make the product better. You are taking this -way- too seriously. The ability to have perfect information on how users interact with your product is one the earth-shattering advantages we have as makers in the digital world. It means we can make something people want - better and faster than ever before. I'm not saying that all use of tracking is good. All power can be used for good and for evil. But that doesn't mean that power is implictly evil. Save your rage for when you discover someone actually being evil.

jefft 15y ago
Let's be clear: this ability isn't used to have perfect information on how users interact with your product. It's used to allow publishers to make more money from their consumers through advertising.
- palish 15y ago
  I think the reason you're being downvoted is because you didn't provide any proof.
  - jefft 15y ago
    Sites like Hulu and Spotify predominately use web analytics to gauge their audience in order to sell advertising, not to make their sites better. That may be a by-product, but that's not driving their analytics usage. Additionally, cross-site tracking isn't used for feature/usage tracking. It's used for highly targeted advertising. My point was the "shattering advantages" are really advantages for advertisers, not web designers. This technique wasn't developed with web designers in mind, so let's be clear about that.
    - palish 15y ago
      ... And my point was, you didn't cite any evidence to back up your claims. Twice. EDIT: But apparently no one cares, and will listen to whoever talks like an authority.
    - jaredmck 15y ago
      Spotify has perhaps the least targeted ads i've ever seen/heard on any media source. We listen to indie rock and classics all day only to hear the latest Jason Derulo clip several times a day as an advertisement. That's clearly not targeted in any way. There is 0% chance we will do anything but hate the song as a result of this ad. None of the ads are in any way relevant or appear to be targeted by anything more accurate than "18-35 demographic, serve them ads for shitpop" without discretion:
      - justincormack 15y ago
        Spotify dont sell enough ads to make targetting feasible. They play you all their inventory. Until you buy a subscription because it is too annoying...
goombastic 15y ago
I really miss not being able to down-vote you.
itg 15y ago
Sure there is nothing wrong with that, but these are sneaky underhanded tactics. Users should be able to opt-out if they don't want to be tracked.
- jaredmck 15y ago
  Want to opt out? Don't visit sites using tracking methods with which you disagree. This is a fairly trivial way of opting out of such tracking, and would help incentivize those sites to change their tracking policies and technologies. If you really care that much, vote with your actions. It won't change anything, much like voting in united states elections, but you can at least back up your stance while knowing that most people do not care one bit nor wish to think about what happens behind the scenes of each website, tv program, and news story they consume in the course of being entertained. You're free to choose, at least until you decide not to be.
cowboyhero 15y ago
> They don't package this information and sell it wholesale to advertisers. Yet. Genie, meet bottle. Thinking this information will never be sold is short sighted and naive. When it becomes advantageous for them to do so, they'll sell it in a heartbeat and then sell it again. Somewhere in there the FBI and the NSA will start making "requests" for them to share with the government. What begins as clever social commentary in movies like Minority Report tends to wind up as a sad fact of life years later.
a3_nm 15y ago
> Save your rage for when you discover someone actually being evil. So it's okay for them to be evil as long as we don't discover that they are? More seriously, once they have the info, how can we be sure we nail them? The best way is still to ensure that they don't get the information in the first place.
thehotdon 15y ago
Marketers do nothing to "make the product better". They pump exorbitant amounts of money into advertising, thereby increasing the final price paid by customers without increasing product quality. Furthermore, they use these advertisements to inflate their customers' perceived value of the products, once again, without actually increasing product quality. Marketers maximize profits, not quality.
- sixtofour 15y ago
  If a product is crappy, no one will see the advertisements. If a product is great, people will use it, and see. Google is nothing but an advertising company, yet 99+% of us only ever see them as a search, email, blogging, and cloud docs company. A huge number of us use their products, because they're good products. As their products improve, their cash accumulates. I've never been in a Google meeting, but I suppose Google's marketers have some input into product development; at Google, that input is probably based on data.
- klbarry 15y ago
  Value does not exist except as what the customer perceives value to be.
zedshaw 15y ago
Bullshit. If it was used to improve a product, they wouldn't use a tracking method that tracks me between sites. They can track what I do on their site, but if I'm going from goat-sucking-maggot.com to hulu.com, then Hulu has no business knowing that and knowing that doesn't improve their damn product. This is entirely just an attempt to get competitive analysis about their competitors at the expense of user privacy.
- jaredmck 15y ago
  Since when have users been entitled to privacy? It's just more obvious now when user data is collected, and things move much faster so it's on a more tangible scale. Small town gossip was used in much the same way to gain competitive edges at the expense of customer privacy, it just wasn't as easy to see/prove how the data moved from one spot to another back in the days of pre-electronic commerce.
  - sixtofour 15y ago
    Users can demand privacy. It's not a given who has rights to what, privacy or data.
- pretzel 15y ago
  It's not competitor analysis, necessarily. I think rather they are trying to find out where users came to their site from so they can more accurately attribute the site that directed them, and thus throw more money at sites that do a good job of referring you to them, as opposed to just using "last click attribution". It's about them finding out how to best use their advertising budget.
- sixtofour 15y ago
  I'm not defending KM, and I'm not disagreeing that "Hulu has no business," but ... If Hulu sees that noticeable numbers of visitors to sites like goat-sucking-maggot.com, or that site and a combination of other sites, tend to watch movies of a certain genre or other attribute, they can offer more movies like that, and suggest them for visitors to g-s-m.com. Which does improve their product, especially for visitors to g-s-m.com.

