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The behaviour of facebook and google for the past ten years suggests that revenue from tracking based ads must be multiple times that of plain old contextual ad

by dazc 4y ago

The behaviour of facebook and google for the past ten years suggests that revenue from tracking based ads must be multiple times that of plain old contextual ads, hence the continued push down this path? You don't suddenly decide to stop doing evil for just a few percentage points after all.

autoexec 4y ago
> The behaviour of facebook and google for the past ten years suggests that revenue from tracking based ads must be multiple times that of plain old contextual ads, hence the continued push down this path? I'm not sure that's a given. It seems like mass data collection is profitable in a vast number of ways that have nothing to do with ads which could themselves be more than enough to incentivize google and facebook to continue collecting it.
- blackoil 4y ago
  What other revenue source they have from this data?
  - autoexec 4y ago
    There are countless ways this data is used to extract as much money from you as possible. The data being collected by companies and sold by data brokers are used for things like determining how much money you pay for something vs your neighbor. A company might tell you their prices, services, or return policies are on thing, but tell the next person who walks in something much more favorable. Companies have been seen using this data to decide how long to keep people on hold. You aren't told you were bumped to the bottom of the queue to make room for people with a better "Consumer Score", you're just left waiting. It's used to set you how much you pay for things like health insurance. You just see your rates go up. You don't know it's because they saw you spent too much at bars or that people in your zip code increased their spending on fast food over the last 6 months. Everyone wants their hands on your data to abuse in any way they can to give them an advantage over you. To take advantage of you. It's being used to manipulate you and to shape your views. It's used to decide if you will be offered a job, or get an apartment. It's sold and resold over and over, to data brokers, but also to governments (including US companies selling that data to the US government). There's an entire multi-billion dollar a year industry around buying and selling the most mundane aspects of your life for this reason. Every scrap of data that is taken from you can be leveraged against you or sold to someone else on the promise that it could be.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  targeted ads for political purposes are also popular

by dazc 4y ago

autoexec 4y ago

> The behaviour of facebook and google for the past ten years suggests that revenue from tracking based ads must be multiple times that of plain old contextual ads, hence the continued push down this path? I'm not sure that's a given. It seems like mass data collection is profitable in a vast number of ways that have nothing to do with ads which could themselves be more than enough to incentivize google and facebook to continue collecting it.

blackoil 4y ago
What other revenue source they have from this data?
- autoexec 4y ago
  There are countless ways this data is used to extract as much money from you as possible. The data being collected by companies and sold by data brokers are used for things like determining how much money you pay for something vs your neighbor. A company might tell you their prices, services, or return policies are on thing, but tell the next person who walks in something much more favorable. Companies have been seen using this data to decide how long to keep people on hold. You aren't told you were bumped to the bottom of the queue to make room for people with a better "Consumer Score", you're just left waiting. It's used to set you how much you pay for things like health insurance. You just see your rates go up. You don't know it's because they saw you spent too much at bars or that people in your zip code increased their spending on fast food over the last 6 months. Everyone wants their hands on your data to abuse in any way they can to give them an advantage over you. To take advantage of you. It's being used to manipulate you and to shape your views. It's used to decide if you will be offered a job, or get an apartment. It's sold and resold over and over, to data brokers, but also to governments (including US companies selling that data to the US government). There's an entire multi-billion dollar a year industry around buying and selling the most mundane aspects of your life for this reason. Every scrap of data that is taken from you can be leveraged against you or sold to someone else on the promise that it could be.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
targeted ads for political purposes are also popular