9 ms·

I hope proposals like this are eventually accepted. I think it's safe to assume that we are trending towards: people caring more about privacy, browser fingerp

I hope proposals like this are eventually accepted. I think it's safe to assume that we are trending towards: people caring more about privacy, browser fingerprinting getting harder, VPNs being standard (e.g. thanks to Apple), and third party cookies for tracking are either prevented by major browsers or governments have legislated against them. In that situation, at the end of the day, ads will still be here, and targeted ads are necessary for ads to be useful for both user and advertiser. These measures, where your user agent says what ads would be useful to you, seem perfect to me. For the average user, they give just enough info to ad providers to not be invasive, and for someone who absolutely does not want that, they could likely turn an option on to give random topics. Right now though, one can argue that this actually gives more data than before (i.e. tracking + topics instead of just tracking), but try to think about the situation in the future. (I'll still block ads.)

kreeben 5y ago
>> targeted ads are necessary In the TV era, they weren't. Targeting in the TV era meant selecting a program and deriving from that what my interests are. Selecting channel == choosing web site. That should be enough for advertisers, and then some.
- zebracanevra 5y ago
  Google claims that untargeted ads bring in 52% of the revenue of targeted ads. https://www.blog.google/products/ads/next-steps-transparency-choice-control/ https://www.blog.google/products/ads/next-steps-transparency... IMO, untargeted random ads are just spam because they aren't relevant. It's like the crap on the back of a shopping receipt...
  - kreeben 5y ago
    If I rent a car using Google Chrome, the internet turns into a spam factory that tries its hardest to get me to rent another one. Targeted ads for the win?
  - emerongi 5y ago
    Targeted spam is still spam. Unless I have asked for a recommendation, do not give it to me. Ultimately people are just used to advertising, although they still hate it when it shows up in their mailbox or on their doorstep in the form of a salesman. Topics will just be another datapoint. A respectable ad agency will still try to collect as much information about you as possible. Next up, integration with your operating system.
  - JimDabell 5y ago
    > Google claims that untargeted ads bring in 52% of the revenue of targeted ads. So targeted ads aren’t necessary, they are just more profitable.
    - Terretta 5y ago
      It's a trick premise. "Untargeted" isn't the same as "contextual".
  - pygy_ 5y ago
    Ads are designed to make you feel unsatisfied and compel you to buy something you most likely don't need to scratch that itch, which is why I block them (also, to alleviate tracking more generally). If forced to watch ads, I'd take untargeted ones any day.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    They claim this, but they are lying. Independent studies show the difference is closer to 4%. Google wants you to believe advertisers need all the data collection because it's Google's sole value proposition. If people realize Google Ads is basically a sham... there goes Google's entire revenue stream. This is a company which fires researchers for publishing the wrong scientific results, probably discard any claim they make based on "their data" after Timnit.
  - TrickardRixx 5y ago
    Targeted ads are spam because they try to sell me items I already bought. It's like the crap on the front of a shopping receipt.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    Meanwhile, NYTimes found that when they sold "contextual" web ads, as GP suggests, their ad revenue went up. If you step back, it makes sense that contextual ads perform favorably vs. run of site or even retargeted (especially since retargeting, by the time it picks up on what you searched for, mostly shows you what you already bought thus no longer need).
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      This is a misrepresentation of the actual NYT claim: > “The fact that we are no longer offering behavioral targeting options in Europe does not seem to be in the way of what advertisers want to do with us,” he said. “The desirability of a brand may be stronger than the targeting capabilities. We have not been impacted from a revenue standpoint, and, on the contrary, our digital advertising business continues to grow nicely.” which was more or less that switching didn't make revenue drop, and it was still growing over time. They didn't see some magic bump from switching to contextual ads. If they did, you'd of course wonder why they haven't proactively switched US ads to contextual.
      - Terretta 5y ago
        They’re pushing contextual: “By identifying connections between content and emotion, we've successfully driven ad engagement 6X more effectively than IAB benchmarks.” https://nytmediakit.com/contextual-targeting https://nytmediakit.com/contextual-targeting
- sunir 5y ago
  TV ads were for mass market consumer products, primarily, with some secondary high ticket items such as retail lawyers and non-commercial mass market interest like politics. Most companies had to market elsewhere, such as trade publications, events, direct sales, direct mail.
- DisjointedHunt 5y ago
  >In the TV era, they weren't. Well, what do you think killed the TV era? Competition from a medium that promised less annoying ad experiences. I bet that you can't sit through an entire NFL game today without your phone and the ability to mute/switch channels.
jsnell 5y ago
