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I would be so happy if can go back to a world where advertising happens purely based on the content like we've had for ages in TV/radio/magazines. The amount of

by dtech 3y ago

I would be so happy if can go back to a world where advertising happens purely based on the content like we've had for ages in TV/radio/magazines. The amount of privacy we've globally lost just for a few advertising dollars is atrocious. I've never been convinced that it even adds that much value for advertisers, but they must think otherwise and I guess the sheer amount of money and effort that is put into targeted advertising shows otherwise.

idopmstuff 3y ago
> I've never been convinced that it even adds that much value for advertisers It does, particularly for small businesses. I own a small ecommerce company, and there's just no way I could profitably advertise in the way you're describing. Current digital advertising is far superior on multiple levels: - Scale: I started with a few bucks a day and can run very small tests. Neither possible with the kind of ads you're describing. - Targeting: The current digital advertising is simply much better at targeting, which means my returns are much higher because a much higher percent of people who click on it convert. As a point of comparison, I've done newsletters (and very targeted ones - I run a dog treat company, so there are some good magazines/newsletters for my audience) and they're much worse than Meta ads. - Feedback: At this point, I just won't do anything if I can't track the results. If you're investing in TV/radio/magazines, you're just guessing what works and burning a bunch of money on the stuff that doesn't.
- balder1991 3y ago
  This is a perspective that’s not usually talked.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Small, incredibly niche businesses come up often when we talk about ads. Probably because they are one of the few sympathetic business models that benefit from hyper-targeted ads. It is nice that people can start these incredibly niche businesses, but we have to weigh that against the fact they we’ve built a massive surveillance apparatus and also the misinformation ecosystem that grew out of Facebook is screwing up politics around the world. But ya know, dog treats, I guess it is a hard choice.
    - hackerlight 3y ago
      > we’ve built a massive surveillance apparatus and also the misinformation ecosystem that grew out of Facebook is screwing up politics around the world. I'm also concerned about the misinformation ecosystem, but why is the surveillance apparatus a primary cause? I'd say the primary causes are a lack of content moderation and the incentives that the platform creates by putting likes as the main way that ideas spread.
- dublinben 3y ago
  How was anyone able to sell dog treats before pervasive digital surveillance? Must not have been possible.
  - w0m 3y ago
    because The Old Way is universally better.
    - 93po 3y ago
      in this case it clearly is? i don't care about capitalism's ability to unethically try to manipulate me into giving it money. if it sucks for business owners then that's too bad - maybe they should do something different with their time.
      - renewiltord 3y ago
        Yeah, well, that's where we differ. I think giving small business owners access to tools to show up in front of an audience that is interested in them is worthwhile while you believe almost all consumer products should be sold only by megaconglomerates who can afford large blocks of advertising. That's a pretty big difference in our viewpoints and while HN currently tends towards yours, I have no doubt that my objectives lead to a better world for consumers (and actually, non-consumers as well) than yours.
        bigbillheck 3y ago
        How about the option in which there's still at most limited ads and we also break up all those big corporations into lots of little ones?
        renewiltord 3y ago
        I don't think active management of company size works successfully. The enforcement division of any nation would be a significant portion of GDP. And what happens to products like the iPhone? After the ten thousandth iPhone, you're a $10 mm revenue company and someone else sells the next iPhone? I'm not convinced that's better for consumers and non-consumers.
- wdawson4 3y ago
  What you are describing is targeted advertising, not behavioral advertising. The article discusses a ban on behavioral advertising. Behavioral is targeting advertising based on how a user interacts with content on the internet, instead of basing it on their personally stated interests, which they have control over. In your case, instead of targeting advertising at users that scroll past cat videos and choose to watch dog videos, you could target advertising to users in a dog owners FB group.
- bryan_w 3y ago
  > because a much higher percent of people who click on it convert. And even better (for the consumer), a higher percentage of people who _see_ the ad are likely to actually be interested in the topic. This compared to the annoying ShaneCo ads that have been plauging radio stations for years.
  - seattle_spring 3y ago
    > the annoying ShaneCo ads On the corner of State St and 7200 South. Open Monday through Fridays til 8, Saturdays til 5. Closed Sundays.
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    Totally - the most positive ad experience I've ever had was when I was looking for a gift for my then-girlfriend and was served an ad for a company that offered private tours of the SF Zoo where you got to meet the red pandas. I got a great experience that I otherwise would never have known about, and the company + zoo both made money. This is good!
