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Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe
- gjsman-1000 4y agoFacebook layoffs incoming in 3…2…1… Nobody else has reported on this issue yet so hopefully this is accurate.
- mjhay 4y agoDon't be so pessimistic, I'm sure the Metaverse will take off any day now.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Aardwolf 4y agoThe 6 people who showed up at the EU's metaverse gala party agree!
- karussell 4y agoI wondered about the lack of other sources too and in their post they link to this (paywalled) article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/metas-targeted-ad-model-faces-restrictions-in-europe-11670335772 https://www.wsj.com/articles/metas-targeted-ad-model-faces-r...
- pjc50 4y agoFacebook have already had layoffs this year.
- layer8 4y agoThere were a couple submissions in the past days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33891880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33891880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33897651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33897651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33899964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33899964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33911852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33911852
- dotnet00 4y agoGlad to see that they do address the issue that for a company as big as Meta, it just ends up being a cost of doing business rather than a limitation on tracking.
- nier 4y agoPure nostalgia seeing that Instagram app icon. Alas, as always with such news: "The EU decision will not have direct consequences for users, unfortunately, as it can be appealed to. Such an appeal would lead to a lengthy judicial process."
- dijit 4y ago> Pure nostalgia seeing that Instagram app icon I really miss the skeumophic design of the iOS ecosystem from the early-to-mid 2010's. It felt so premium, especially with the retina display which was miles ahead of basically everything else (especially desktops and laptops of the era).
- gbil 4y agoI had to check the retina remark as my Sony Z5 premium came in mind with the 800+ppi but even before that in 2013 I had z Sony Z1 with 440ppi and I'm pretty sure other manufacturers had high dpi screens since 2010 eg. sharp's ISO3 . So "miles ahead" is not true plus I believe iphones had other manufacturing tricks that helped in the "retina" marketing hype, I believe touch/display elements been closer together etc. Not saying is was a fluke, but a hype it was for sure
- tuyiown 4y agoThe hype was what actually brought the feature to users, not only the entire apple product line was quickly featuring it, but it also forced marched the entire ecosystem. Sony might had the hardware feature, they did not had their entire product line, neither 1rst citizen support from everyone. I really wish people understood that, because it's what it takes to become a giant like apple, and what will be required to take it down.
- gbil 4y agoWe’ll it brought a new marketing term on the table - high dpi was not enough I guess - with a feature aside because this is what modern apple does.
- codazoda 4y agoIt took 5 years for this to work its way through the system. Facebook can probably just iterate a little and fight for another 5 years.
- Bilal_io 4y agoI hope Facebook doesn't survive another 5. But I won't hold my breath. Still amusing just a few years ago Facebook was described as a world government due to the influence they had. Maybe they still have that, but I've just detached myself from it to see it.
- RajT88 4y agoFacebook will still be around in 5 years. The question is whether it will be relevant. People make the comparison to MySpace, because it's the most comparable service - Facebook de-throned it as the king of social media. And incidentally, MySpace is still around. They survived the de-throning by pivoting, which is inevitably what Facebook will do. I think we've seen the groundwork for it already.
- ethbr0 4y agoFacebook's survival (and MySpace's before them) is predicated on continued advertising revenue. Continued advertising revenue is predicated on user count and eyeball time. Consequently, the only thing that really kills Facebook is if users abandon the platform. And there isn't really a Mastodon-equivalent alternative for FB's feature set. Or even assurance that there could be (i.e. features that require centralization or expensive compute).
- croes 4y agoMyspace is still alive
- AnotherGoodName 4y agoNot really though. They even lost all user accounts before a certain date recently so there's not even much of a Ship of Theseus argument it's the same apart from the name.
- jqpabc123 4y agoIs anyone outside of Meta really disturbed by this?
- luckylion 4y agoNike will be, they're also requiring you to consent or get out (and also set lots of cookies without consent, but I guess it's fine if you're not a social media company).
- Bilal_io 4y agoI am guilty of this myself, but people should really vote with their money against companies with horrible practices.
