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I would be totally fine with a regulation where they had to ask before using personal data to show ads. The overreach is that the GDPR requires that the user b

by jefftk 4y ago

I would be totally fine with a regulation where they had to ask before using personal data to show ads. The overreach is that the GDPR requires that the user be able to say "no" but still use the service -- you can't make use of the service conditional on accepting ads, and you can't require users to pay instead.

pif 4y ago
> you can't make use of the service conditional on accepting ads Edited for you: you can't make use of the service conditional on accepting personalized ads
- jefftk 4y ago
  Possibly: it's not fully clear yet whether the GDPR requires you to offer people the opportunity to use your site without ad fraud detection, but I'm expecting it turns out it does. And without ad fraud detection ad-supported sites are mostly not practical.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    You can have ad models that are immune to fraud. A time-based model such as "your ad here for X days" is immune to fraud, just like ads in print or TV are immune to it. If the ad drives purchases, the advertiser renews; if it doesn't, you may have to lower your price until another one comes up.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      It's not immune to fraud: if I offer you ad space on jefftk.com how do you know how much to pay for it? Without some kind of fraud detection, how do you know whether to trust me when I tell you I have 25k unique visitors monthly?
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        Could always be an auction-based market - you start with a trial and only do a day/week/etc and gauge your results - if they're good you know you can bid more next time. With enough "liquidity" on either side the true price of said ad inventory will naturally come up without any tracking necessary.
        jefftk 4y ago
        That works for performance advertising, where you're able to tell whether your specific ad is getting results. But most display advertising (by dollars) is brand advertising, where Ford cares that a real person is seeing their ad but isn't expecting you're going to drop everything and click through to buy a truck.
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        How has that problem been resolved in offline (print/TV/display) advertising be solved, and could those solutions be reused for the web? It seems like the free-for-all with regards to personal data and decriminalisation of spyware has led the online ads market into a near-optimal situation with regards to targeting & fraud detection, but 1) is it a trade-off people are willing to accept (the GDPR being enacted suggests not) and 2) can there be alternatives that give both sides what they want?
        jefftk 4y ago
        The traditional way to handle this in the offline world is with ratings agencies like Nielsen. This is the thing where they try to figure out how many people are watching each TV channel or who read a given paper. The problem is, this requires the readings agency to build up a representative panel of people, and track their behavior. This is pretty coarse, but it works in a relatively centralized world like traditional TV where there are only a few dozen channels. On the web, however, people visit so many different sites that the panel would either have to be extremely large or you would only be able to generate reasonable ratings for the largest sites, probably both. This would be yet another force pushing hard toward internet consolidation. Another option is that you could somehow build a new technology into browsers with some sort of privacy preserving API. I used to work in this area [1] but I am pessimistic about it: it's very hard (and may not be possible) to build something that gets all three of (a) minimal load on the users browser (b) actually useful fraud detection and (c) sufficiently private (with a separate question of whether usage would require consent under GDPR). [1] https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/ https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
6gvONxR4sf7o 4y ago
I'm with you that this isn't ideal, but as a choice between the simplest options, I think GDPR was at least an improvement. The prior status quo was 'you can bury it in the ToS in a basement across town' and led to a market where new entrants couldn't compete on more privacy friendly terms. I'd guess that even now, just allowing a simple 'pay money or <smooth lawyery wording for happiness that incidentally eliminates privacy>' choice would just lead to the same issues again. But it's absolutely like a code smell that tells me there's a more nuanced option somewhere that could be better. However, I'm glad they didn't let perfect be the enemy of good in this case.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
layer8 4y ago
This is because otherwise there (mostly) wouldn’t be any service you can use without tracking, because that tends to be the most profitable way to operate. What services still can do under the GDPR is provide a payed version without ads (and many do successfully). It’s just that if they provide a free version with tracking, they also have to provide a free version without tracking.
dmitriid 4y ago
jeff. We've been through this multiple times already. You working for the ad portion of Google has made you madly in love with ads to the point that you pretend that not letting you siphon and sell my personal data wholesale means you can't show ads. This is not true. Multiple people have told you that already, across a multitude of threads. You can still have ads on your site. GDPR does not preclude you from using ads on your site. GDPR doesn't care if you have ads on your site. Nothing in GDPR prevents you from having ads on your site. How more clear can I write this? Stop spreading lies and bullshit.
- jefftk 4y ago
  I left Google six months ago, and don't work in ads anymore. Ads without fraud detection are worth very little, and (my interpretation is) the GDPR requires consent (including the ability to say no without consequences) for that.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > I left Google six months ago, and don't work in ads anymore. But you did work there, and you keep saying the same things over and over again. > and (my interpretation is) the GDPR requires consent (including the ability to say no without consequences) for that. You posit your incorrect interpretations as if they were fact. And you keep on conflating several things into one. Even though you've had plenty of time to, you know, read something about the things you're talking about. 1. Not all ads need to be personalised ads. No, personalised ads are not a requirement. No, if it doesn't mean that you can't have ads at all. 2. No, fraud detection doesn't mean your ads are personalised. No, fraud detection doesn't mean that your ads must be personalised. 3. No, fraud detection doesn't mean you need to collect personalised data beyond what's necessary for fraud detection. No, fraud detection doesn't mean you can willy-nilly use that data in anything other than fraud detection. No, fraud detection doesn't mean you can use that data for personalised ads, sell that data to third parties, or keep that data indefinitely long. And yet, here we are, again, when you keep saying that these three disparate things are one and the same and that "GDPR is an overreach that prevents sites from showing ads". You keep repeating the same falsehoods over, and over, and over again. Please, stop.