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > And even better (for the consumer), a higher percentage of people who _see_ the ad are likely to actually be interested in the topic. Which inadvertently means the consumer is forced to see less ads, since each ad is capable of generating more revenue and therefore there doesn't need to be as many of them. So, you've sacrificed some privacy, and in exchange you get less ads and better targeted ads. Was this a good trade-off for the consumer? I don't know. It probably doesn't make a big difference to our lives one way or the other.
- dspillett 3y ago
  It seems obvious to me that there is genuine benefit: otherwise it is a giant scam against the advertisers as well as an invasion of individual privacy, and there would be lobbing from larger commercial entities affected to make the scam illegal if it were one. Though that there is a benefit to businesses, however small, does not make me inclined to be happy that I am stalked throughout my personal life online by a great many advertising firms, and information about me gleaned from that stalking bought and sold between them, in order for those businesses to experience said benefit. If it were banned globally, the “but how do I run my business otherwise?” question is a problem for the businesses, not me. The “most people don't mind, you are just being contrary” argument that I've seen once or twice is bunkum. If that were the case it would not be so often be made such a faf to opt-opt. One thing where I feel current privacy laws are a little off, is disallowing blocking for people who don't opt in. I've quite happy to be given a choice of “let this list of hundreds of third parties track you, or go away” (in case you haven't guessed, I'll go away) as long as no tracking is initiated between my arrival and going away without opting-in.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    If it weren't banned globally, the “but how do I protect my privacy?” question is a problem for the consumers, not me.
    - pksebben 3y ago
      “I don’t consume stuff”, says paragon of austerity.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    I don't particularly care if advertisers build a profile of me for the purpose of advertising. I use ad blockers and I rarely if ever see ads when doing anything online. My concern is that all this profile data is being slurped up by people who can really do harm: governments and their TLAs. People don't get sent to re-education camps (or worse) by companies trying to sell dog treats.
    - 3y ago
- uneoneuno 3y ago
  What digital advertising platform do you use? I am looking for methods to promote my small business and have an idea of my audience but want to understand the most efficient way to reach them.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  People are terrible at judging their own thoughts. Pound for pound, people prefer ads that are relevant to ads that are irrelevant. What they are annoyed by is the volume (in multiple senses) of the ads. That's it. They just take it out on other things.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    So you're asserting that marketing companies know people better than they know themselves? If that's true, that's incredibly damning of marketing companies and is a great argument for why they should have access to less individualized data about people.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      > marketing companies know people better than they know themselves Yes. I'm saying it's a low bar because people don't know themselves.
- mbgerring 3y ago
  You’re conflating several different things here. Facebook et al could easily change the targeting criteria to match the content your ads are being displayed next to, rather than the audience that is looking at it. Especially with AI content description and summarization tools. The fast feedback and targeting you can get from digital advertising could still be available without mass surveillance.
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    No, what you're suggesting misunderstands why these ads work well. I don't care what content you're looking at. I care who are you. Specifically, I care whether you're a person who owns a dog and spends money on high-quality/luxury dog goods. Whether you're looking at something related to dogs or a post by someone in your family about a wedding last weekend doesn't matter. Displaying my ad next to dog-related content would be much, much worse from a targeting perspective. Instead of targeting the people who are likely to buy my product, it'd end up targeting people watching dog videos. The set of people who watch dog videos is much broader than my target audience - my mom watches dog videos sometimes, and she's a cat person!
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      > Specifically, I care whether you're a person who owns a dog and spends money on high-quality/luxury dog goods. Thing is, that is non of your god damned business. You can show your ads next to dog videos or whatever other content you like. You don't get to spy on me just because you think you'll learn better ways to try to manipulate me. If targeted advertising were really about helping get the information to interested people who want that information, then content based advertising would accomplish that.
    - p0pcult 3y ago
      [dead]