- z3c0 4y agoI agree, but the reality is that the most egregious offenders of consumer rights tend to control the markets they exist in, and the diligence required to effectively "vote with your dollar" is enough to overwhelm even the most staunch among us. I've always found Ivy Lee's essay "Mr. Jones' Dilemma" to be a great summation of this problem. I'm having a hard time finding it online, but I'll link to it if I find it. Edit: can't find the essay anywhere, but it's the intro to this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36077624-mr-lee-s-publicity-book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36077624-mr-lee-s-public...
- devjab 4y agoI suspect some car companies may be. I'm not completely sure but I think we had to allow Skoda to track us when we paid them to turn on the Apple connection stuff in the car. I'm sorry I can't be more specific or technical than that, but I've never had a drivers license and drive a cargo bike, so the car is sort of my wife's domain that I know very little about. If it was an option, I don't see why anyone would allow their car company to track them.
- hedora 4y ago
- lzaaz 4y agoIf they can't show good ads in Europe, I assume that they will lose money and eventually have to close down here. I think that users have a right to know what happens to their data. But this is not a consent or information screen, this is the end of it. Europe tells us they do this for our own good, so we can own our data, but then they make it illegal for us to exchange our data for someone's service. Basically they think they know better than us what to do with our data: it is the opposite of freedom. Hopefully this will teach the users to vote better. Oh wait, we can't elect EU officials directly.
- someweirdperson 4y agoThey could offer a user-paid alternative. Given the value of data, the alternative price in money might be driving some users out though.
- martin_a 4y ago> but then they make it illegal for us to exchange our data for someone's service They (the EU) don't and I don't understand why you would understand it that way.
- lzaaz 4y ago>EU privacy regulators say Facebook and Instagram must not force users to agree to tracking by putting this requirement into their terms. In the context of apps like Facebook or Instagram, which make money by tracking us to show us personalised ads, this is like saying that it is illegal for supermarkets to charge us for groceries, even if customers wanted to pay for them. What happens next? The supermarket closes, evidently. And this is a win for whom? Not the supermarket, and not the clients. Everybody loses.
- netrus 4y agoIt's more like forbidding Kellogg's to put toys into their cereal boxes. MAYBE they cannot sell sugary cereals to kids without, but most likely they still can. Only one way to find out :)
- rvz 4y agoGood. So the invasive tracking that TikTok and every other social network does in Europe should also be illegal as well then? If not, then is it's only a matter of time and eventual enforcement and outlawing this behaviour for everyone. Should not be just Meta; we need to go further and cover all social networks.
- criddell 4y agoDoes TikTok follow you around the web to a similar extent as Facebook? AFAIK, the regulation doesn’t cover only Meta. If forcing acceptance of tracking to use the service is illegal for Meta to do, then it’s also illegal for TikTok.
- celestialcheese 4y agoYes. TikTok pixels are everywhere now, just not as prolific because it's newer.
- riskable 4y ago> Does TikTok follow you around the web to a similar extent as Facebook? Yes, the TikTok pixel: https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=9663 https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=9663 Not as prevalent as Facebook's Like icons but it's well on its way.
- croes 4y agoIt is illegal, but Meta is the big fish even with tracking of non-users
- zephrx1111 4y agoI don’t understand why Meta is always in the center on this problem, at least on most media. It is not relevant anymore. TikTok, or even Google should be the most concern now no?
- eqmvii 4y agoIt may not be as relevant for the youth, but it’s absolutely still relevant. A LOT of eyeballs for ad dollars are still on Facebook.
- martin_a 4y agoI think with WhatsApp and Instagram under its control, Meta still has quite a reach. Facebook might be (rapidly) declining, but I didn't hear young people switch to Signal/Telegram in masses, because their parents are also using WhatsApp. Also: Yeah, there's TikTok, but I think Instagram is not dead yet for young(er) people.
- float4 4y ago> Facebook might be (rapidly) declining From Meta's Q3 earnings release[0]: > Facebook daily active users [...] were 1.98 billion on average for September 2022, an increase of 3% year-over-year. [0] https://investor.fb.com/financials/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/financials/default.aspx
- martin_a 4y agoYes, those numbers look fine, but have a closer look. Check page 14, Monthly Active Users: They have slightly risen in the US, slightly decreased in Europe, strong growth in Asia and RoW. Compare that to page 15, Average Revenue per User: US around $49, EU $14, Asia $4.4, RoW is $3.2. Those numbers are also decreasing for the US and EU. So for each user you lose in the US or the EU, you'll need 3 to 10 new users in Asia, even more in the rest of the world, or you'll need to squeeze the existing users harder. They're at best stalling.
