7 ms·

Democrats unveil bill to ban online ‘surveillance advertising’

56 points by stalfosknight 5y ago

skulk 5y ago
I'm curious what the enforcement pathway will look like under this bill, if signed into law. Does it start with someone thinking "hmm, this ad is suspiciously specific to me?" How do you even know if you're being targeted via one of the exceptions (like what state you're in or keywords you've searched) versus banned info (like zip code)?
- Hokusai 5y ago
  "whistleblowers" is one answer. Public APIs and contracts are another, it's difficult for Facebook to offer targeted adds to companies while hiding it from law enforcement.
- KoftaBob 5y ago
  I imagine it may involve periodic/unscheduled audits of adtech companies platforms under the hood, to see how they're targeting?
- yumraj 5y ago
  Perhaps regular periodic 3rd party audits of major ad networks.
tomohawk 5y ago
Given that democrat run companies control almost all online advertisement, who are they fooling? They could change this today if they wanted to.
- kup0 5y ago
  This line of thinking makes the incredibly naive mistake of thinking that all Democrats feel the same about online advertisement (or anything, really) What makes you think that Democrat legislators and "democrat run companies" (operating on the assumption this is true and on the assumption that all of the company's operations match it's executives' political views- again a pretty big question mark) in any way share the same views concerning surveillance advertising?
  - givemeethekeys 5y ago
    I think what he means is, "follow the money".
  - tomohawk 5y ago
    The point is, they don't need a law to do what they want to do. They need the law for some other reason. Since they already have a monopoly, what better way to protect it than with federal laws regulating it? That creates a nice moat that makes competition even less likely.
- vba616 5y ago
  I don't agree with the premise of "Democrat run companies", but I agree with the cynicism about whether Democratic politicians want to succeed or whether it's theater. A pattern I've noticed, not limited to one party, is that laws are (in at least some cases I've read) written in two parts. The first part is a political statement about why the law is necessary and what it does. The second part states the actual law and provides precise definitions of terms. The trick, I believe, (based on observation and not a legal education) is that the public and the media focuses on the first part, but that has no legal weight and can be (is) completely unrelated to the actual law. For instance, one could write a law in which it is explained that it is necessary to stop Martians from poisoning our aquifers by banning methane powered rockets. And everybody will be arguing about how this will affect Elon Musk and whether Martians are real and so on. But then the actual law can be, say, raising the gas tax by 0.25%. And nobody will notice! I'm not giving real examples because people would get mad, but I've seen this sort of thing from Democrats and Republicans, both laws and executive orders.
vmception 5y ago
Bill text https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23177323/Banning_Surveillance_Advertising_Act.pdf https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23177323/B...
vmception 5y ago
I think there is a better opportunity to incentivize the desired behavior, instead of attempt to disincentivize with the civil code Congress, particularly these representatives, doesn’t know what outcome they want though How about making users the direct recipients of the value of their data, with consent provable revokable consent. Similar to a streamlined licensing agreement.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  All revokable consent will get us is spam surveillance advertising. (Junk phone calls are illegal if you're on the Do Not Call list, but I still get them.)
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    You still get them because the do-not-call registry is basically ignored by regulatory agencies. What's needed (IMHO), before new laws, is enforcement of the ones we have right now.
  - sydbarrett74 5y ago
    Most junk calls these days originate outside the USA (e.g., fly-by-night boiler-rooms in India, Russia, the Philippines, &c.). The DNC list doesn't apply to them, and most countries turn a blind eye to these operations. The occasional bust is nothing more than a PR stunt. Law-enforcement agencies in developing nations are perennially underfunded and the agents are amenable to bribes in order to look the other way.
    - more_corn 5y ago
      Sure it does. If you break the us law by harassing and scamming a US citizens, you still broke the law even if you’re standing somewhere else. We could decide to prioritize investigating prosecuting and fining / jailing those people. Can and should. So maybe it would require coordination with other governments. Boo hoo. Hard work. The fact that our government somehow decided it’s nobody’s job to protect its citizens from constant harassment and financial attacks is a travesty of justice.
datavirtue 5y ago
Let me guess, Manchin blocks it and the senate puts the last nail in the coffin.
- djohnston 5y ago
  here's hoping. i don't need traditional media crawling out of its casket through some geriatric legislators
jklinger410 5y ago
Platforms can allow marketers to target without abusing their users. The ball is really already in their court there. This is pretty heavy-handed. I also can't help but think that this creates a mote for companies like Google and Facebook, who employ lawyers and engineers to make sure their ad business is legal. Furthermore using machine learning and proprietary signals in lieu of whatever data stuff like this manages to restrict. As an upstart website, ad monetization will become increasingly difficult. As a small business, serving ads to the right users will become increasingly difficult. Ads will not go away or stop being annoying from a user's perspective. They will be less relevant, too.
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
I've proposed this idea before and still see the merit in it. Online platforms can still be funded by advertising. Taking away the targeting just reduces the incentive to spy on users.
- godshatter 5y ago
  As someone who has blocked advertising for years, if I could trust that they aren't stealing my personal data I would start unblocking ads. I don't mind context ads at all. If I'm searching for washing machines, that's when it might be nice to see ads about washing machines.
  - mateo1 5y ago
    I'm going to go a step further and say that I actually like to see contextual ads if they are not too obtrusive. For example a company I'm not aware of might want to showcase a new product they have. I remember when I was reading physical magazines about computers the ads would often be like product listings of things that I might be looking to buy. If you're not interested you just flip the page. It worked alright.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    Agreed with the addition that we also need protection from malware on sites. The answer is a browser UI control for a rectangle that has a limited subset of tags available, for display only features, with no javascript. This would allow ads to become a 'display only' feature that is safe for users. As a long time ad blocker - If they would remove tracking and malware, I also would be open to the idea of allowing ads on sites as long as the sites provide value and the ads are not overdone.
    - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
      And by following the money its reasonable to infer something interesting. Preventing this scenario of user friendliness but lower ad spend rent is likely the primary reason why google funded making chrome!
csense 5y ago
So...how exactly could this kind of thing be enforced? Maybe it'll shut down marketplaces where XYZ Company can buy an ad to target Facebook users with very particular demographic characteristics. But that doesn't keep Facebook itself from just saying "You know what, we'll do some AI/ML algorithm figure out that selling XYZ Company's ad to this very particular set of users optimizes the click-through rate..." Why is this user getting this ad? How can you prove that Facebook's doing this, when all the code for matching ads to users is locked on Facebook's servers and requires a degree in AI/ML and years of study of Facebook-specific internal stuff to even understand? Will there be some gigantic new federal inspectorate that understands and audits the source code of every Internet company that buys or sells advertising?
- IntrepidWorm 5y ago
  That sort of dark pattern could ostensibly be audited and statistically analyzed by researchers in the wild. To be fair, much of what we knew before the whistleblowers and leaks was due to this sort of analysis.
yuhong 5y ago