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >I don't care what content you're looking at. I care who are you. Specifically, I care whether you're a person who owns a dog and spends money on high-quality/luxury dog goods. Whether you're looking at something related to dogs or a post by someone in your family about a wedding last weekend doesn't matter. I think you have it backwards. You don't care who someone is. Rather, you care about "people most likely to buy my product," and much, much more about people who actually buy your product. Their name, family history, life story and other information is irrelevant. Having the money to pay and the will to buy are the only important things. As such, which was alluded to by others, instead of spying on/tracking people to hazard a guess (perhaps even a good guess, but not necessarily) what they're likely to purchase, let's just ask them up front to list the things they are interested in, with the ability to modify such a list whenever they like. And make that list opt-in, of course. Then use the database of those lists to target ads. People see ads for stuff they're interested in, those who aren't interested don't see them. Which is a win-win for consumers and advertisers. Consumers only see relevant ads and advertisers know their ad impressions are among folks who are actually interested. Sure, there are lots of reasons to argue against a voluntary database like that, not least of which ad-supported sites would suffer. But if you (like me) don't earn a living via ad-tech, even such a flawed idea seems like paradise compared to the current levels of spying/tracking which would make a Stasi[0] wet dream look decidedly soft-core. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
footlose_3815 3y ago
It's funny because this philosophy makes a lot of sense. Nobody has given it a name yet though as far as I know. The philosophy that mass advertising is a malaise that hurts more than helps. That humans inherently can't be trusted with data. No matter how benevolent the cause may seem, that data is not going to be safely leveraged in the interest of the people that data represents. Take Cambridge analytica scandal for example. People thought they could trust Facebook with their opinions. It turns out that data was being farmed and sent to a political aggravator who is being paid by the Republican party. Some could say it is one of the things that turned the election of 2016 to Trump. Zuckerberg had no problem with this. This is the kind of philosophy I'm talking about. Getting rid of this kind of garbage.
- nceqs3 3y ago
  >Some could say it is one of the things that turned the election of 2016 to Trump. Zuckerberg had no problem with this. This is just patently false. There is no evidence for this whatsoever. Also CA wasn't really Facebook's fault. A third party broke FB's TOS and committed perjury once FB caught them. Both parties have FAR more sophisticated ad targeting companies.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> just for a few advertising dollars The problem is that it isn't "just a few" dollars. There are several multi-billion-dollar companies that have been founded on exactly that. When there's that much money to be made, there's almost no way to stop it. Human history is rife with examples of greed run amok.
- w0m 3y ago
  You're conflating. As a small business, he can do small targeted advertising and expect some positive results. Untargeted simply wouldn't be feasible at a low scale to expect results. Targeted advertising does allow 'the little guy' to reach their expected audience a bit better.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    Double check parent to the comment you responded to. It’s not responding to the one you think it’s responding to. The comment was: > I would be so happy if can go back to a world where advertising happens purely based on the content like we've had for ages in TV/radio/magazines. The amount of privacy we've globally lost just for a few advertising dollars is atrocious. > […] The one you are talking about meanwhile, is a different comment. A sibling comment which was also in response to the few dollars thing.
    - w0m 3y ago
      I blame Spez. Thank you.
- imiric 3y ago
  Exactly. Advertising revenue increases with more accurate consumer targeting. If you can show an ad of a product to a consumer who's most susceptible to make a purchase, at exactly the right time they need it, a sale is pretty much guaranteed. Currently advertisers spend millions on ad campaigns that have very low and innacurate conversion rates. The more they know about the potential consumer, the more their user data and thus a targeted ad is worth. Microtargeting is a sickening trend enabled by adtech, but the fact it works much better than traditional ad campaigns is a reason advertisers would never want to go back. And then there's the data broker market, which on its own is worth billions of dollars. This is an entire adjacent industry symbiotic with adtech. None of this is going away anytime soon.
shortrounddev2 3y ago
Targeted advertising keeps the internet open
- manuelmoreale 3y ago
  Why do you believe that to be the case?
  - nceqs3 3y ago
    Without targeted ads, everything will be behind a paywall.
    - linguae 3y ago
      I remember the Web of the 1990s and early 2000s where there were plenty of sites operated by hobbyists and academics that had no ads at all. Of course, there were also e-commerce sites like eBay and Amazon that didn't have ads since their business models didn't rely on them. The Web would look different without targeted ads, but not everything will be behind a paywall.
      - shortrounddev2 3y ago
        Yes, the internet would probably be nothing but tech people. YouTube would certainly not exist
    - imiric 3y ago
