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I understand the privacy motivations, but behavioral targeting is good for small businesses. This is focusing more power on a handful of mega corps that do bran

I understand the privacy motivations, but behavioral targeting is good for small businesses. This is focusing more power on a handful of mega corps that do brand advertising.

JohnFen 3y ago
Maybe so, but I don't find that argument remotely compelling. Saying that spying should be allowed because it hurts small businesses if it isn't makes no sense to me. We shouldn't allow companies to do bad things regardless of who benefits more from those bad things.
dspillett 3y ago
> but behavioral targeting is good for small businesses Call me selfish, but my concern is not for businesses of any size. I don't want to be followed around the Internet any more than I want to be followed around in my “real” daily life. I'm fine with adverts based on what I am currently looking at and/or where I am (the latter at a granular level: country/region/city, not more precise). Anything more than that involves tracking and storing data that I consider an intrusion. Some might disagree with the granular location even, though without that you can't simulate something like posters in local shop windows advertising local events (which to me feels valid). If I'm looking at technical things¹, by all means advertise technical things¹ at me. Heck, feel free to blanket advertise your technical things¹ more widely. But I don't want targetted advertising for technical things to stalk me when I'm booking a holiday or doing my weekly shop online, any more than I'd want someone following me into the travel agent or supermarket, tapping me on the shoulder and saying “I hear you've been looking at laptops, could I interest you in …”. Small or not, I don't want a business following me around. -- [1] replace “technical things” with anything else I might have looked at or been shopping for: running shoes, martial arts equipment, groceries, recipes, scifi books, books in general, TV listings, etc.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Could you make this quantitative? Say a "surveillance ad" costs X and a "basic ad" (no tracking, just common sense placement) costs Y. How much more is X worth to you than Y? There does not seem to be much data on this, but last I looked the value of surveillance ranged from worthless for all the effort (3Y at most) to utterly worthless (like 1.1Y).

I understand the privacy motivations, but behavioral targeting is good for small businesses. This is focusing more power on a handful of mega corps that do brand advertising.

JohnFen 3y ago

Maybe so, but I don't find that argument remotely compelling. Saying that spying should be allowed because it hurts small businesses if it isn't makes no sense to me. We shouldn't allow companies to do bad things regardless of who benefits more from those bad things.

dspillett 3y ago

> but behavioral targeting is good for small businesses Call me selfish, but my concern is not for businesses of any size. I don't want to be followed around the Internet any more than I want to be followed around in my “real” daily life. I'm fine with adverts based on what I am currently looking at and/or where I am (the latter at a granular level: country/region/city, not more precise). Anything more than that involves tracking and storing data that I consider an intrusion. Some might disagree with the granular location even, though without that you can't simulate something like posters in local shop windows advertising local events (which to me feels valid). If I'm looking at technical things¹, by all means advertise technical things¹ at me. Heck, feel free to blanket advertise your technical things¹ more widely. But I don't want targetted advertising for technical things to stalk me when I'm booking a holiday or doing my weekly shop online, any more than I'd want someone following me into the travel agent or supermarket, tapping me on the shoulder and saying “I hear you've been looking at laptops, could I interest you in …”. Small or not, I don't want a business following me around. -- [1] replace “technical things” with anything else I might have looked at or been shopping for: running shoes, martial arts equipment, groceries, recipes, scifi books, books in general, TV listings, etc.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

Could you make this quantitative? Say a "surveillance ad" costs X and a "basic ad" (no tracking, just common sense placement) costs Y. How much more is X worth to you than Y? There does not seem to be much data on this, but last I looked the value of surveillance ranged from worthless for all the effort (3Y at most) to utterly worthless (like 1.1Y).