56 points by stalfosknight 5y ago

I'm curious what the enforcement pathway will look like under this bill, if signed into law. Does it start with someone thinking "hmm, this ad is suspiciously specific to me?" How do you even know if you're being targeted via one of the exceptions (like what state you're in or keywords you've searched) versus banned info (like zip code)?

Hokusai 5y ago
"whistleblowers" is one answer. Public APIs and contracts are another, it's difficult for Facebook to offer targeted adds to companies while hiding it from law enforcement.
KoftaBob 5y ago
I imagine it may involve periodic/unscheduled audits of adtech companies platforms under the hood, to see how they're targeting?
yumraj 5y ago
Perhaps regular periodic 3rd party audits of major ad networks.

tomohawk 5y ago

Given that democrat run companies control almost all online advertisement, who are they fooling? They could change this today if they wanted to.

kup0 5y ago
This line of thinking makes the incredibly naive mistake of thinking that all Democrats feel the same about online advertisement (or anything, really) What makes you think that Democrat legislators and "democrat run companies" (operating on the assumption this is true and on the assumption that all of the company's operations match it's executives' political views- again a pretty big question mark) in any way share the same views concerning surveillance advertising?
- givemeethekeys 5y ago
  I think what he means is, "follow the money".
- tomohawk 5y ago
  The point is, they don't need a law to do what they want to do. They need the law for some other reason. Since they already have a monopoly, what better way to protect it than with federal laws regulating it? That creates a nice moat that makes competition even less likely.
vba616 5y ago
I don't agree with the premise of "Democrat run companies", but I agree with the cynicism about whether Democratic politicians want to succeed or whether it's theater. A pattern I've noticed, not limited to one party, is that laws are (in at least some cases I've read) written in two parts. The first part is a political statement about why the law is necessary and what it does. The second part states the actual law and provides precise definitions of terms. The trick, I believe, (based on observation and not a legal education) is that the public and the media focuses on the first part, but that has no legal weight and can be (is) completely unrelated to the actual law. For instance, one could write a law in which it is explained that it is necessary to stop Martians from poisoning our aquifers by banning methane powered rockets. And everybody will be arguing about how this will affect Elon Musk and whether Martians are real and so on. But then the actual law can be, say, raising the gas tax by 0.25%. And nobody will notice! I'm not giving real examples because people would get mad, but I've seen this sort of thing from Democrats and Republicans, both laws and executive orders.