      Advertising and paywalls aren't the only available business models. One would think that with all the modern technology we would have alternative sustainable business models on the web. Turns out, we do. Brave's BAT is a great model, regardless of what you think of Brave Inc.
    - manuelmoreale 3y ago
      I disagree. You could run non targeted adds by sponsoring sites that are close to your business. You could have a mix of premium and free content. You could figure out other ways to connect with potential customers. Targeted ads are not the be all and end all of web monetisation.
cm2012 3y ago
I do B2B advertising. Without behavioral targeting. It would not be possible.
- imiric 3y ago
  With respect, that's BS. First of all, of course it would be possible, but you would need to be smarter with your traditional campaigns to reach customers. And secondly, if you do B2B advertising then your MO is cold contacting businesses, email campaigns, social media, trade shows, etc. Why do you need behavioral data of your users to advertise to them? And how would you even know they represent a business from just their behavior?
- shkkmo 3y ago
  Then you are incompetent at your job.
- p0pcult 3y ago
  [dead]
avalys 3y ago
> The amount of privacy we've globally lost just for a few advertising dollars is atrocious. What is the actual consequence of this "lost privacy"? What would be tangibly different in your life right now if you hadn't "lost" it? My answer - nothing whatsoever, no harm comes to me at all from some statistical algorithm calculating what ads I might want to see, and in fact I've bought several cool products off Instagram that I didn't know about otherwise. This is a completely illusory harm that has been made up by what is essentially a cabal of professional agitators and propagandists.
- Dirak 3y ago
  In fact, I would go further and say we would actually be worse off without personalized advertising. Personalized ads help connect innovative products with the people who would benefit from them. Without a way to reach these niche audiences, these products might not be able to exist, and the community would be worse off.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  You may suffer no harm, but there are plenty of real stories of others who have. I maintain that it doesn't matter. Harm isn't necessary to reasonably object to being spied on. Just wanting to not be under surveillance is more than sufficient.
- gingerlime 3y ago
  What actual harm would come to you from someone watching you in your bedroom? What harm would come to people simply registered as Jewish in Germany prior to WW2?
jensensbutton 3y ago
Does that mean local business would be cut out of internet advertising because ads can't be shown based on your city/state/country? That would be a tangible loss. "The amount of privacy we've globally lost" doesn't seem like a real thing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
s17n 3y ago
I honestly just don’t understand why anyone would care about this distinction. I’d support a total ban on all advertising, but I simply can’t fathom giving a damn about exactly which data points were used in the targeting.
mindcrime 3y ago
Not me. I want ads to be hyper-personalized, because I want them to be relevant. I don't mind ads at all, *so long as they are for things I might actually be interested in*. What drives me nuts though, are ads that are so totally and obviously un-suited for me. Like, I see ads all the time on Facebook where if I click the "Why did I see this ad" button, it turns out the advertiser was "targeting" (if you can call it that) "people over 18 years of age, with a primary location in the United States." Seriously, WTF? I wish FB didn't even allow ads to be so broadly scoped. There is approximately NOTHING that is legitimately going to be of interest to everybody in that group. It's bad for the advertiser, bad for the user, and probably bad for Facebook to even have that. No, I say figure out that I'm a libertarian atheist with strong interests in open source software, bicycles, guns, and electronics test equipment, and show me ads for those things first and foremost. Target the hell out of me, please.
- Tainnor 3y ago
  But you don't get that choice. As long as ad companies have data about you, they can distribute you in whichever bucket they like. Similar to how I get recruiters offering me PHP positions on LinkedIn despite PHP not being anywhere close to my profile. There's no way for you to say "you can use my data but only the way I like it" unless you sign some explicit agreement. When you give up your data, you also consent to be placed into whatever bin they want you to be placed in. They don't care about whether you get to see exactly the ads that you want to see, as long as they believe their cost to benefit ratio is right. This is why you should want your data to belong to you, so that you could make an informed decision about what kind of content you see.
- orangecat 3y ago
  I want ads to be hyper-personalized, because I want them to be relevant. I don't, because ads are 10% informing me of the existence of products I might be interested in, and 90% psychological manipulation trying to induce me to buy stuff whether it's in my best interest or not. If the advertiser knows more about me, that can increase the effectiveness of their manipulation. I say figure out that I'm a libertarian atheist with strong interests in open source software, bicycles, guns, and electronics test equipment, and show me ads for those things first and foremost. Target the hell out of me, please. It seems like a win-win solution would be for browsers to send an optional user-controlled header describing your interests. Sort of like Google's topics API, but entirely under your control rather than mined from your browser history.

