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^this. I don't have anything against personalized ads based on information that I willingly share. If I am following a bunch of groups of kite-surfers, I actua

^this. I don't have anything against personalized ads based on information that I willingly share. If I am following a bunch of groups of kite-surfers, I actually welcome ads for kite-surfing gears and services while browsing those groups. If I explicitly decide to share my address on my social network profile AND, explicitly authorize the use of this information for targeting, I don't mind, and actually welcome seeing ads for carpet cleaning services from my city, instead of ads from this kind of business located thousands of miles away, WHILE I am using said social network. But I don't want to browse the local newspaper, and having this targeting information being used outside the explicitly bounded context of that social network. And above all, I don't want surveillance-style stuff things forced upon me to infer information about me that I never consented to share in the first place. It is ok to me if I say, I have an interest on X, you (and only you) can show me ads based on that, and I also consent on you (and only you) using my <insert whatever personal info you may think ok> to target ads.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I am curious what widespread legislation on this front is going to cause. Not meaning to defend surveillance capitalism in the slightest, it belongs in the dustbin of history for reasons too numerous to articulate, but merely from the perspective that personalized ads that creep on you were essentially made a load-bearing column of the Internet before anyone knew how creepy they were going to get with it, and now just, every goddamn website out there with even a modicum of traffic has ads. And like, I'm sure the vast majority of people here block ads and I think blocking ads is getting more or more prevalent year over year, but like, they must be being seen by someone. Sites still use them, largely because there isn't a real replacement for a constant trickle revenue stream like them out there seeing wide adoption. I guess in my ideal world, I would hope that these businesses could pivot back to a dumber, more privacy-friendly mode of advertising? But I wonder if the corpos are willing to give that up, or if they'll just continue trying to squirrel around this and any other laws to the point of absurdity?
- troupo 3y ago
  > I am curious what widespread legislation on this front is going to cause Nothing. More dark patterns to trick people into accepting tracking. Look to how the industry reacted yo GDPR. > personalized ads that creep on you were essentially made a load-bearing column of the Internet before anyone knew how creepy they were going to get with it You can have personalized ads without invasive and pervasive tracking
  - magnusmundus 3y ago
    > Look to how the industry reacted yo GDPR. Anecdotal observation from big-ish corps in EU: everyone started trying to look very mindful about what data they ask for in the first place, what gets stored where, what is shared with whom. In some cases, this led to actually being more mindful about those. At least in e-commerce, GDPR worked in the privacy-minded consumer's benefit to some extent, and not quite against anyone.
    - prophesi 3y ago
      It was helpful for CA's GDPR-like law for Mozilla to find out about the whole sexual activity debacle. But it certainly didn't go far enough, because who would willingly allow a car company to collect that information? And why did such an outrageous data point not make its way to the public until Mozilla's investigations?
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  Maybe FAANG salaries will fall and teams of phds will have to spend their time on something other than raising ad targeting effectiveness by a fraction of a percent.
  - wholinator2 3y ago
    This is the largest damage in my opinion. How many thousands, millions of hours of some of the most brilliant minds of our generations have we dedicated to making the experience of lived daily life worse? Ads are a scourge upon the actual usability and safety of the internet. I understand the current necessity of the economics, it doesn't change the fact that the web without ads is an infinitely more pleasant and self-paced place without all the flashing imagery and psychological subterfuge surrounding every single piece of useful information you could ever find. This massive wealth of intelligence, drive, ambition, all spent on something as useless as banner ads everyone explicitly tries to ignore or block anyway. It's insane. But money is the primordial force that allows the planet to keep rotating so inevitably someone will dedicate their intelligence to whatever cheap money they come up with. That's fine, that's good. I just imagine all that money could've cured some diseases, built better telescopes, put more powerful technology in the hands of the disadvantaged, maybe even, i dunno, fed some hungry people or something. What the fuck is the metaverse gonna do for anyone besides exploit them for maximum profit driven by distraction
matsemann 3y ago
Yeah, it's so much more than most people realize. It's not just visiting websites with tracking pixels either. Like, companies you use will upload your data to facebook. They will take their pool of emails or members of their customer programs and send to facebook to be able to target you. Thus giving facebook more information about you. When I visit facebooks https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity I see that lots of places have shared my information with facebook..

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

I am curious what widespread legislation on this front is going to cause. Not meaning to defend surveillance capitalism in the slightest, it belongs in the dustbin of history for reasons too numerous to articulate, but merely from the perspective that personalized ads that creep on you were essentially made a load-bearing column of the Internet before anyone knew how creepy they were going to get with it, and now just, every goddamn website out there with even a modicum of traffic has ads. And like, I'm sure the vast majority of people here block ads and I think blocking ads is getting more or more prevalent year over year, but like, they must be being seen by someone. Sites still use them, largely because there isn't a real replacement for a constant trickle revenue stream like them out there seeing wide adoption. I guess in my ideal world, I would hope that these businesses could pivot back to a dumber, more privacy-friendly mode of advertising? But I wonder if the corpos are willing to give that up, or if they'll just continue trying to squirrel around this and any other laws to the point of absurdity?

troupo 3y ago
> I am curious what widespread legislation on this front is going to cause Nothing. More dark patterns to trick people into accepting tracking. Look to how the industry reacted yo GDPR. > personalized ads that creep on you were essentially made a load-bearing column of the Internet before anyone knew how creepy they were going to get with it You can have personalized ads without invasive and pervasive tracking
- magnusmundus 3y ago
  > Look to how the industry reacted yo GDPR. Anecdotal observation from big-ish corps in EU: everyone started trying to look very mindful about what data they ask for in the first place, what gets stored where, what is shared with whom. In some cases, this led to actually being more mindful about those. At least in e-commerce, GDPR worked in the privacy-minded consumer's benefit to some extent, and not quite against anyone.
  - prophesi 3y ago
    It was helpful for CA's GDPR-like law for Mozilla to find out about the whole sexual activity debacle. But it certainly didn't go far enough, because who would willingly allow a car company to collect that information? And why did such an outrageous data point not make its way to the public until Mozilla's investigations?
bcrosby95 3y ago
Maybe FAANG salaries will fall and teams of phds will have to spend their time on something other than raising ad targeting effectiveness by a fraction of a percent.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  This is the largest damage in my opinion. How many thousands, millions of hours of some of the most brilliant minds of our generations have we dedicated to making the experience of lived daily life worse? Ads are a scourge upon the actual usability and safety of the internet. I understand the current necessity of the economics, it doesn't change the fact that the web without ads is an infinitely more pleasant and self-paced place without all the flashing imagery and psychological subterfuge surrounding every single piece of useful information you could ever find. This massive wealth of intelligence, drive, ambition, all spent on something as useless as banner ads everyone explicitly tries to ignore or block anyway. It's insane. But money is the primordial force that allows the planet to keep rotating so inevitably someone will dedicate their intelligence to whatever cheap money they come up with. That's fine, that's good. I just imagine all that money could've cured some diseases, built better telescopes, put more powerful technology in the hands of the disadvantaged, maybe even, i dunno, fed some hungry people or something. What the fuck is the metaverse gonna do for anyone besides exploit them for maximum profit driven by distraction

matsemann 3y ago

Yeah, it's so much more than most people realize. It's not just visiting websites with tracking pixels either. Like, companies you use will upload your data to facebook. They will take their pool of emails or members of their customer programs and send to facebook to be able to target you. Thus giving facebook more information about you. When I visit facebooks https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity I see that lots of places have shared my information with facebook..