6 ms·

> I don't understand why I'm supposed to believe that Facebook would ever have beneficial insight to add to a privacy standard or that it would ever do anything

> I don't understand why I'm supposed to believe that Facebook would ever have beneficial insight to add to a privacy standard or that it would ever do anything other than try to weaken the standard. I don’t think that’s why you want FB/Meta here. But you want to make sure this is useful enough for the ad companies so this actually becomes a solution. If you build a super private solution no advertising company wants/can use, then you’re just wasting time. Assuming the competition is standard built by Google within itself, this makes sense. (Meta employee, don’t work on ads, opinions my own)

MereInterest 5y ago
> If you build a super private solution no advertising company wants/can use, then you’re just waiting time. Which is why regulation is needed. Otherwise, any solution needs to be more attractive to the advertisers than the people they stalk (i.e. everybody else).
- ahmed_ds 5y ago
  Is it me or these days major tech non profits feels marginally less of an advocate of privacy related matters compared EU as a whole? TBH I think GNU failed to make any sort of progress in terms of privacy because their ideology was always on the extremist side. And all the rest of the NGO's kept compromising to meet demands of big tech. Then you have the EU, who will just slap fines without compromising at all. Moreover lobbying runs US govt. Tech non profits are financed largely by megacorps so they won't necessarily bite the hand that feed them.
dessant 5y ago
We can just outlaw certain types of tracking, your employer does not need to be given a seat at the table, nor does it deserve one. Meta will happily use any data they can access about people, and this will just be an additional data point that augments the extensive behavioral profiles they have on most internet users. This is yet another attempt to not accept no for an answer when it comes to data collection, because not getting any data on users who refused data collection is unfathomable to them.
danShumway 5y ago
> But you want to make sure this is useful enough for the ad companies so this actually becomes a solution. I guess the question though is: is Facebook going to stop delivering ads if the solution isn't good enough? Why is it important that Facebook like the system? Facebook was very upset about Apple's privacy changes, it didn't get rid of ads on iOS. It's been very upset about a lot of things. What throws me in these conversations is that I'm not sure why the solution has to be one that Facebook is happy with. What Facebook would be happy with is as much data as they're allowed to have. And also, Facebook doesn't really have veto powers over what anyone else does, so it's not like we need to find a middle ground with the company. Part of the problem of building a solution that's good enough that advertisers won't want more is that it's difficult to believe that solution exists. Facebook is pretty clear that the constraints on what they'll collect is defined in their internal/public privacy policies, and within that constraint they will collect as much data as the platform offers. I'm not aware of any instances of a platform offering an ad attribution system that was privacy preserving, and having Facebook (or other companies) decide not to do any fingerprinting or insert any tracking links into pages, or use any cookies on that platform. I also find it really hard to believe that if Mozilla cracks down on fingerprinting and doesn't provide an alternative that Facebook is happy with, that Facebook will stop selling ads.
- lisper 5y ago
  My Bayesian prior is that anything that upsets FB is almost certainly a good thing, and vice versa.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Indeed, the more upset they are the more likely it is that a solution really works.
    - Accacin 5y ago
      Exactly. Remember Facebook taking out a spread in a newspaper saying Apple would kill small businesses because they couldn't advertise? And that solution by Apple seemed to actually work in many respects. I'm really fed up with Mozilla. I've always used and believed in them but this just feels so odd.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines, regardless of how strongly you feel about $topic? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We've already asked you repeatedly not to post flamewar comments on HN. Not cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jefftk 5y ago
  > ad companies fuck off and die Does that include HN? Which is funded by an in-house advertising system with job ads that appear as sponsored posts?
seanhunter 5y ago
> If you build a super private solution no advertising company wants/can use, then you’re just wasting time. Not really. I don't want any advertising company to use any information about me under any circumstances. Working towards that goal is not wasting my time.
stingraycharles 5y ago
Your point of view is diplomatic, but it rests on the assumption that you actually need cooperation from adtech in order to make a solution. As Apple has proven, this is simply not true: you just need the entities that control the browser / OS. This implies that it’s not “collaboration with adtech” that you want, but rather “collaboration with the biggest browser vendors”. Unfortunately the biggest browser is in hands of Google. Thus Google has a huge influence in this. But any other adtech company (including FB/meta) has no meaningful contribution.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
>(Meta employee, don’t work on ads, opinions my own) FB = ads. It is their business imperative. Even if you are a campus janitor, you are "working on ads."