by dtech 3y ago

idopmstuff 3y ago

> I've never been convinced that it even adds that much value for advertisers It does, particularly for small businesses. I own a small ecommerce company, and there's just no way I could profitably advertise in the way you're describing. Current digital advertising is far superior on multiple levels: - Scale: I started with a few bucks a day and can run very small tests. Neither possible with the kind of ads you're describing. - Targeting: The current digital advertising is simply much better at targeting, which means my returns are much higher because a much higher percent of people who click on it convert. As a point of comparison, I've done newsletters (and very targeted ones - I run a dog treat company, so there are some good magazines/newsletters for my audience) and they're much worse than Meta ads. - Feedback: At this point, I just won't do anything if I can't track the results. If you're investing in TV/radio/magazines, you're just guessing what works and burning a bunch of money on the stuff that doesn't.

balder1991 3y ago
This is a perspective that’s not usually talked.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Small, incredibly niche businesses come up often when we talk about ads. Probably because they are one of the few sympathetic business models that benefit from hyper-targeted ads. It is nice that people can start these incredibly niche businesses, but we have to weigh that against the fact they we’ve built a massive surveillance apparatus and also the misinformation ecosystem that grew out of Facebook is screwing up politics around the world. But ya know, dog treats, I guess it is a hard choice.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > we’ve built a massive surveillance apparatus and also the misinformation ecosystem that grew out of Facebook is screwing up politics around the world. I'm also concerned about the misinformation ecosystem, but why is the surveillance apparatus a primary cause? I'd say the primary causes are a lack of content moderation and the incentives that the platform creates by putting likes as the main way that ideas spread.
dublinben 3y ago
How was anyone able to sell dog treats before pervasive digital surveillance? Must not have been possible.
- w0m 3y ago
  because The Old Way is universally better.
  - 93po 3y ago
    in this case it clearly is? i don't care about capitalism's ability to unethically try to manipulate me into giving it money. if it sucks for business owners then that's too bad - maybe they should do something different with their time.
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      Yeah, well, that's where we differ. I think giving small business owners access to tools to show up in front of an audience that is interested in them is worthwhile while you believe almost all consumer products should be sold only by megaconglomerates who can afford large blocks of advertising. That's a pretty big difference in our viewpoints and while HN currently tends towards yours, I have no doubt that my objectives lead to a better world for consumers (and actually, non-consumers as well) than yours.
      - bigbillheck 3y ago
        How about the option in which there's still at most limited ads and we also break up all those big corporations into lots of little ones?
        renewiltord 3y ago
        I don't think active management of company size works successfully. The enforcement division of any nation would be a significant portion of GDP. And what happens to products like the iPhone? After the ten thousandth iPhone, you're a $10 mm revenue company and someone else sells the next iPhone? I'm not convinced that's better for consumers and non-consumers.
wdawson4 3y ago
What you are describing is targeted advertising, not behavioral advertising. The article discusses a ban on behavioral advertising. Behavioral is targeting advertising based on how a user interacts with content on the internet, instead of basing it on their personally stated interests, which they have control over. In your case, instead of targeting advertising at users that scroll past cat videos and choose to watch dog videos, you could target advertising to users in a dog owners FB group.
bryan_w 3y ago
> because a much higher percent of people who click on it convert. And even better (for the consumer), a higher percentage of people who _see_ the ad are likely to actually be interested in the topic. This compared to the annoying ShaneCo ads that have been plauging radio stations for years.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  > the annoying ShaneCo ads On the corner of State St and 7200 South. Open Monday through Fridays til 8, Saturdays til 5. Closed Sundays.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  Totally - the most positive ad experience I've ever had was when I was looking for a gift for my then-girlfriend and was served an ad for a company that offered private tours of the SF Zoo where you got to meet the red pandas. I got a great experience that I otherwise would never have known about, and the company + zoo both made money. This is good!
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > And even better (for the consumer), a higher percentage of people who _see_ the ad are likely to actually be interested in the topic. Which inadvertently means the consumer is forced to see less ads, since each ad is capable of generating more revenue and therefore there doesn't need to be as many of them. So, you've sacrificed some privacy, and in exchange you get less ads and better targeted ads. Was this a good trade-off for the consumer? I don't know. It probably doesn't make a big difference to our lives one way or the other.
dspillett 3y ago