- 4y ago
- someweirdperson 4y agoThe story talks about an impact on ads. While this immediately translates to something monetary, this probably extends to all sorts of analysis of user-data and will limit features that ensure continued user-engagement, too. Like recommending friends of friends, flooding the timeline with something to keep the user busy, etc.
- notimetorelax 4y agoI disagree. GDPR has provisions for data use for core features of your product. For a social network connecting friends sounds core.
- Nextgrid 4y agoGDPR requires that data processing consent should be granular, so the user must be given a way to choose whether they want their data to be used for such purposes.
- clnq 4y agoFriend recommendations on Facebook are so creepy. I have an unused, empty Facebook account that recommends connecting with people I know in real life, even if I don't use WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Oculus, or other Facebook products. Some of these people recommended to me might have given Facebook access to their phone contacts, and that's how Facebook associated me with them. Or that's what I believe happened. It is worrying that Meta's algorithms have relatively personal data about me when I never engaged with them much. It was pretty uncomfortable to find that out.
- nottorp 4y agoI once went to a party and a friend of mine brought a new girl he was dating. First time I met her. We did no digital communication that evening. Next day Facebook was recommending her as a friend. I do have FB Messenger and Whatsapp on my phone. Still that's creepy.
- 4y ago
- jhoelzel 4y agoshocking revelation is it not? if we would have only known...
- snapcaster 4y agoGood to see europe following in China's footsteps and taking their citizen's data seriously
- oxff 4y agoWhy is there a random picture of a dude in the article
- rocketbop 4y agoImproved SEO?
- miken123 4y agoThat's Max Schrems, founder of noyb, the NGO that filed the complaints. An image caption would have been useful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems
- jonathanstrange 4y agoThat seems to be Max Schrems, the guy who successfully sued Facebook in the past [1], but it's odd the image has no caption. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems
- someweirdperson 4y ago> but it's odd the image has no caption. Not at all. That's for improved privacy.
- riskable 4y agoThat picture is of "Max Schrems, the lawyer who successfully sued Facebook for privacy violations against European citizens" which is another article at that site. They probably just forgot to link it and give it an appropriate caption.
- croes 4y agoHe did more than suing FB. He helped to get rid of Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield because they didn't protect the data of EU users.
- kaapipo 4y agoWell, active consent has been seen before with cookie banners. Let's see how long it takes before every time you open Instagram you get a prompt like: "I allow not not omitting the usage of tracking"
- entropie 4y agoSimple solution. Don't open instagram.
- kaapipo 4y agoAnd how is this helpful? Is this a solution? What if the app-in-question was a different one? Not using Instagram at that would be very helpful, indeed...
- entropie 4y agoI don't understand. There are webpages/apps that track you and now you have to accept that they track you before using it. That has nothing to do with instagram - if I don't want to be tracked, I don't use the software. Right? Simple solution.
- jamiequint 4y agoOf course it's a solution. The developer has a right to comply with the law in whichever way they see to best fit their needs as a business. If you don't like it then don't use the app, nobody is forcing you to and you don't have a right to dictate to others how to run their business.
- berkes 4y ago> you don't have a right to dictate to others how to run their business. Actually, we do. It's called democracy and how laws are made that companies have to adhere to.
- stickfigure 4y ago
- hedora 4y agoCool. So, how does this impact consumers that never used Facebook, but that have shadow profiles for social network inference and ad tracking? Presumably, since Facebook has no way to contact those people, they will just shut down the no-logged-in-but-tracked half of their business in Europe? (If you don't know what I mean by shadow profile: When you first create a Facebook account, it helpfully produces a prepopulated list of your friends, and links in a pile of consumer tracking data before the onboarding flow is done.)
- criddell 4y agoIt doesn't impact those consumers, but that wasn't what this action by the EU was trying to stop. It looks like this suit as all about users of Facebook and Instagram being forced to agree to tracking to use the service.
