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> The alternative to privacy respecting advertising is the malware-ridden surveillance machine that exists today. That's just not true. TV, newspapers and mag

> The alternative to privacy respecting advertising is the malware-ridden surveillance machine that exists today. That's just not true. TV, newspapers and magazines supported themselves just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran. That is still an alternative for websites today. We could shut down every single method of tracking user's actions in a browser, and WidgetCo would still pay to advertise using static ads on the widgetclub.com website with no more privacy invasive data that the webserver page views and the click throughs to their destination urls. Doing that would make _some_ of the forms of advertising polluting the web these days uneconomical, but seeing fewer Temu ads or "sponsored content" or "around the web" blocks filled with scams, conspiracy theories, and political donation begging at the bottom of every page on half the websites is a good outcome not a bad one. The idea that advertisers are owed any more data than that, or that the developers of web browsers need to bend to the will of the surveillance capitalists is insane. Sure, if you choose to run a "free" web browser developed by the DoubleClick advertising company (masquerading as a web search company), then I guess you have to expect the browser to serve that advertising companies interests more than your own. But most of us expect more than that from Mozilla. They are _supposed_ to be on our side.

rlpb 2y ago
> The idea that advertisers are owed any more data than that, or that the developers of web browsers need to bend to the will of the surveillance capitalists is insane. It's a zero sum game. If others are doing it, then their advertising is more effective, the advertising cost per sale is lower, they are more competitive, and so every company is forced to do the same. But if nobody is able to do it, then there will be no great loss for the consumer. Advertisers could argue that the inherent advertising overhead of every product is slightly higher and so consumers would have to pay higher prices. I would argue that this is a reasonable price to pay for privacy across the board, just as we all have to pay for the implementation of regulations that mandate safe products. So we can expect advertisers to push for competitive reasons, but equally if we comprehensively resist so as not to favour competition that isn't similarly restricted, then I agree with you that there is no actual threat to commerce.
- raxxorraxor 2y ago
  I think this is true, companies just want to advertise on equal footing at least. So disabling tracking would only hit only those that ride on the advertising budgets of companies. If I ask in our advertising department, they do SEO "because the other do that too".
  - rlpb 2y ago
    > So disabling tracking would only hit only those that ride on the advertising budgets of companies. Reading this, it occurs to me that there's another group that would be hit: the tracking "industry" that has sprung up. They would become redundant. Perhaps that's why they're so vocal.
denismi 2y ago
> TV ... supported [itself] just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran ... by hijacking our audio-visual attention with deliberately obnoxious ad content for a third of each hour of our down-time. > newspapers and magazines supported themselves just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran ..., in addition to their primarily revenue stream which was the money that customers paid for a copy of the newspaper or magazine.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
> TV, newspapers and magazines supported themselves just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran. False, false, demonstrably false. Get familiar with concepts such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_action_(marketing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_action_(marketing) Any business who places an ad may simply inquire of their customers "How'd you hear about us?" and they would be able to gauge the reach of a particular placement. Furthermore, anytime a coupon is published, clipped and used at that business, they are going to know where it came from, and so there's your tracking, on paper, no electronic voodoo necessary. Now when we get to radio and TV, the calls to action were even more immediate and measurable. The stations themselves ran promotions where hundreds, thousands clamored to phone in and be the correct-numbered caller. The advertisements ran specials and promotions and "tell 'em Joe sent ya!" type stuff. They could give a special number or they could run at a special time. The business knew exactly what ad correlated to those callers. Infomercials are classic calls to action. You purchase time, you run the ad, and you give an hour or so window for callers to get a great deal. The calls roll into your switchboard and you correlate them. Then you buy the next round of ads based on your successes. I guarantee that there has never, ever been a time when advertisers were unable or unwilling to collect metrics on responses to ads. Especially when marketing costs money, that investment needs to be based on facts and statistics.

rlpb 2y ago

> The idea that advertisers are owed any more data than that, or that the developers of web browsers need to bend to the will of the surveillance capitalists is insane. It's a zero sum game. If others are doing it, then their advertising is more effective, the advertising cost per sale is lower, they are more competitive, and so every company is forced to do the same. But if nobody is able to do it, then there will be no great loss for the consumer. Advertisers could argue that the inherent advertising overhead of every product is slightly higher and so consumers would have to pay higher prices. I would argue that this is a reasonable price to pay for privacy across the board, just as we all have to pay for the implementation of regulations that mandate safe products. So we can expect advertisers to push for competitive reasons, but equally if we comprehensively resist so as not to favour competition that isn't similarly restricted, then I agree with you that there is no actual threat to commerce.

raxxorraxor 2y ago
I think this is true, companies just want to advertise on equal footing at least. So disabling tracking would only hit only those that ride on the advertising budgets of companies. If I ask in our advertising department, they do SEO "because the other do that too".
- rlpb 2y ago
  > So disabling tracking would only hit only those that ride on the advertising budgets of companies. Reading this, it occurs to me that there's another group that would be hit: the tracking "industry" that has sprung up. They would become redundant. Perhaps that's why they're so vocal.

denismi 2y ago

> TV ... supported [itself] just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran ... by hijacking our audio-visual attention with deliberately obnoxious ad content for a third of each hour of our down-time. > newspapers and magazines supported themselves just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran ..., in addition to their primarily revenue stream which was the money that customers paid for a copy of the newspaper or magazine.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

> TV, newspapers and magazines supported themselves just fine using zero tracking on the advertising they ran. False, false, demonstrably false. Get familiar with concepts such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_action_(marketing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_action_(marketing) Any business who places an ad may simply inquire of their customers "How'd you hear about us?" and they would be able to gauge the reach of a particular placement. Furthermore, anytime a coupon is published, clipped and used at that business, they are going to know where it came from, and so there's your tracking, on paper, no electronic voodoo necessary. Now when we get to radio and TV, the calls to action were even more immediate and measurable. The stations themselves ran promotions where hundreds, thousands clamored to phone in and be the correct-numbered caller. The advertisements ran specials and promotions and "tell 'em Joe sent ya!" type stuff. They could give a special number or they could run at a special time. The business knew exactly what ad correlated to those callers. Infomercials are classic calls to action. You purchase time, you run the ad, and you give an hour or so window for callers to get a great deal. The calls roll into your switchboard and you correlate them. Then you buy the next round of ads based on your successes. I guarantee that there has never, ever been a time when advertisers were unable or unwilling to collect metrics on responses to ads. Especially when marketing costs money, that investment needs to be based on facts and statistics.