It seems obvious to me that there is genuine benefit: otherwise it is a giant scam against the advertisers as well as an invasion of individual privacy, and there would be lobbing from larger commercial entities affected to make the scam illegal if it were one. Though that there is a benefit to businesses, however small, does not make me inclined to be happy that I am stalked throughout my personal life online by a great many advertising firms, and information about me gleaned from that stalking bought and sold between them, in order for those businesses to experience said benefit. If it were banned globally, the “but how do I run my business otherwise?” question is a problem for the businesses, not me. The “most people don't mind, you are just being contrary” argument that I've seen once or twice is bunkum. If that were the case it would not be so often be made such a faf to opt-opt. One thing where I feel current privacy laws are a little off, is disallowing blocking for people who don't opt in. I've quite happy to be given a choice of “let this list of hundreds of third parties track you, or go away” (in case you haven't guessed, I'll go away) as long as no tracking is initiated between my arrival and going away without opting-in.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  If it weren't banned globally, the “but how do I protect my privacy?” question is a problem for the consumers, not me.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    “I don’t consume stuff”, says paragon of austerity.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  I don't particularly care if advertisers build a profile of me for the purpose of advertising. I use ad blockers and I rarely if ever see ads when doing anything online. My concern is that all this profile data is being slurped up by people who can really do harm: governments and their TLAs. People don't get sent to re-education camps (or worse) by companies trying to sell dog treats.
  - 3y ago
uneoneuno 3y ago
What digital advertising platform do you use? I am looking for methods to promote my small business and have an idea of my audience but want to understand the most efficient way to reach them.
paulddraper 3y ago
People are terrible at judging their own thoughts. Pound for pound, people prefer ads that are relevant to ads that are irrelevant. What they are annoyed by is the volume (in multiple senses) of the ads. That's it. They just take it out on other things.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  So you're asserting that marketing companies know people better than they know themselves? If that's true, that's incredibly damning of marketing companies and is a great argument for why they should have access to less individualized data about people.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    > marketing companies know people better than they know themselves Yes. I'm saying it's a low bar because people don't know themselves.
mbgerring 3y ago
You’re conflating several different things here. Facebook et al could easily change the targeting criteria to match the content your ads are being displayed next to, rather than the audience that is looking at it. Especially with AI content description and summarization tools. The fast feedback and targeting you can get from digital advertising could still be available without mass surveillance.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  No, what you're suggesting misunderstands why these ads work well. I don't care what content you're looking at. I care who are you. Specifically, I care whether you're a person who owns a dog and spends money on high-quality/luxury dog goods. Whether you're looking at something related to dogs or a post by someone in your family about a wedding last weekend doesn't matter. Displaying my ad next to dog-related content would be much, much worse from a targeting perspective. Instead of targeting the people who are likely to buy my product, it'd end up targeting people watching dog videos. The set of people who watch dog videos is much broader than my target audience - my mom watches dog videos sometimes, and she's a cat person!
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    > Specifically, I care whether you're a person who owns a dog and spends money on high-quality/luxury dog goods. Thing is, that is non of your god damned business. You can show your ads next to dog videos or whatever other content you like. You don't get to spy on me just because you think you'll learn better ways to try to manipulate me. If targeted advertising were really about helping get the information to interested people who want that information, then content based advertising would accomplish that.
  - p0pcult 3y ago
    [dead]
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >I don't care what content you're looking at. I care who are you. Specifically, I care whether you're a person who owns a dog and spends money on high-quality/luxury dog goods. Whether you're looking at something related to dogs or a post by someone in your family about a wedding last weekend doesn't matter. I think you have it backwards. You don't care who someone is. Rather, you care about "people most likely to buy my product," and much, much more about people who actually buy your product. Their name, family history, life story and other information is irrelevant. Having the money to pay and the will to buy are the only important things. As such, which was alluded to by others, instead of spying on/tracking people to hazard a guess (perhaps even a good guess, but not necessarily) what they're likely to purchase, let's just ask them up front to list the things they are interested in, with the ability to modify such a list whenever they like. And make that list opt-in, of course. Then use the database of those lists to target ads. People see ads for stuff they're interested in, those who aren't interested don't see them. Which is a win-win for consumers and advertisers. Consumers only see relevant ads and advertisers know their ad impressions are among folks who are actually interested. Sure, there are lots of reasons to argue against a voluntary database like that, not least of which ad-supported sites would suffer. But if you (like me) don't earn a living via ad-tech, even such a flawed idea seems like paradise compared to the current levels of spying/tracking which would make a Stasi[0] wet dream look decidedly soft-core. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

