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"Of course I want enhanced privacy" -- any reasonable user not familiar with the issue This is so manipulative. This whole new feature looks like it's there
by jraph 3y ago
"Of course I want enhanced privacy"
-- any reasonable user not familiar with the issue
This is so manipulative.
This whole new feature looks like it's there to bypass GDPR, I hope the regulation will be updated if it does not already take this new thing in account.
At least the description is quite upfront, but apart from the title, the first sentence is already manipulative.
> [we] give you more choice over the ads you see
This is deceptive. It gives the impression to the user that they have a choice, but the actual choice is not this. The actual choice is whether to see ads at all, not which ones. People shouldn't care about the presented choice, for the most part. In this light, the new features presented as an enhancement are totally useless to the users.
I believe this is a variant of the false dilemma [1] but there must be a more specific name for this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
- gman83 3y agoIt looks like in Europe they're using a different prompt: https://twitter.com/mjhere/status/1700219703522725968 https://twitter.com/mjhere/status/1700219703522725968 I got that one as well.
- jraph 3y agoah ah, they do seem to respect the GDPR, but it goes on to show something is fishy… …to a sharpened eye which has seen both versions, of course. Nobody needs to ask for consent to provide more privacy to someone.
- fhd2 3y agoNot true if they insert themselves as a middle man in order to help you against third party tracking. Google here is a questionable example of that, uBO (no profit motive that I'm aware of, open source) a probably objectively positive one. But you do have to trust and give some power to middle man to do their thing for you. Nobody needs your consent to not track you themselves, that's true.
- jraph 3y agoGood point, I hadn't thought of that.
- pyr0hu 3y agoI know I'm in the minority, but I don't mind _useful_ ads. I'm more worried about tracking everything, but I know that's how the ad industry work at the moment. So this new topics stuff seems kinda okay to me. Quality ads have their place IMO, but this current non-sense that spam the user with as many ads as we can, even if they are irrelevant and hope that something sticks is just annoying. But there are a few times when I bought some useful stuff to me which I found in an ad.
- causi 3y agoI'm in the exact opposite camp. As long as I don't see it and it doesn't impact my life or my convenience in any way, I don't care one whit what Google does or does not know about me, but I refuse to waste a single moment of my time and attention on advertising.
- lacrimacida 3y agoI block ads because I don’t want them in my life but I am aware that for some type of content I would need to pay somehow and ads were the currency… In my case when blocking will stop working I will simply stop consuming, get more offline time and so on but to a lot of people that is not an option.
- jraph 3y agoThis new feature is also tracking, so you might want to worry about it too. You might see it as a good compromise, but I don't think it is. First, I'm not interested in compromising a bit of privacy for ads. Second, ads are meant to push consumption, and we really need less of this in the world right now.
- phailhaus 3y ago> The actual choice is whether to see ads at all, not which ones It's both. True privacy is having control over what others know about you. If you want them to know nothing, that's allowed: you can turn it off.