> Right now though, one can argue that this actually gives more data than before (i.e. tracking + topics instead of just tracking), but try to think about the situation in the future. Right. From a privacy perspetive, the goal obviously has to be to eliminate third-party cookies and various covert fingerprinting channels. That's what the whole "privacy sandbox" is about. Why does that proposal need to include a component for ad targeting? Because the other parts will be literally unlaunchable without that. The German government, and by extension the EU, is pretty much controlled by the German media publishers. Whatever they want, they will get. They're even allowed to deploy the blatantly GDPR-violating "accept tracking, pay a subscription fee, or you can't read the article at all" consent dialogs, with zero repercussions. And what those publishers want is to continue tracking everyone with third-party cookies, to the extent that they are demanding the EU block Chrome from deprecating them[0]. If we want to kill third-party cookies, there must be some solution that even Axel Springer et al will have to concede is good enough. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/eccf5514-8b83-4d85-8305-f882adf5dac3 https://www.ft.com/content/eccf5514-8b83-4d85-8305-f882adf5d...
- linopolus 5y ago
  Noyb has filed complaints against that pay for privacy scheme in August, we’ll see if that actually leads to anything… https://noyb.eu/en/news-sites-readers-need-buy-back-their-own-data-exorbitant-price https://noyb.eu/en/news-sites-readers-need-buy-back-their-ow...
  - Radim 5y ago
    The noyb guys are simply amazing. They've also recently challenged Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (!!) for its bribery/corruption [0] in dealing with Facebook's privacy shenanigans [1]. Noyb is tiny but really walks the walk, even against these giants. You can donate to their cause here, they need it: https://noyb.eu/en https://noyb.eu/en [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/22/facebooks-lead-eu-privacy-supervisor-hit-with-corruption-complaint https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/22/facebooks-lead-eu-privacy-... [1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/20/facebook-transfers-impact-assessment-noyb/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/20/facebook-transfers-impact-...
Rygian 5y ago
> I hope proposals like this are eventually accepted. [...] These measures [...] seem perfect to me. > (I'll still block ads.) You have shot down the argumentative line of your whole comment with that last line.
iamacyborg 5y ago
> targeted ads are necessary for ads to be useful for both user and advertiser Citation needed.
stiray 5y ago
Maybe it is just me, but rather than some "new technologies" I want Google to just respect "old technology" - GDPR. This is the only thing I need.
Gentil 5y ago
>> Targeted ads are necessary Another day another behavioural ad vs contextual ad discussion. Hello! I'm going to copy paste one of my old comment on the topic here. TLDR; Contextual ads are proactive and more effective than behavioural ads which depend on lucrative data economy and data selling to make it profitable. --- The problem is not the ads but the way it is produced (Behavioral ads). The issue is always behavioural ads and not contextual ads. Duckduckgo has been profitable for so long with contextual ads. And not to mention, contextual ads which doesn't depend on lucrative data practices and privacy invasive tech has been proven to be much more effective than behavioural ads. Good read on it - [1][2]. Also, how is reactive ads (behavioural ads) useful to a user? Just think for a sec. Unless they are listening to everything you say which is ludicrous levels of privacy violation practice followed Google, FB and Amazon RIGHT NOW... behavioural ads are useless to many many topics and use cases. By the time you get a behaviour based ad, you would have stopped looking for it, found the item. And even when they are fast enough, after many hurdles of being reactionary, THE AD NEEDS TO APPEAL to the person. This again ignores the fact that users don't buy stuff based on behaviours but based on ratings and reviews from Yelp, Amazon, youtube reviewers and other influencing factors like ME! I am the tech nerd who helps my entire family and friends with purchases on electronic items like smartphones, computers and other items. And I know how to teach people to buy things by going through reviews and what not. Nothing I do is in favour of Behavioural ads. Meanwhile just by being proactive, contextual ads are more likely to be more appealing to user cos it depends on NOT YOUR BEHAVIOUR but behaviour of everyone who have searched the term/item. This means the ads are tested to work on more people IMO. Also, behavioural ads miss the point that humans have strong opinions on things. But also that humans change their opinions from time to time. I might move from iOS to Android or vice versa. Behavioural ads also miss that a lot of the purchases are rare purchases and once in a life time purchases. So reactive ads based on my behaviour could be useless. Sure, you might be able to sell something based on this particular rare purchase. But why risk the resources wastage, data privacy and data breaches? This is not in favour of the user at all. Contextual ads are more effective in all the above scenarios than behavioural ads. Contextual ads also have the least baggage, risk and complexity compared to behavioural ads. Behaviour data is not that effective to SELL ADS. But you can offset all these risks and ineffectiveness by selling your data to thousands of third parties or governments even. THE DATA ECONOMY MAKES BEHAVIOURAL ADS SUSTAINABLE. The data economy needs to stop. That is it. NOT ads. Ads have been present in media and everywhere else long before Google was there, nobody was up and arms about them, were they? They were annoying, yes. But not threatening like it is now. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-google-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-google-p... [2] - https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/31/targeted-ads-offer-little-extra-value-for-online-publishers-study-suggests/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/31/targeted-ads-offer-little-...