footlose_3815 3y ago

It's funny because this philosophy makes a lot of sense. Nobody has given it a name yet though as far as I know. The philosophy that mass advertising is a malaise that hurts more than helps. That humans inherently can't be trusted with data. No matter how benevolent the cause may seem, that data is not going to be safely leveraged in the interest of the people that data represents. Take Cambridge analytica scandal for example. People thought they could trust Facebook with their opinions. It turns out that data was being farmed and sent to a political aggravator who is being paid by the Republican party. Some could say it is one of the things that turned the election of 2016 to Trump. Zuckerberg had no problem with this. This is the kind of philosophy I'm talking about. Getting rid of this kind of garbage.

nceqs3 3y ago
>Some could say it is one of the things that turned the election of 2016 to Trump. Zuckerberg had no problem with this. This is just patently false. There is no evidence for this whatsoever. Also CA wasn't really Facebook's fault. A third party broke FB's TOS and committed perjury once FB caught them. Both parties have FAR more sophisticated ad targeting companies.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

> just for a few advertising dollars The problem is that it isn't "just a few" dollars. There are several multi-billion-dollar companies that have been founded on exactly that. When there's that much money to be made, there's almost no way to stop it. Human history is rife with examples of greed run amok.

w0m 3y ago
You're conflating. As a small business, he can do small targeted advertising and expect some positive results. Untargeted simply wouldn't be feasible at a low scale to expect results. Targeted advertising does allow 'the little guy' to reach their expected audience a bit better.
- deleted 3y ago
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- codetrotter 3y ago
  Double check parent to the comment you responded to. It’s not responding to the one you think it’s responding to. The comment was: > I would be so happy if can go back to a world where advertising happens purely based on the content like we've had for ages in TV/radio/magazines. The amount of privacy we've globally lost just for a few advertising dollars is atrocious. > […] The one you are talking about meanwhile, is a different comment. A sibling comment which was also in response to the few dollars thing.
  - w0m 3y ago
    I blame Spez. Thank you.
imiric 3y ago
Exactly. Advertising revenue increases with more accurate consumer targeting. If you can show an ad of a product to a consumer who's most susceptible to make a purchase, at exactly the right time they need it, a sale is pretty much guaranteed. Currently advertisers spend millions on ad campaigns that have very low and innacurate conversion rates. The more they know about the potential consumer, the more their user data and thus a targeted ad is worth. Microtargeting is a sickening trend enabled by adtech, but the fact it works much better than traditional ad campaigns is a reason advertisers would never want to go back. And then there's the data broker market, which on its own is worth billions of dollars. This is an entire adjacent industry symbiotic with adtech. None of this is going away anytime soon.

shortrounddev2 3y ago

Targeted advertising keeps the internet open

manuelmoreale 3y ago
Why do you believe that to be the case?
- nceqs3 3y ago
  Without targeted ads, everything will be behind a paywall.
  - linguae 3y ago
    I remember the Web of the 1990s and early 2000s where there were plenty of sites operated by hobbyists and academics that had no ads at all. Of course, there were also e-commerce sites like eBay and Amazon that didn't have ads since their business models didn't rely on them. The Web would look different without targeted ads, but not everything will be behind a paywall.
    - shortrounddev2 3y ago
      Yes, the internet would probably be nothing but tech people. YouTube would certainly not exist
  - imiric 3y ago
    Advertising and paywalls aren't the only available business models. One would think that with all the modern technology we would have alternative sustainable business models on the web. Turns out, we do. Brave's BAT is a great model, regardless of what you think of Brave Inc.
  - manuelmoreale 3y ago
    I disagree. You could run non targeted adds by sponsoring sites that are close to your business. You could have a mix of premium and free content. You could figure out other ways to connect with potential customers. Targeted ads are not the be all and end all of web monetisation.