- nomel 4y ago> It looks like this suit as all about users of Facebook and Instagram being forced to agree to tracking to use the service. Is the reality that they'll be tracked regardless, just now through a thin veil of indirection (as with the shadow profiles)?
- aflag 4y agoI think tracking users without their consent is already illegal.
- tremon 4y agoTo be more specific: this ruling confirms that tracking users with only implied consent is illegal. What Facebook tried to do here is to make user tracking an integral part of their service by putting it in their TOS. The GDPR is quite clear that such tracking can never be a legitimate business interest and therefore a) users must agree to it explicitly, b) consent for tracking may be withdrawn at any time, and c) withdrawal of consent may not be tied to the rest of the service offering (i.e. a business may not refuse service if users decline to be tracked).
- openplatypus 4y agoPrevious submissions: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893240 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33884343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33884343 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33890865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33890865 ... and more
- dang 4y agoThanks! Seems this is the only significant thread so far: Meta’s behavioral ads will finally face GDPR privacy reckoning in January - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893240 - Dec 2022 (59 comments) Is there a more neutral article we can change the above URL to?
- wackget 4y ago> The EU decision will not have direct consequences for users, unfortunately, as it can be appealed to. Such an appeal would lead to a lengthy judicial process. So companies can flout the law for years, making massive profits, and continue to do so for as long as they can string along an appeal process? Seems like a pretty nice loophole.
- ls15 4y agoCertain companies can
- p0pcult 4y agoWould it wreck the legal framework to institute a concept wherein you can appeal, but if, on appeal, the lower court ruling holds, the punishment/fine is retroactive to the date of the lower court ruling? I.e., make it so that there is no free pass to continuing presumptively illegal activity.
- izzydata 4y agoWouldn't it be that way already? The punishment even for the whole extended period of time is still often nothing to big tech. Punishments need to be tailored to those being punished to cause equal effect.
- p0pcult 4y agoI don't know. That's why i was asking.
- mpweiher 4y agoUnder GDPR, fines can be up to 2% of annual revenue (not profit) for "less severe" infringements. Facebook had $118 billion revenue in 2021, so that would be $2.36 billion. And I think the fines will repeat. For more severe infringements, it's double that, so $4.72 billion. Which would be around half of profits for 2021.
- 4y ago
- tannhaeuser 4y agoWhat's also in violation of GDPR is sending your contacts to Whatsapp, as the app nags right and left to do, and as Whatsapp claims would be required for unrelated functionality such as seeing those freaking Whatsapp/Fb status pages of others or publish your own I guess. Phone numbers are PII, so even if you have individual consent for every number or number/name pair to pass onto third parties, which I very much doubt you have, the holder of that data in addition has a right to request data stored at Whatsapp/Fb and cancel storage and processing.
- narrator 4y agoLack of fine-grained tracking makes it hard for small companies to target niche audiences. It tends to favor big brands who can do TV advertising or other highly non-targeted advertising. There was a point in the early 2010s were small consumer brands could break through the noise for cheap and find their audience. With the GDPR and the subsequent fall of facebook ads that era is sadly coming to an end.
- nottorp 4y agoHeh. Facebook's advertising (still targeted because this decision isn't final yet) is desperately trying to sell me some shoes. The same shoes for the last 2 years. For variation it gives me some crap ads from some online stores that are just a frontend for some Aliexpress drop shipping. The line is always the same "Unfortunately we're discontinuing $PRODUCT. Buy now to take advantage of the discount!" I don't see what niche they're targeting with that.
- jamiequint 4y agoThat's a nice anecdote but the thousands of new, successful online brands that were built on well-targeted, cheap, Facebook advertising from ca. 2014-2020 are proof that your anecdote doesn't match everyone else's reality.
