6 ms·

Why would a person want advertisers to correlate their behavior? What’s in it for them?

lokedhs 4y ago
Ostensibly it's so that the user can get more relevant ads. In practice, it's not of course, but that's the answer you'd get if you ask them.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  Of course that's the goal. The IAB isn't an NSA front. The problem with advertising is not the primary goal, but all the secondary things that can happen.
  - account42 4y ago
    I disagree: The main problem with advertising is with its primary goal, which is manipulting people into excess consumption. There are of course other secondary issues as well, but even without them ads are already a net negative for society.
  - lokedhs 4y ago
    If it's the goal, you'd expect ads to be actually be more relevant and useful to users. They don't, which has been shown in studies. What has been shown is that showing the same things people already bought give people regret which increases total amount of purchases. In other word, the goal is to not to give users a good experiences watching ad's. It is to make them buy more, which is an orthogonal goal.
    - nerdponx 4y ago
      Oh, I see what you mean. I guess it depends on whose definition of "relevant" you follow.
  - wiseleo 4y ago
    Let’s say you’re DHS. You contact some person and have a conversation like this Govt: “I need IP addresses, ideally cellular and known public wifi, of a person using this email address”. Data broker: “Here’s the list including the most recent cellular IP address associated with that person at this timestamp and their most used public wifi locations.” Govt: “Hey, cellular provider, where is this subscriber right now?” Provider: “Here’s the lat/long, last seen 1 second ago. Happy hunting!”
    - gruez 4y ago
      How does that contradict what the parent poster is saying? Even though ad-tech companies make tracking individuals easier, it doesn't change the fact that it's still largely funded by advertising itself, not through some shady government shell company.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    lokedhs said "ostensibly" because the internet advertising industry has long maintained the pretence that tracking users and showing them relevant ads is helpful to the user, when the truth is the advertising industry cares about the opinion of users like the thanksgiving industry cares about the opinion of turkeys - which is to say, not at all. There's a reason these things are opt-out rather than opt-in. The answer to marcus0x62's question - why would a person want advertisers to correlate their behavior - is that they wouldn't, and if they want to advocate for their own self-interest they should install an ad blocker.
    - a4isms 4y ago
      > the truth is the advertising industry cares about the opinion of users like the thanksgiving industry cares about the opinion of turkeys Nobody asks for the steak’s opinion when planning a BBQ.
      - justincredible 4y ago
        [dead]
fluidcruft 4y ago
In a logical world it would mean that you see fewer ads. If your matches increase, your price per ad goes up so the service needs to show you fewer ads to hit their ad revenue target for you. But if you think that will happen I have an East River transportation startup in New York that is seeking an angel investor.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > the service needs to show you fewer ads to hit their ad revenue target for you. In a logical world, yes. In a capitalist world, that revenue target goes up every year. Apple became the richest company on earth selling hardware, yet here they are now drowning their software with ads.
  - fluidcruft 4y ago
    We really should just cut out the middle man here and ban ads entirely. If an ad broker wants to pay me to watch an ad, pay me directly.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      I've come to the conclusion that we should just ban all advertising, completely. Any possible positives to allowing advertising are entirely dwarfed by the negatives.
      - daveguy 4y ago
        I would love it if there were no ads. Seems like a dream though. Has any government tried it? If so, what kind of sneaky ads posing as content emerged? "Native ads" posing as content already exist. At least it's easy to tell the difference when the ad is out in the open and marked clearly.
        fluidcruft 4y ago
        I think this new sort of AI-powered language model assistant search will be interesting once it trickles into end user control. Injecting ads requires the model output to be under central control where the they can inject ads. But when we get to the point that we can just automate our browsers to fetch 1000 pages and generate summaries locally, ads will be toast. There is a massive battle for control over generalized computing brewing because the ad networks need to force us to not build.

Ostensibly it's so that the user can get more relevant ads. In practice, it's not of course, but that's the answer you'd get if you ask them.

nerdponx 4y ago
Of course that's the goal. The IAB isn't an NSA front. The problem with advertising is not the primary goal, but all the secondary things that can happen.
- account42 4y ago
  I disagree: The main problem with advertising is with its primary goal, which is manipulting people into excess consumption. There are of course other secondary issues as well, but even without them ads are already a net negative for society.
- lokedhs 4y ago
  If it's the goal, you'd expect ads to be actually be more relevant and useful to users. They don't, which has been shown in studies. What has been shown is that showing the same things people already bought give people regret which increases total amount of purchases. In other word, the goal is to not to give users a good experiences watching ad's. It is to make them buy more, which is an orthogonal goal.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    Oh, I see what you mean. I guess it depends on whose definition of "relevant" you follow.
- wiseleo 4y ago
  Let’s say you’re DHS. You contact some person and have a conversation like this Govt: “I need IP addresses, ideally cellular and known public wifi, of a person using this email address”. Data broker: “Here’s the list including the most recent cellular IP address associated with that person at this timestamp and their most used public wifi locations.” Govt: “Hey, cellular provider, where is this subscriber right now?” Provider: “Here’s the lat/long, last seen 1 second ago. Happy hunting!”
  - gruez 4y ago
    How does that contradict what the parent poster is saying? Even though ad-tech companies make tracking individuals easier, it doesn't change the fact that it's still largely funded by advertising itself, not through some shady government shell company.
- michaelt 4y ago
  lokedhs said "ostensibly" because the internet advertising industry has long maintained the pretence that tracking users and showing them relevant ads is helpful to the user, when the truth is the advertising industry cares about the opinion of users like the thanksgiving industry cares about the opinion of turkeys - which is to say, not at all. There's a reason these things are opt-out rather than opt-in. The answer to marcus0x62's question - why would a person want advertisers to correlate their behavior - is that they wouldn't, and if they want to advocate for their own self-interest they should install an ad blocker.
  - a4isms 4y ago
    > the truth is the advertising industry cares about the opinion of users like the thanksgiving industry cares about the opinion of turkeys Nobody asks for the steak’s opinion when planning a BBQ.
    - justincredible 4y ago
      [dead]

fluidcruft 4y ago

In a logical world it would mean that you see fewer ads. If your matches increase, your price per ad goes up so the service needs to show you fewer ads to hit their ad revenue target for you. But if you think that will happen I have an East River transportation startup in New York that is seeking an angel investor.

rchaud 4y ago
> the service needs to show you fewer ads to hit their ad revenue target for you. In a logical world, yes. In a capitalist world, that revenue target goes up every year. Apple became the richest company on earth selling hardware, yet here they are now drowning their software with ads.
- fluidcruft 4y ago
  We really should just cut out the middle man here and ban ads entirely. If an ad broker wants to pay me to watch an ad, pay me directly.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    I've come to the conclusion that we should just ban all advertising, completely. Any possible positives to allowing advertising are entirely dwarfed by the negatives.
    - daveguy 4y ago
      I would love it if there were no ads. Seems like a dream though. Has any government tried it? If so, what kind of sneaky ads posing as content emerged? "Native ads" posing as content already exist. At least it's easy to tell the difference when the ad is out in the open and marked clearly.
      - fluidcruft 4y ago
        I think this new sort of AI-powered language model assistant search will be interesting once it trickles into end user control. Injecting ads requires the model output to be under central control where the they can inject ads. But when we get to the point that we can just automate our browsers to fetch 1000 pages and generate summaries locally, ads will be toast. There is a massive battle for control over generalized computing brewing because the ad networks need to force us to not build.