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in all seriousness, i'll take the contrary opinion, i love targeted ads. saves me time, and there's no way to keep my data private anyway, so i might as well ge
by chadd 4y ago
in all seriousness, i'll take the contrary opinion, i love targeted ads. saves me time, and there's no way to keep my data private anyway, so i might as well get some value out of it. i wish there were a browser plugin called "please accept all cookies" which would just get rid of the friction, and as a downstream fringe benefit, show me better ads.
- benmanns 4y agoThis browser extension doesn't work everywhere, but it works some places. You can auto-decline all cookie prompts, or if you're so inclined, auto-accept: https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic
- NJRBailey 4y agoI agree - I mostly get ads for things I'm actually interested in (e.g. furniture), and I don't usually buy anything from them, but it at least makes me aware that there may be a new style of products available for when I next need to make a purchase. Also on occasion there will be an advert for something which I wasn't aware existed, or which shows me a new idea to consider. I'm also happy to see ads as an alternative to having to pay for access to a site.
- masterof0 4y agoThen it should be opt-in. You are free to post your personal info online.
- dmitriid 4y ago> and there's no way to keep my data private anyway This is learned helplessness. Instead of giving up we should mete multi(m|b)illion fines to corporations who think that your data is theirs https://noyb.eu/en/breaking-meta-prohibited-use-personal-data-advertising https://noyb.eu/en/breaking-meta-prohibited-use-personal-dat...
- imiric 4y agoThe thing is that your personal information doesn't just subject you to targeted ads. It also makes you vulnerable to propaganda, behavioral modification, and all sorts of psychological manipulation. Advertisers have known this for decades, and the internet has given them the perfect delivery method. While you can't be entirely invisible online, you can certainly make things more difficult for adtech by changing some of your tech usage habits. Avoiding psychological manipulation is a worthwhile and achievable goal.
- Baader-Meinhof 4y agoIsn't the root issue here "propaganda" in ads? If so, should we focus on banning that? Otherwise, if an ad is straight facts, even if it's making a specific argument based on your personality, is that intrinsically bad? Is it bad that we are exposed to convincing counter-arguments? Shouldn't we occasionally re-exam our beliefs, especially in light of new information? More philosophically, should we, as free-willed people, be prevented from seeing "untruths"?
- not_kurt_godel 4y agoDo you honestly believe that advertising is a legitimate and useful source of truthful factual information that people should be using to make decisions and shape their thinking about the world?
- xvector 4y agoDo you honestly think that there is a single "useful source of truthful factual information" on this planet? There is not a single organization out there that will not present you facts without some sort of bias or slant.
- not_kurt_godel 4y agoI would love to watch you tell me in person that you believe that targeted advertisements are as good a source of knowledge and information as any other on the planet, and try to keep a straight face while doing so.
- can16358p 4y agoSame here. They have our data somehow anyways, and will always find clever non-direct ways to access it. They will also show me and I think it's fair for most free services/websites. At least let those ads be interesting for me: which is a good thing; I've discovered and bought many goods from ads.
- boh 4y agoDo you love targeted pricing too? Like user X is more likely to buy product Y so make the price +10%. It’s a good thing that targeted pricing is illegal in many places, but oh wait, there’s an AI pricing layer which cannot be reverse engineered so evidence of price targeting can’t be found. The problem with user data is it lasts forever, and as the political and technological environment further shifts into "profit-friendliness", your user profile will grow and be more and more valuable as it provides more advantages to the counter-parties you’ll be trading with in the course of your life. It will likely affect your insurance premiums, your interest rates, your every day purchases, but I guess it’s worth it for those swell ads.
- Baader-Meinhof 4y ago> there’s an AI pricing layer which cannot be reverse engineered so evidence of price targeting can’t be found Is this strictly true? Couldn't we can audit the model's parameters for things analogous to the user's economic status?
- kroltan 4y agoMost AI models are not even known about, accessible outside the system they are part of, let alone targeted for audits at all. Unless you got enough volume of volunteer users to try and make some correlations, but then, those can still be argued not to be causation.
- jezzarax 4y agoIn theory it’s easier/possible with some types of models, harder/impossible with others, but only if the model and the data processing around it is disclosed. The bigger issue here is that some seemingly unrelated factors and their combinations (postal code, time being active during the day, even the vocabulary used in social communication) could be predictive for the user’s economic status.
- dnissley 4y agoHonestly totally fine with this and wish high demand items were mostly just auctioned off when they are first released. E.g. graphics cards, concert tickets, etc. They tend to end up in the hands of the people who want them most anyway, just through middle men (scalpers), so might as well have that value go directly to the company/artist.
- Zak 4y ago> i wish there were a browser plugin called "please accept all cookies" There's almost that. It doesn't always accept all cookies but it does hide the warnings: https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/
- remram 4y agoCould there be a standard between browsers and websites to avoid those banners? Similar to the Do Not Track header, a Accept Cookies header? Contrary to ad-blocking where the website very much wants you to see ads, and is not going to help you in blocking them, this is a situation where they might be interested to help.
- recursive 4y agoThis is a real problem, but it has gotten quite silly at this point. A user agent can reject cookies by merely not doing anything with them. A user agent can signal that it accepts cookies by just retaining them. You might argue that we could save a pittance in bandwidth by eliding the Set-Cookie header entirely. However, the potential savings here is a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of javascript to handle the consent banners.
- FrontAid 4y ago> Similar to the Do Not Track header, a Accept Cookies header? Do not track can do that, it has three possible values. 0: The user prefers to allow tracking on the target site. 1: The user prefers not to be tracked on the target site. null: The user has not specified a preference about tracking. Source: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DNT https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DN... The problem is that DNT is mostly ignored, and also deprecated by now.
- Zak 4y agoI am not a lawyer or a GDPR expert, but I think that probably wouldn't satisfy the intent of the GDPR any more than current browser capabilities to accept or reject third-party cookies would.
- OneLeggedCat 4y agoI can't wait for insurance companies to start charging higher or lower rates based on the personality traits they've gleaned.
- manicennui 4y agoIf they had the data and found them to be significant predictors of future behavior, I'm sure they would. One must be very careful when doing this in industries like insurance and lending though, as they can be proxies for protected classes.
- manicennui 4y agoDo you have money burning a hole in your pocket? I don't want to be constantly prompted to buy and consume things. When I have a problem, I research solutions and buy a product or service if necessary. I don't care what those with the largest marketing budgets think I should buy. I also follow companies on social media that I know and trust if I think I might be interested in their future products.
- drusepth 4y ago>Do you have money burning a hole in your pocket? I don't want to be constantly prompted to buy and consume things. On the other hand, I like to be constantly made aware of new things I might like to buy and/or consume. That way, when I do have a little extra cash to burn (or just want to save up for something, or want to be inspired to create something similar), I already have a feel for what all is out there without having to spend extra time researching "cool stuff I don't know about".
- timeon 4y agoThis sounds like peak consumerism.
- xvector 4y agoWhy do you want to push your austere approach to purchases on everyone else?
- manicennui 4y agoI don't. The only ones having anything forced on them are those who don't want to be bombarded by ads and those who don't want their data sold and those who don't want to be tracked.
- xapata 4y agoI'm pretty good, I think, about sticking to my shopping list. However, I don't always have time to research vendors. Finding a new vendor in a banner advertisement can be helpful. Just the other day, I discovered a local manufacturer of iron railings who apparently is better at buying ads on Facebook than at creating an indexable website.
- manicennui 4y agoI also wanted to mention that I allow Google to have as much of my activity history as they want, and I don't find their ads to be any more relevant.