- celestialcheese 4y ago100% this. In the past, you would have to commit to a minimum of $1k/mo for local radio/tv/newspaper ads, and had no tracking and lagging indicators if the spend was effective. Classifieds in newspaper were cheaper, but still more expensive than FB. With $100/day on facebook charged to your CC, from my experience, you could almost overnight turn on 2-3 quality leads per day. This was life changing for a significant number of people. This isn't possible anymore as you need to burn thousands to get enough learning to get scale with Facebook, especially if you're in the US with an audience that uses iPhones. Google Search ads still work, because they own the whole stack and they aren't impacted by attribution, but the prices have been going up significantly as people move spend towards channels with better attribution. All of this legislation and privacy advocacy is just a gift to Amazon/Google/Apple - everything is first party data for these "portal" businesses. Their ads will still work, and they'll have no real competition in direct-response marketing.
- t3estabc 4y ago
- Satam 4y agoNo one's who's done business selling to consumers is cheering about this. What exactly is gained for the society when a business has to show bike ads to basketball enthusiasts?
- snapcaster 4y agoFuck advertisers, fuck surveillance. Nothing is gained for society when any kinds of ads are run, but less ability to track and spy on me _is_ good for society
- marricks 4y agoAlways love finding the Facebook-stans. If you want to know what can go wrong look up Cambridge Analytica. Also, this may be hard to believe, but, most people don’t like ads and don’t value “useful ads” over their personal privacy.
- fnord123 4y agoIf I already own a basketball then I don't need a month of ads for more basketballs.
- swores 4y agoCounter-point, I've made a career out of doing B2C marketing including spending plenty on Facebook - I'm cheering for this, as are my colleagues.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y agoWhat entitles you to spy on me? I don't give a shit about your revenue.
- Satam 4y agoIt's not my revenue. If you believe any business is evil if it has has paid salaries out of the revenues boosted by efficient advertising, that's your prerogative. I am open to hearing how exactly targeted advertising has damaged our society but I will not accept vague notions of spying and privacy as an argument. Most of the entities powerful enough to spy on you currently, will continue to do so discretely.
- codedokode 4y agoGDPR applies not only to websites, but to software, am I correct? Does it mean that Android/Windows/MacOS and mobile apps should get user's permission for telemetry/analytics and allow to opt out from it? And Microsoft should allow using their software without requiring an online account? It would be wonderful.
- johndhi 4y agoYes, that is the law already actually, though no one complies.
- acd 4y agoThese ad business puts pixel canavas trackers on your browsers. Got my neigbours language course advertisements through my private VPN connection in private browser mode. God luck in preventing it you cannot stop tracking unless you block javascript. You will get private canavas trackers. All your private data will be sold for advertisement. To test try amiunique.org on a PC. Hint: You are not unique you are tracked. This teacking is probably not legal according to GDPR.
- izacus 4y agoI seriously hate how misleading the titles of this report are (NOYB did the same crock and buried the lede 7 paragraphs into their report): Facebook tracking is illegal ONLY if Facebook hasn't asked for tracking consent. If they did, they can track to their hearts' content - and it's horribly misleading that the news and news titles don't make this obvious. It'll put people into false sense of security.
- nicce 4y agoSomething should be done for Terms of Use. They should be illegal in their current state. Even if some users read them, most don’t understand them.
- T3RMINATED 4y ago[dead]
- JacobSeated 4y agoFacebook should just start charging users that don't consent to tracking for targeted advertising. Etc. Problem solved, and we, the shareholders, will hopefully be happy too. It's been truly shit to own Facebook stock the last year.. Let's end this now and get back to writing the growth story. Please.
- mxkopy 4y agoImagine writing something like this unironically and not immediately wanting to die of embarrassment Excuse me, 'growth story'? For Facebook ?? Time proves the shareholders vs. rest of society stereotype to be true, I guess
- QuietWatchtower 4y agoRight? I can't tell if this guy is being ironic or not lol
- dangrossman 4y agoI doubt that works economically. The money advertisers can pay Facebook is, essentially, a percentage of all consumer spending. A percentage of the money you pay for toilet paper, dish soap, groceries, car insurance, credit cards, etc is funding the advertising budgets of those companies. The money consumers can pay Facebook is, at most, some portion of their discretionary spending budget. What's left over after buying all that stuff, and paying the rest of their bills (housing, fuel, taxes, etc). The first number is a much bigger number than the second. If Facebook is no longer able to capture Charmin's ad spend because they can no longer provide adequate targeting, then Facebook will no longer get that money. The Charmin customers don't have it to send to Facebook directly, they gave it to Charmin to buy their toilet paper.