kreeben 5y ago

>> targeted ads are necessary In the TV era, they weren't. Targeting in the TV era meant selecting a program and deriving from that what my interests are. Selecting channel == choosing web site. That should be enough for advertisers, and then some.

zebracanevra 5y ago
Google claims that untargeted ads bring in 52% of the revenue of targeted ads. https://www.blog.google/products/ads/next-steps-transparency-choice-control/ https://www.blog.google/products/ads/next-steps-transparency... IMO, untargeted random ads are just spam because they aren't relevant. It's like the crap on the back of a shopping receipt...
- kreeben 5y ago
  If I rent a car using Google Chrome, the internet turns into a spam factory that tries its hardest to get me to rent another one. Targeted ads for the win?
- emerongi 5y ago
  Targeted spam is still spam. Unless I have asked for a recommendation, do not give it to me. Ultimately people are just used to advertising, although they still hate it when it shows up in their mailbox or on their doorstep in the form of a salesman. Topics will just be another datapoint. A respectable ad agency will still try to collect as much information about you as possible. Next up, integration with your operating system.
- JimDabell 5y ago
  > Google claims that untargeted ads bring in 52% of the revenue of targeted ads. So targeted ads aren’t necessary, they are just more profitable.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    It's a trick premise. "Untargeted" isn't the same as "contextual".
- pygy_ 5y ago
  Ads are designed to make you feel unsatisfied and compel you to buy something you most likely don't need to scratch that itch, which is why I block them (also, to alleviate tracking more generally). If forced to watch ads, I'd take untargeted ones any day.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  They claim this, but they are lying. Independent studies show the difference is closer to 4%. Google wants you to believe advertisers need all the data collection because it's Google's sole value proposition. If people realize Google Ads is basically a sham... there goes Google's entire revenue stream. This is a company which fires researchers for publishing the wrong scientific results, probably discard any claim they make based on "their data" after Timnit.
- TrickardRixx 5y ago
  Targeted ads are spam because they try to sell me items I already bought. It's like the crap on the front of a shopping receipt.
- Terretta 5y ago
  Meanwhile, NYTimes found that when they sold "contextual" web ads, as GP suggests, their ad revenue went up. If you step back, it makes sense that contextual ads perform favorably vs. run of site or even retargeted (especially since retargeting, by the time it picks up on what you searched for, mostly shows you what you already bought thus no longer need).
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    This is a misrepresentation of the actual NYT claim: > “The fact that we are no longer offering behavioral targeting options in Europe does not seem to be in the way of what advertisers want to do with us,” he said. “The desirability of a brand may be stronger than the targeting capabilities. We have not been impacted from a revenue standpoint, and, on the contrary, our digital advertising business continues to grow nicely.” which was more or less that switching didn't make revenue drop, and it was still growing over time. They didn't see some magic bump from switching to contextual ads. If they did, you'd of course wonder why they haven't proactively switched US ads to contextual.
    - Terretta 5y ago
      They’re pushing contextual: “By identifying connections between content and emotion, we've successfully driven ad engagement 6X more effectively than IAB benchmarks.” https://nytmediakit.com/contextual-targeting https://nytmediakit.com/contextual-targeting
sunir 5y ago
TV ads were for mass market consumer products, primarily, with some secondary high ticket items such as retail lawyers and non-commercial mass market interest like politics. Most companies had to market elsewhere, such as trade publications, events, direct sales, direct mail.
DisjointedHunt 5y ago
>In the TV era, they weren't. Well, what do you think killed the TV era? Competition from a medium that promised less annoying ad experiences. I bet that you can't sit through an entire NFL game today without your phone and the ability to mute/switch channels.

jsnell 5y ago

> Right now though, one can argue that this actually gives more data than before (i.e. tracking + topics instead of just tracking), but try to think about the situation in the future. Right. From a privacy perspetive, the goal obviously has to be to eliminate third-party cookies and various covert fingerprinting channels. That's what the whole "privacy sandbox" is about. Why does that proposal need to include a component for ad targeting? Because the other parts will be literally unlaunchable without that. The German government, and by extension the EU, is pretty much controlled by the German media publishers. Whatever they want, they will get. They're even allowed to deploy the blatantly GDPR-violating "accept tracking, pay a subscription fee, or you can't read the article at all" consent dialogs, with zero repercussions. And what those publishers want is to continue tracking everyone with third-party cookies, to the extent that they are demanding the EU block Chrome from deprecating them[0]. If we want to kill third-party cookies, there must be some solution that even Axel Springer et al will have to concede is good enough. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/eccf5514-8b83-4d85-8305-f882adf5dac3 https://www.ft.com/content/eccf5514-8b83-4d85-8305-f882adf5d...