vmception 5y ago

Bill text https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23177323/Banning_Surveillance_Advertising_Act.pdf https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23177323/B...

vmception 5y ago

I think there is a better opportunity to incentivize the desired behavior, instead of attempt to disincentivize with the civil code Congress, particularly these representatives, doesn’t know what outcome they want though How about making users the direct recipients of the value of their data, with consent provable revokable consent. Similar to a streamlined licensing agreement.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
All revokable consent will get us is spam surveillance advertising. (Junk phone calls are illegal if you're on the Do Not Call list, but I still get them.)
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  You still get them because the do-not-call registry is basically ignored by regulatory agencies. What's needed (IMHO), before new laws, is enforcement of the ones we have right now.
- sydbarrett74 5y ago
  Most junk calls these days originate outside the USA (e.g., fly-by-night boiler-rooms in India, Russia, the Philippines, &c.). The DNC list doesn't apply to them, and most countries turn a blind eye to these operations. The occasional bust is nothing more than a PR stunt. Law-enforcement agencies in developing nations are perennially underfunded and the agents are amenable to bribes in order to look the other way.
  - more_corn 5y ago
    Sure it does. If you break the us law by harassing and scamming a US citizens, you still broke the law even if you’re standing somewhere else. We could decide to prioritize investigating prosecuting and fining / jailing those people. Can and should. So maybe it would require coordination with other governments. Boo hoo. Hard work. The fact that our government somehow decided it’s nobody’s job to protect its citizens from constant harassment and financial attacks is a travesty of justice.

datavirtue 5y ago

Let me guess, Manchin blocks it and the senate puts the last nail in the coffin.

djohnston 5y ago
here's hoping. i don't need traditional media crawling out of its casket through some geriatric legislators

jklinger410 5y ago

Platforms can allow marketers to target without abusing their users. The ball is really already in their court there. This is pretty heavy-handed. I also can't help but think that this creates a mote for companies like Google and Facebook, who employ lawyers and engineers to make sure their ad business is legal. Furthermore using machine learning and proprietary signals in lieu of whatever data stuff like this manages to restrict. As an upstart website, ad monetization will become increasingly difficult. As a small business, serving ads to the right users will become increasingly difficult. Ads will not go away or stop being annoying from a user's perspective. They will be less relevant, too.

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

I've proposed this idea before and still see the merit in it. Online platforms can still be funded by advertising. Taking away the targeting just reduces the incentive to spy on users.

godshatter 5y ago
As someone who has blocked advertising for years, if I could trust that they aren't stealing my personal data I would start unblocking ads. I don't mind context ads at all. If I'm searching for washing machines, that's when it might be nice to see ads about washing machines.
- mateo1 5y ago
  I'm going to go a step further and say that I actually like to see contextual ads if they are not too obtrusive. For example a company I'm not aware of might want to showcase a new product they have. I remember when I was reading physical magazines about computers the ads would often be like product listings of things that I might be looking to buy. If you're not interested you just flip the page. It worked alright.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Agreed with the addition that we also need protection from malware on sites. The answer is a browser UI control for a rectangle that has a limited subset of tags available, for display only features, with no javascript. This would allow ads to become a 'display only' feature that is safe for users. As a long time ad blocker - If they would remove tracking and malware, I also would be open to the idea of allowing ads on sites as long as the sites provide value and the ads are not overdone.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    And by following the money its reasonable to infer something interesting. Preventing this scenario of user friendliness but lower ad spend rent is likely the primary reason why google funded making chrome!

csense 5y ago

So...how exactly could this kind of thing be enforced? Maybe it'll shut down marketplaces where XYZ Company can buy an ad to target Facebook users with very particular demographic characteristics. But that doesn't keep Facebook itself from just saying "You know what, we'll do some AI/ML algorithm figure out that selling XYZ Company's ad to this very particular set of users optimizes the click-through rate..." Why is this user getting this ad? How can you prove that Facebook's doing this, when all the code for matching ads to users is locked on Facebook's servers and requires a degree in AI/ML and years of study of Facebook-specific internal stuff to even understand? Will there be some gigantic new federal inspectorate that understands and audits the source code of every Internet company that buys or sells advertising?

IntrepidWorm 5y ago
That sort of dark pattern could ostensibly be audited and statistically analyzed by researchers in the wild. To be fair, much of what we knew before the whistleblowers and leaks was due to this sort of analysis.

yuhong 5y ago