cm2012 3y ago

I do B2B advertising. Without behavioral targeting. It would not be possible.

imiric 3y ago
With respect, that's BS. First of all, of course it would be possible, but you would need to be smarter with your traditional campaigns to reach customers. And secondly, if you do B2B advertising then your MO is cold contacting businesses, email campaigns, social media, trade shows, etc. Why do you need behavioral data of your users to advertise to them? And how would you even know they represent a business from just their behavior?
shkkmo 3y ago
Then you are incompetent at your job.
p0pcult 3y ago
[dead]

avalys 3y ago

> The amount of privacy we've globally lost just for a few advertising dollars is atrocious. What is the actual consequence of this "lost privacy"? What would be tangibly different in your life right now if you hadn't "lost" it? My answer - nothing whatsoever, no harm comes to me at all from some statistical algorithm calculating what ads I might want to see, and in fact I've bought several cool products off Instagram that I didn't know about otherwise. This is a completely illusory harm that has been made up by what is essentially a cabal of professional agitators and propagandists.

Dirak 3y ago
In fact, I would go further and say we would actually be worse off without personalized advertising. Personalized ads help connect innovative products with the people who would benefit from them. Without a way to reach these niche audiences, these products might not be able to exist, and the community would be worse off.
JohnFen 3y ago
You may suffer no harm, but there are plenty of real stories of others who have. I maintain that it doesn't matter. Harm isn't necessary to reasonably object to being spied on. Just wanting to not be under surveillance is more than sufficient.
gingerlime 3y ago
What actual harm would come to you from someone watching you in your bedroom? What harm would come to people simply registered as Jewish in Germany prior to WW2?

jensensbutton 3y ago

Does that mean local business would be cut out of internet advertising because ads can't be shown based on your city/state/country? That would be a tangible loss. "The amount of privacy we've globally lost" doesn't seem like a real thing.

deleted 3y ago

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s17n 3y ago

I honestly just don’t understand why anyone would care about this distinction. I’d support a total ban on all advertising, but I simply can’t fathom giving a damn about exactly which data points were used in the targeting.

mindcrime 3y ago

Not me. I want ads to be hyper-personalized, because I want them to be relevant. I don't mind ads at all, *so long as they are for things I might actually be interested in*. What drives me nuts though, are ads that are so totally and obviously un-suited for me. Like, I see ads all the time on Facebook where if I click the "Why did I see this ad" button, it turns out the advertiser was "targeting" (if you can call it that) "people over 18 years of age, with a primary location in the United States." Seriously, WTF? I wish FB didn't even allow ads to be so broadly scoped. There is approximately NOTHING that is legitimately going to be of interest to everybody in that group. It's bad for the advertiser, bad for the user, and probably bad for Facebook to even have that. No, I say figure out that I'm a libertarian atheist with strong interests in open source software, bicycles, guns, and electronics test equipment, and show me ads for those things first and foremost. Target the hell out of me, please.

Tainnor 3y ago
But you don't get that choice. As long as ad companies have data about you, they can distribute you in whichever bucket they like. Similar to how I get recruiters offering me PHP positions on LinkedIn despite PHP not being anywhere close to my profile. There's no way for you to say "you can use my data but only the way I like it" unless you sign some explicit agreement. When you give up your data, you also consent to be placed into whatever bin they want you to be placed in. They don't care about whether you get to see exactly the ads that you want to see, as long as they believe their cost to benefit ratio is right. This is why you should want your data to belong to you, so that you could make an informed decision about what kind of content you see.
orangecat 3y ago
I want ads to be hyper-personalized, because I want them to be relevant. I don't, because ads are 10% informing me of the existence of products I might be interested in, and 90% psychological manipulation trying to induce me to buy stuff whether it's in my best interest or not. If the advertiser knows more about me, that can increase the effectiveness of their manipulation. I say figure out that I'm a libertarian atheist with strong interests in open source software, bicycles, guns, and electronics test equipment, and show me ads for those things first and foremost. Target the hell out of me, please. It seems like a win-win solution would be for browsers to send an optional user-controlled header describing your interests. Sort of like Google's topics API, but entirely under your control rather than mined from your browser history.