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The jurors (your average american) won't notice that the first paragraph contains no content.

by Jyaif 5y ago

ehnto 5y ago
Is it worth considering then that maybe they would still be right to be shocked? It suggests that while technically not correct to say they sell the personal data, it may be an immaterial nuance because the negative effect is still the same. Third party publishers can use your personal data, through Google, to target you. That they don't get to see the data is irrelevant to that revelation. The nuance of implementation that makes this technically not a violation of privacy is no secret to those in tech, but I doubt the average American would care.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  How is it not a material nuance? An individual’s data is not leaving Google’s computers. Is anyone harmed or anyone’s privacy violated even an ad buyer is allowed to choose to restrict ads to ad recipients likely to have certain characteristics?
  - ehnto 5y ago
    It's immaterial because the result of using the data is the same, the advertiser doesn't actually want my name and email, they just want to use information about me to target me better. Imagine instead of web advertising, it were phone calls. A random bicycle company calls you up one day and says, Hey Buddy, we know you were in a bicycle accident recently, we have a deal on new bicycles right now! You ask them where they got your number and how they know you were in an accident, and they say they don't actually know your number, they just bought the phonecall. It's immaterial that they don't know your phone number, because they're using it and information about you in order to influence you anyway. That's the web advertising apparatus right now. Users are unaware of how much information about themselves they give up, and advertisers are happy to use that information to sell you stuff when you're most willing to buy it. I personally find that manipulative and unethical, and I believe if it were outlined to the general public then they would also be pretty disgusted with the behavior. I won't dispute that an actual privacy violation would be much worse, since a malicious actor can do more than advertise with real user data, but that doesn't make this scenario good either. For this particular purpose I don't think it matters if they have the real data or not.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Society has a long history targeted advertising before google. I doubt that is against the law. There is quite a bit of difference in identifiable information about you being given to whoever wants to buy it, and giving someone the ability to show an ad to people of certain criteria.
      - ehnto 5y ago
        It's not against the law no, which is the point of discussion here I think. I believe it should be, which might help explain some of my opinions above. I don't think it's accurate to liken ubiquitous tracking of almost everyone across all their devices, to be the same as targeted advertising from the past. It's an entirely new behavior on an enormous, society size scale. It's having tangible negative externalities, remembering that advertising doesn't just include product placements. So you get those negative effects even without the privacy violation. I'm not trying to compare this with privacy violations, I'm more trying to argue that for the issue being discussed in the antitrust, the technicality that it's not a privacy violation doesn't actually change much except that it's not illegal. The issue still exists.

The jurors (your average american) won't notice that the first paragraph contains no content.

by Jyaif 5y ago

The jurors (your average american) won't notice that the first paragraph contains no content.

Is it worth considering then that maybe they would still be right to be shocked? It suggests that while technically not correct to say they sell the personal data, it may be an immaterial nuance because the negative effect is still the same. Third party publishers can use your personal data, through Google, to target you. That they don't get to see the data is irrelevant to that revelation. The nuance of implementation that makes this technically not a violation of privacy is no secret to those in tech, but I doubt the average American would care.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
How is it not a material nuance? An individual’s data is not leaving Google’s computers. Is anyone harmed or anyone’s privacy violated even an ad buyer is allowed to choose to restrict ads to ad recipients likely to have certain characteristics?
- ehnto 5y ago
  It's immaterial because the result of using the data is the same, the advertiser doesn't actually want my name and email, they just want to use information about me to target me better. Imagine instead of web advertising, it were phone calls. A random bicycle company calls you up one day and says, Hey Buddy, we know you were in a bicycle accident recently, we have a deal on new bicycles right now! You ask them where they got your number and how they know you were in an accident, and they say they don't actually know your number, they just bought the phonecall. It's immaterial that they don't know your phone number, because they're using it and information about you in order to influence you anyway. That's the web advertising apparatus right now. Users are unaware of how much information about themselves they give up, and advertisers are happy to use that information to sell you stuff when you're most willing to buy it. I personally find that manipulative and unethical, and I believe if it were outlined to the general public then they would also be pretty disgusted with the behavior. I won't dispute that an actual privacy violation would be much worse, since a malicious actor can do more than advertise with real user data, but that doesn't make this scenario good either. For this particular purpose I don't think it matters if they have the real data or not.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Society has a long history targeted advertising before google. I doubt that is against the law. There is quite a bit of difference in identifiable information about you being given to whoever wants to buy it, and giving someone the ability to show an ad to people of certain criteria.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      It's not against the law no, which is the point of discussion here I think. I believe it should be, which might help explain some of my opinions above. I don't think it's accurate to liken ubiquitous tracking of almost everyone across all their devices, to be the same as targeted advertising from the past. It's an entirely new behavior on an enormous, society size scale. It's having tangible negative externalities, remembering that advertising doesn't just include product placements. So you get those negative effects even without the privacy violation. I'm not trying to compare this with privacy violations, I'm more trying to argue that for the issue being discussed in the antitrust, the technicality that it's not a privacy violation doesn't actually change much except that it's not illegal. The issue still exists.