by jefftk 4y ago

pif 4y ago

> you can't make use of the service conditional on accepting ads Edited for you: you can't make use of the service conditional on accepting personalized ads

jefftk 4y ago
Possibly: it's not fully clear yet whether the GDPR requires you to offer people the opportunity to use your site without ad fraud detection, but I'm expecting it turns out it does. And without ad fraud detection ad-supported sites are mostly not practical.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  You can have ad models that are immune to fraud. A time-based model such as "your ad here for X days" is immune to fraud, just like ads in print or TV are immune to it. If the ad drives purchases, the advertiser renews; if it doesn't, you may have to lower your price until another one comes up.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    It's not immune to fraud: if I offer you ad space on jefftk.com how do you know how much to pay for it? Without some kind of fraud detection, how do you know whether to trust me when I tell you I have 25k unique visitors monthly?
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Could always be an auction-based market - you start with a trial and only do a day/week/etc and gauge your results - if they're good you know you can bid more next time. With enough "liquidity" on either side the true price of said ad inventory will naturally come up without any tracking necessary.
      - jefftk 4y ago
        That works for performance advertising, where you're able to tell whether your specific ad is getting results. But most display advertising (by dollars) is brand advertising, where Ford cares that a real person is seeing their ad but isn't expecting you're going to drop everything and click through to buy a truck.
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        How has that problem been resolved in offline (print/TV/display) advertising be solved, and could those solutions be reused for the web? It seems like the free-for-all with regards to personal data and decriminalisation of spyware has led the online ads market into a near-optimal situation with regards to targeting & fraud detection, but 1) is it a trade-off people are willing to accept (the GDPR being enacted suggests not) and 2) can there be alternatives that give both sides what they want?
        jefftk 4y ago
        The traditional way to handle this in the offline world is with ratings agencies like Nielsen. This is the thing where they try to figure out how many people are watching each TV channel or who read a given paper. The problem is, this requires the readings agency to build up a representative panel of people, and track their behavior. This is pretty coarse, but it works in a relatively centralized world like traditional TV where there are only a few dozen channels. On the web, however, people visit so many different sites that the panel would either have to be extremely large or you would only be able to generate reasonable ratings for the largest sites, probably both. This would be yet another force pushing hard toward internet consolidation. Another option is that you could somehow build a new technology into browsers with some sort of privacy preserving API. I used to work in this area [1] but I am pessimistic about it: it's very hard (and may not be possible) to build something that gets all three of (a) minimal load on the users browser (b) actually useful fraud detection and (c) sufficiently private (with a separate question of whether usage would require consent under GDPR). [1] https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/ https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

6gvONxR4sf7o 4y ago

I'm with you that this isn't ideal, but as a choice between the simplest options, I think GDPR was at least an improvement. The prior status quo was 'you can bury it in the ToS in a basement across town' and led to a market where new entrants couldn't compete on more privacy friendly terms. I'd guess that even now, just allowing a simple 'pay money or <smooth lawyery wording for happiness that incidentally eliminates privacy>' choice would just lead to the same issues again. But it's absolutely like a code smell that tells me there's a more nuanced option somewhere that could be better. However, I'm glad they didn't let perfect be the enemy of good in this case.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

layer8 4y ago

This is because otherwise there (mostly) wouldn’t be any service you can use without tracking, because that tends to be the most profitable way to operate. What services still can do under the GDPR is provide a payed version without ads (and many do successfully). It’s just that if they provide a free version with tracking, they also have to provide a free version without tracking.

dmitriid 4y ago

jeff. We've been through this multiple times already. You working for the ad portion of Google has made you madly in love with ads to the point that you pretend that not letting you siphon and sell my personal data wholesale means you can't show ads. This is not true. Multiple people have told you that already, across a multitude of threads. You can still have ads on your site. GDPR does not preclude you from using ads on your site. GDPR doesn't care if you have ads on your site. Nothing in GDPR prevents you from having ads on your site. How more clear can I write this? Stop spreading lies and bullshit.

jefftk 4y ago
I left Google six months ago, and don't work in ads anymore. Ads without fraud detection are worth very little, and (my interpretation is) the GDPR requires consent (including the ability to say no without consequences) for that.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > I left Google six months ago, and don't work in ads anymore. But you did work there, and you keep saying the same things over and over again. > and (my interpretation is) the GDPR requires consent (including the ability to say no without consequences) for that. You posit your incorrect interpretations as if they were fact. And you keep on conflating several things into one. Even though you've had plenty of time to, you know, read something about the things you're talking about. 1. Not all ads need to be personalised ads. No, personalised ads are not a requirement. No, if it doesn't mean that you can't have ads at all. 2. No, fraud detection doesn't mean your ads are personalised. No, fraud detection doesn't mean that your ads must be personalised. 3. No, fraud detection doesn't mean you need to collect personalised data beyond what's necessary for fraud detection. No, fraud detection doesn't mean you can willy-nilly use that data in anything other than fraud detection. No, fraud detection doesn't mean you can use that data for personalised ads, sell that data to third parties, or keep that data indefinitely long. And yet, here we are, again, when you keep saying that these three disparate things are one and the same and that "GDPR is an overreach that prevents sites from showing ads". You keep repeating the same falsehoods over, and over, and over again. Please, stop.