- sagarm 4y agoCharmin is likely doing brand advertising, however, and Facebook's ad network will likely still have greater demographic-targeted reach than other options. If nobody is allowed to build a demographic profile for cross-site cookies, the biggest negative impact will be to small sites. Previously their ad inventory could be relatively high value because it could be assigned targeted ads at scale, without site-specific work or having to trust the site itself. Now the site will at best self-report their user demographics. (1) they probably have poor visibility into their customer demo without something like Google Analytics to guide them and (2) it's difficult for a third party to verify any demographic composition they claim. Ad targeting on these will likely be content based. I suspect this inventory mostly won't be eligible for lucrative display advertising anymore, if it was before.
- johndhi 4y agoThis is a crazy way of making laws, IMO. To recap: a law was put in place 5 years ago that said if you get consent you can basically use data in any way, with some very vague and general language about how consent can be gathered and what it means. Meanwhile, Facebook has invested billions of dollars in building and developing a platform according to their fair reading of that law. Then, some random guy says he doesn't think Facebook's interpretation is right, a court agrees, and all of those billions of dollars have gone to waste. So absurdly inefficient. No regulator has had the idea of just going to Facebook, having a real conversation about what they're doing, then talked about it with ethics professionals and researchers and tried to draft a forward-looking law that will make the whole system better? No; we prefer to thrive by ignoring problems for a long time then smashing them with a hammer.
- zapt02 4y agoPeople who make laws can't see the future, it's a constant race to curb corporate behavior that is deemed unacceptable and the laws evolve as new loopholes are found and exploited. Corporations know this and take it into account when making a cost/benefit calculation. A while ago Facebook was threatening to pull out of the EU. When nobody cared they ponied up the tech required to stay. They will this time as well.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago> People who make laws can't see the future People who make laws can see the future (yeah, sometimes they don't), it's the people that do not understand them and protest, because they do not see the immediate benefit for themselves, so the laws have to be changed to accomodate the snowflakes of the World. Making laws is about govern, not about futurism. A compromise has to be found every time a new law is proposed to be approved. See for example the ban on ICE engines, one side wanted it NOW the other side wanted it NEVER, truth is a good compromise was to accelerate as much as possible for some heavy user (Amazon alone, for example, is responsible for more than 20% of the global deliveries) and make some exception (5 years tops) for supercar luxury brands like Ferrari or Lamborghini, that sell a few thousands cars/ year. But things being as they are, people complained about Ferrari asking for an extension (for themselves and other luxury brands) but at the same time against the ban in general because everyone owns a car. The real problem is that people put in charge of making laws other people like them, not people better than them. It's a vicious circle. EDIT: the HN paradox: everyone knows what's bad, everyone has a very important job, but apparently things never improve because "politics". Maybe things are harder than what they look at first sight, from outside, and it's not about "people not seeing the future", but about the fact that the more a society is rich and established, the more changes are hard and people oppose to them. See for example how hard it is to convince American people that socialism is not a crime and USA could survive free health care paid by everyone's taxes. Does it mean that Americans are stupid and can't open Wikipedia and do a simple research, that they can't see the truth in front of their eyes, or that they are simply afraid of change, because the system works for a large part of the population, the same part of the population that basically runs the country and decides who gets elected?
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y agoPlease turn on the great europa firewall! We all know you want to. Block facebook for illegal tracking, block twitter for illegal speech. Come give us the internet you think we deserve.
- Nextgrid 4y agoAn internet without advertising and spyware is something I’d gladly volunteer for.
- jstummbillig 4y agoI feel there is a risk in having the cost of privacy getting transferred to the user that we have yet to actually confront, and it worries me that we are not doing that. I am not exactly breaking the news: If companies make less money through ads, they have to make it "some other way" (which so far has resolved in "making the user pay directly"). A lot of people have been suggesting that it's not their business to figure that part out; privacy is paramount and above all else. That's fine up to the point where zealousness effectively worsens the life of others, and maybe even more than that, our collective lives. (To me, one example of that might be restricted access to a lot of important news outlets. I know that it is currently pretty hip to attack the NYT anyway, and I can see a lot of good reasoning behind the critique, but if that then resolved to people getting information from random internet personalities on Twitter or IG, we seem to have significantly worsened a bad situation) The HN community is for the most part probably not negatively impacted by having to pay for more stuff and actually might net gain through stronger privacy rules. However I expect the privileged to also think for others, in the terms of the others' problems (i.e. if struggle was poverty and you tried to work through that, would privacy really be more important to you than having unpaid for access to Google?) I know this is terribly biased topic on HN, but alas: Pennies for your thoughts.