by teej 15y ago

jefft 15y ago

Let's be clear: this ability isn't used to have perfect information on how users interact with your product. It's used to allow publishers to make more money from their consumers through advertising.

palish 15y ago
I think the reason you're being downvoted is because you didn't provide any proof.
- jefft 15y ago
  Sites like Hulu and Spotify predominately use web analytics to gauge their audience in order to sell advertising, not to make their sites better. That may be a by-product, but that's not driving their analytics usage. Additionally, cross-site tracking isn't used for feature/usage tracking. It's used for highly targeted advertising. My point was the "shattering advantages" are really advantages for advertisers, not web designers. This technique wasn't developed with web designers in mind, so let's be clear about that.
  - palish 15y ago
    ... And my point was, you didn't cite any evidence to back up your claims. Twice. EDIT: But apparently no one cares, and will listen to whoever talks like an authority.
  - jaredmck 15y ago
    Spotify has perhaps the least targeted ads i've ever seen/heard on any media source. We listen to indie rock and classics all day only to hear the latest Jason Derulo clip several times a day as an advertisement. That's clearly not targeted in any way. There is 0% chance we will do anything but hate the song as a result of this ad. None of the ads are in any way relevant or appear to be targeted by anything more accurate than "18-35 demographic, serve them ads for shitpop" without discretion:
    - justincormack 15y ago
      Spotify dont sell enough ads to make targetting feasible. They play you all their inventory. Until you buy a subscription because it is too annoying...

goombastic 15y ago

I really miss not being able to down-vote you.

itg 15y ago

Sure there is nothing wrong with that, but these are sneaky underhanded tactics. Users should be able to opt-out if they don't want to be tracked.

jaredmck 15y ago
Want to opt out? Don't visit sites using tracking methods with which you disagree. This is a fairly trivial way of opting out of such tracking, and would help incentivize those sites to change their tracking policies and technologies. If you really care that much, vote with your actions. It won't change anything, much like voting in united states elections, but you can at least back up your stance while knowing that most people do not care one bit nor wish to think about what happens behind the scenes of each website, tv program, and news story they consume in the course of being entertained. You're free to choose, at least until you decide not to be.

cowboyhero 15y ago

> They don't package this information and sell it wholesale to advertisers. Yet. Genie, meet bottle. Thinking this information will never be sold is short sighted and naive. When it becomes advantageous for them to do so, they'll sell it in a heartbeat and then sell it again. Somewhere in there the FBI and the NSA will start making "requests" for them to share with the government. What begins as clever social commentary in movies like Minority Report tends to wind up as a sad fact of life years later.

a3_nm 15y ago

> Save your rage for when you discover someone actually being evil. So it's okay for them to be evil as long as we don't discover that they are? More seriously, once they have the info, how can we be sure we nail them? The best way is still to ensure that they don't get the information in the first place.

thehotdon 15y ago

Marketers do nothing to "make the product better". They pump exorbitant amounts of money into advertising, thereby increasing the final price paid by customers without increasing product quality. Furthermore, they use these advertisements to inflate their customers' perceived value of the products, once again, without actually increasing product quality. Marketers maximize profits, not quality.

sixtofour 15y ago
If a product is crappy, no one will see the advertisements. If a product is great, people will use it, and see. Google is nothing but an advertising company, yet 99+% of us only ever see them as a search, email, blogging, and cloud docs company. A huge number of us use their products, because they're good products. As their products improve, their cash accumulates. I've never been in a Google meeting, but I suppose Google's marketers have some input into product development; at Google, that input is probably based on data.
klbarry 15y ago
Value does not exist except as what the customer perceives value to be.

zedshaw 15y ago

Bullshit. If it was used to improve a product, they wouldn't use a tracking method that tracks me between sites. They can track what I do on their site, but if I'm going from goat-sucking-maggot.com to hulu.com, then Hulu has no business knowing that and knowing that doesn't improve their damn product. This is entirely just an attempt to get competitive analysis about their competitors at the expense of user privacy.

jaredmck 15y ago
Since when have users been entitled to privacy? It's just more obvious now when user data is collected, and things move much faster so it's on a more tangible scale. Small town gossip was used in much the same way to gain competitive edges at the expense of customer privacy, it just wasn't as easy to see/prove how the data moved from one spot to another back in the days of pre-electronic commerce.
- sixtofour 15y ago
  Users can demand privacy. It's not a given who has rights to what, privacy or data.
pretzel 15y ago
It's not competitor analysis, necessarily. I think rather they are trying to find out where users came to their site from so they can more accurately attribute the site that directed them, and thus throw more money at sites that do a good job of referring you to them, as opposed to just using "last click attribution". It's about them finding out how to best use their advertising budget.
sixtofour 15y ago
I'm not defending KM, and I'm not disagreeing that "Hulu has no business," but ... If Hulu sees that noticeable numbers of visitors to sites like goat-sucking-maggot.com, or that site and a combination of other sites, tend to watch movies of a certain genre or other attribute, they can offer more movies like that, and suggest them for visitors to g-s-m.com. Which does improve their product, especially for visitors to g-s-m.com.