linopolus 5y ago
Noyb has filed complaints against that pay for privacy scheme in August, we’ll see if that actually leads to anything… https://noyb.eu/en/news-sites-readers-need-buy-back-their-own-data-exorbitant-price https://noyb.eu/en/news-sites-readers-need-buy-back-their-ow...
- Radim 5y ago
  The noyb guys are simply amazing. They've also recently challenged Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (!!) for its bribery/corruption [0] in dealing with Facebook's privacy shenanigans [1]. Noyb is tiny but really walks the walk, even against these giants. You can donate to their cause here, they need it: https://noyb.eu/en https://noyb.eu/en [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/22/facebooks-lead-eu-privacy-supervisor-hit-with-corruption-complaint https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/22/facebooks-lead-eu-privacy-... [1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/20/facebook-transfers-impact-assessment-noyb/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/20/facebook-transfers-impact-...

Rygian 5y ago

> I hope proposals like this are eventually accepted. [...] These measures [...] seem perfect to me. > (I'll still block ads.) You have shot down the argumentative line of your whole comment with that last line.

iamacyborg 5y ago

> targeted ads are necessary for ads to be useful for both user and advertiser Citation needed.

stiray 5y ago

Maybe it is just me, but rather than some "new technologies" I want Google to just respect "old technology" - GDPR. This is the only thing I need.

Gentil 5y ago

>> Targeted ads are necessary Another day another behavioural ad vs contextual ad discussion. Hello! I'm going to copy paste one of my old comment on the topic here. TLDR; Contextual ads are proactive and more effective than behavioural ads which depend on lucrative data economy and data selling to make it profitable. --- The problem is not the ads but the way it is produced (Behavioral ads). The issue is always behavioural ads and not contextual ads. Duckduckgo has been profitable for so long with contextual ads. And not to mention, contextual ads which doesn't depend on lucrative data practices and privacy invasive tech has been proven to be much more effective than behavioural ads. Good read on it - [1][2]. Also, how is reactive ads (behavioural ads) useful to a user? Just think for a sec. Unless they are listening to everything you say which is ludicrous levels of privacy violation practice followed Google, FB and Amazon RIGHT NOW... behavioural ads are useless to many many topics and use cases. By the time you get a behaviour based ad, you would have stopped looking for it, found the item. And even when they are fast enough, after many hurdles of being reactionary, THE AD NEEDS TO APPEAL to the person. This again ignores the fact that users don't buy stuff based on behaviours but based on ratings and reviews from Yelp, Amazon, youtube reviewers and other influencing factors like ME! I am the tech nerd who helps my entire family and friends with purchases on electronic items like smartphones, computers and other items. And I know how to teach people to buy things by going through reviews and what not. Nothing I do is in favour of Behavioural ads. Meanwhile just by being proactive, contextual ads are more likely to be more appealing to user cos it depends on NOT YOUR BEHAVIOUR but behaviour of everyone who have searched the term/item. This means the ads are tested to work on more people IMO. Also, behavioural ads miss the point that humans have strong opinions on things. But also that humans change their opinions from time to time. I might move from iOS to Android or vice versa. Behavioural ads also miss that a lot of the purchases are rare purchases and once in a life time purchases. So reactive ads based on my behaviour could be useless. Sure, you might be able to sell something based on this particular rare purchase. But why risk the resources wastage, data privacy and data breaches? This is not in favour of the user at all. Contextual ads are more effective in all the above scenarios than behavioural ads. Contextual ads also have the least baggage, risk and complexity compared to behavioural ads. Behaviour data is not that effective to SELL ADS. But you can offset all these risks and ineffectiveness by selling your data to thousands of third parties or governments even. THE DATA ECONOMY MAKES BEHAVIOURAL ADS SUSTAINABLE. The data economy needs to stop. That is it. NOT ads. Ads have been present in media and everywhere else long before Google was there, nobody was up and arms about them, were they? They were annoying, yes. But not threatening like it is now. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-google-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-google-p... [2] - https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/31/targeted-ads-offer-little-extra-value-for-online-publishers-study-suggests/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/31/targeted-ads-offer-little-...