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Except they can't. If a service is only profitable with personalized advertising they aren't allowed to say "if you want to use this service you need to allow
by jefftk 4y ago
Except they can't. If a service is only profitable with personalized advertising they aren't allowed to say "if you want to use this service you need to allow us to do personalized advertising".
Which means that in the future if there's a service I might want to use which is in this category and if I don't mind having my data used to personalize my advertising, I don't have a choice: the service won't exist.
- CogitoCogito 4y agoYes one of the purposes of the GDPR is to make it so such a service does not exist.
- jefftk 4y agoIf I want that service and someone wants to provide it to me, how is it the role of government to say we can't make that trade?
- robin_reala 4y agoIf I want to take crack cocaine, and someone wants to sell it to me, how is it the role of government to say we can't make that trade? Sure, hyperbole, but the role of government is to regulate when the externalities of a transaction aren't being accounted for within the transaction.
- jefftk 4y agoI'm on board with governments stepping in over externalities, but if A and B make a deal that includes "B will, in addition to observing A's behavior to implement functionality, use these observations to target ads and detect ad fraud" I don't see how externalities enter into it.
- CogitoCogito 4y agoI think the normal reasoning is that services that don’t use data in this fashion can’t compete with those that do. Hence users who don’t want to be tracked have no other options. Whether that bothers you is a personal question. Edit: I think it’s comparable to something like warranties. Enforcing an automatic 1/2/etc. warranty on products makes certain business models untenable. Do we consider blanket warranties on end products more important or an individuals freedom to forego such a warranty more important? Different societies may reach different conclusions.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Lio 4y agoThat's a bit like saying that motor racing wouldn't be possible without cigarette advertising. It turns out that banning tobacco advertising did not lead to the end of Formulae 1 and making targeted advertising optional won't lead to end of social media either.
- malermeister 4y agoCase in point: Mastodon, an explicitly not-for-profit social network currently growing pretty dramatically.
- cycomanic 4y agoSo essentially you want to take choice away from the majority of consumers because it might make certain business models unprofitable and you want that business model for yourself? If that's not what you want then you need to better explain your point because right now it certainly sounds like that.
- jefftk 4y ago> you want to take choice away from the majority of consumers Huh? My worry here is that privacy regulation will reduce the choices available to consumers. If it's legal for some services to offer "pay with ads + fraud detection" and others to offer "pay with your money" we can see what sort of services consumers prefer. In most areas online it turns out its the former. Regulation removes the first option. > you want that business model for yourself I'm not interested in running this sort of business; while I used to work in ads I'm not planning to go back. My main perspective here is as someone who uses and enjoys many ad-supported sites (including HN) and doesn't want to see them regulated out of existence or behind paywalls.
- robin_reala 4y agoYou’re straw-manning ads against personalised ads. There’s nothing stopping sites from targeting ads in ways that don’t require the processing of personal information (as your example, HN, already does).
- jefftk 4y agoAs I wrote in my response to pif above [1] it's pretty likely that the GDPR also requires consent for detecting ad fraud, without which advertising isn't practical on most sites. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248454