MereInterest 5y ago

> If you build a super private solution no advertising company wants/can use, then you’re just waiting time. Which is why regulation is needed. Otherwise, any solution needs to be more attractive to the advertisers than the people they stalk (i.e. everybody else).

ahmed_ds 5y ago
Is it me or these days major tech non profits feels marginally less of an advocate of privacy related matters compared EU as a whole? TBH I think GNU failed to make any sort of progress in terms of privacy because their ideology was always on the extremist side. And all the rest of the NGO's kept compromising to meet demands of big tech. Then you have the EU, who will just slap fines without compromising at all. Moreover lobbying runs US govt. Tech non profits are financed largely by megacorps so they won't necessarily bite the hand that feed them.

dessant 5y ago

We can just outlaw certain types of tracking, your employer does not need to be given a seat at the table, nor does it deserve one. Meta will happily use any data they can access about people, and this will just be an additional data point that augments the extensive behavioral profiles they have on most internet users. This is yet another attempt to not accept no for an answer when it comes to data collection, because not getting any data on users who refused data collection is unfathomable to them.

danShumway 5y ago

> But you want to make sure this is useful enough for the ad companies so this actually becomes a solution. I guess the question though is: is Facebook going to stop delivering ads if the solution isn't good enough? Why is it important that Facebook like the system? Facebook was very upset about Apple's privacy changes, it didn't get rid of ads on iOS. It's been very upset about a lot of things. What throws me in these conversations is that I'm not sure why the solution has to be one that Facebook is happy with. What Facebook would be happy with is as much data as they're allowed to have. And also, Facebook doesn't really have veto powers over what anyone else does, so it's not like we need to find a middle ground with the company. Part of the problem of building a solution that's good enough that advertisers won't want more is that it's difficult to believe that solution exists. Facebook is pretty clear that the constraints on what they'll collect is defined in their internal/public privacy policies, and within that constraint they will collect as much data as the platform offers. I'm not aware of any instances of a platform offering an ad attribution system that was privacy preserving, and having Facebook (or other companies) decide not to do any fingerprinting or insert any tracking links into pages, or use any cookies on that platform. I also find it really hard to believe that if Mozilla cracks down on fingerprinting and doesn't provide an alternative that Facebook is happy with, that Facebook will stop selling ads.

lisper 5y ago
My Bayesian prior is that anything that upsets FB is almost certainly a good thing, and vice versa.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Indeed, the more upset they are the more likely it is that a solution really works.
  - Accacin 5y ago
    Exactly. Remember Facebook taking out a spread in a newspaper saying Apple would kill small businesses because they couldn't advertise? And that solution by Apple seemed to actually work in many respects. I'm really fed up with Mozilla. I've always used and believed in them but this just feels so odd.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines, regardless of how strongly you feel about $topic? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We've already asked you repeatedly not to post flamewar comments on HN. Not cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jefftk 5y ago
> ad companies fuck off and die Does that include HN? Which is funded by an in-house advertising system with job ads that appear as sponsored posts?

seanhunter 5y ago

> If you build a super private solution no advertising company wants/can use, then you’re just wasting time. Not really. I don't want any advertising company to use any information about me under any circumstances. Working towards that goal is not wasting my time.

stingraycharles 5y ago

Your point of view is diplomatic, but it rests on the assumption that you actually need cooperation from adtech in order to make a solution. As Apple has proven, this is simply not true: you just need the entities that control the browser / OS. This implies that it’s not “collaboration with adtech” that you want, but rather “collaboration with the biggest browser vendors”. Unfortunately the biggest browser is in hands of Google. Thus Google has a huge influence in this. But any other adtech company (including FB/meta) has no meaningful contribution.

wintermutestwin 5y ago

>(Meta employee, don’t work on ads, opinions my own) FB = ads. It is their business imperative. Even if you are a campus janitor, you are "working on ads."