- abofh 4y agoI think you make an interesting strawman, but look in the reverse direction. If companies put the same revenue figure per customer as a pricetag, and then offered a discount of 100% to opt out, would it work? Have two pennies if you can answer that without a presumptive bias.
- jstummbillig 4y agoThat's simple enough: I don't know. But I get the a vague feeling you are being rhetoric and you think you do? If that's the case, please, just offer up the answer alongside your thoughts leading up to it. Also I don't think I made a strawman (of any quality) but it's somewhat telling you think I did. To be super lame: I have very conflicted feelings about this topic and no conclusive opinion.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- denton-scratch 4y agoHow valuable is "personalized ads"? I can see that there's not much point in serving me ads for e.g. women's clothing, because I'm not a woman. But even if you knew everything I read online, I think you'd be hard-pressed to guess what I want to buy. So I don't believe that advertisers need to know all about me. They just need a few data points: am I a man or a woman, do I ever buy anything (do I have any money), and that's about it. Beyond that, I don't see how having more data makes it easier to get ad conversions. I've never worked in this area, and I drive with ads turned off, so I honestly don't know.
- QuarterReptile 4y agoOn the other hand, outside of Proctor&Gamble-esque juggernauts of all things cheap and disposable in the grocery store, there's tons of stuff that appeals to small groups; this is a lot of what the internet and globalization has provided. For example, my total spending on video games in the last 5 years is between 0 and $100, so game publishers should probably save their ad spend (and not annoy me with noise). My TV is seldom out of the closet and plugged in, and I spend maybe $1-200/month on books. I'm pretty interested in buying a tennis stringing machine and more sheet music to play, but it's too much effort for me to seek those things out, so I don't. These are just a few of an infinite array of identifiers that could provide worthwhile targeted ads to me. As another example, most charities have a group of people who would be happy to give them money if they knew about the organizations, while most of the population is indifferent or, in some cases, opposed to their work. I don't like advertising much, either, and it doesn't reach me that often, but it's ridiculous to suggest that personalized ads have no value.
- alkonaut 4y agoLook at Facebooks bottom line per user. It’s insanely high. And it’s probably all down to precise as delivery. They make so much money per user from ads that if they charged a subscription for it, no one would sign up. That’s why they are so successful, and ironically also why I think they are doomed (because what’s the pivot once delivering precise ads is dead?)
- YetAnotherNick 4y agoI don’t know if this an real question. Just by knowing you opened HN, I could guess a lot about you. You are much more likely to be interested in tech, a man, work as software developer than an average person. I guess you have good computer or interested in one, you are interested in free cloud credits, you are interested in cool tech products if I could show you one etc.
- ternaus 4y agoI do not know how to react about this. On one side I prefer my private information staying private. On the other I use free services like Google, YouTube, Facebook all the time. They make money selling our data, on the other, the fact that it is free for everyone is the democratization of the access to information. I suspect that even a subscription of $1 / month will push away more than half of the users for these services. I prefer to live in the world where people have free access to search engines and large social networks.
- denton-scratch 4y ago> Regardless, up to now it seems much more profitable for Silicone Valley giants to just pay the fines Would that be the Valley of the Silicone Dolls? Tutanota should know better than that.
- rootusrootus 4y agoSo what will they do instead? Put in a checkbox that you have to agree to if you want to use the service? Maybe offer a version specific to people who check that box which costs a few bucks a month?
- Nextgrid 4y agoThat would be illegal as per the GDPR - you can’t force consent by withholding service. They have no choice but to stop ad targeting based on personal data and instead only use publicly available data (public actions the user takes on the platform such as liking a page, commenting, etc) unless the user explicitly consents to their personal data being used for ad targeting.