4 ms·

man, the Googs already has a library of images of you. If there's anything about you that the Googs doesn't already know, I'd be shocked. the Googs probably kno

man, the Googs already has a library of images of you. If there's anything about you that the Googs doesn't already know, I'd be shocked. the Googs probably knows you better than your therapist, because you've only shared with your therapist what you wanted. the Googs gets data about you from places you know nothing about. being concerned that a Waymo car took your picture isn't invalid, but man is it a tear drop in the rain of everything else the Googs is doing.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago
If "the Googs" knows so much about me, why do they keep showing me ads for products I not only have zero interest in, I'm also not even the target demographic for?
- dekhn 2y ago
  Because all the smart people at Google who worked on Quality (Ads Quality, Search Quality, etc) got promoted and moved away from those, and the revenue is good enough that google can maintain its monopoly without improving the product.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    This is laughable. This isn't incompetence. The system was never designed to show you relevant ads that you want to see and would like to buy a product from. The system has always been designed to show you profitable ads. Those have always been and will always be a completely distinct set, with only coincidental overlap if at all.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      It's almost like people think that the phrase "relevant ads" means interesting to the person viewing the ads. Instead, it means you are relevant to the person buying the ad, so Googs shows you their ad. It means you are in the age range and income range, and possibly the geographic area that the person buying the ad placement finds relevant. The person viewing the ad is never relevant to Googs.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Because someone is paying Google to show those to you.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Because they need to hide some of what they know about you. There have been cases where they (in this case target not google) knew a 14 year old was pregnant - but the ads for things she needed are sensitive. So the industry has learned everyone gets a few ads that don't apply just to give cover for those that do but someone doesn't admit to. also some ads really are to everyone. You may not be in a place where you would think about a car, but car makers don't want you to forget you could just in case your situation changes. They also want you to think of some goods as luxuries so you are impressed when you see someone who does have it.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    > Because they need to hide some of what they know about you. My favorite example of this is in the desktop web version of Google Maps. If you search for some place and try to plot directions from “Your Location” it will prompt for the browser's Geolocation API and will refuse to give directions at all if you don't consent to the prompt: https://i.imgur.com/fIQswnD.png https://i.imgur.com/fIQswnD.png This is despite the fact that it opens the map with a perfectly-centered and reasonably-sized window around my current location. I have never seen this fail when not using any sort of VPN that moves my GeoIP. They could totally give a reasonable mix–max time estimate based on that window just like the one they show for variable traffic.
0_____0 2y ago
When I met my ex and we linked over what was then Google+, we found that I had been auto labeled in a photo of a protest from years before we met. They've got a lot of info that they don't surface...

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

If "the Googs" knows so much about me, why do they keep showing me ads for products I not only have zero interest in, I'm also not even the target demographic for?

dekhn 2y ago
Because all the smart people at Google who worked on Quality (Ads Quality, Search Quality, etc) got promoted and moved away from those, and the revenue is good enough that google can maintain its monopoly without improving the product.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  This is laughable. This isn't incompetence. The system was never designed to show you relevant ads that you want to see and would like to buy a product from. The system has always been designed to show you profitable ads. Those have always been and will always be a completely distinct set, with only coincidental overlap if at all.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    It's almost like people think that the phrase "relevant ads" means interesting to the person viewing the ads. Instead, it means you are relevant to the person buying the ad, so Googs shows you their ad. It means you are in the age range and income range, and possibly the geographic area that the person buying the ad placement finds relevant. The person viewing the ad is never relevant to Googs.
saagarjha 2y ago
Because someone is paying Google to show those to you.
bluGill 2y ago
Because they need to hide some of what they know about you. There have been cases where they (in this case target not google) knew a 14 year old was pregnant - but the ads for things she needed are sensitive. So the industry has learned everyone gets a few ads that don't apply just to give cover for those that do but someone doesn't admit to. also some ads really are to everyone. You may not be in a place where you would think about a car, but car makers don't want you to forget you could just in case your situation changes. They also want you to think of some goods as luxuries so you are impressed when you see someone who does have it.
- Lammy 2y ago
  > Because they need to hide some of what they know about you. My favorite example of this is in the desktop web version of Google Maps. If you search for some place and try to plot directions from “Your Location” it will prompt for the browser's Geolocation API and will refuse to give directions at all if you don't consent to the prompt: https://i.imgur.com/fIQswnD.png https://i.imgur.com/fIQswnD.png This is despite the fact that it opens the map with a perfectly-centered and reasonably-sized window around my current location. I have never seen this fail when not using any sort of VPN that moves my GeoIP. They could totally give a reasonable mix–max time estimate based on that window just like the one they show for variable traffic.

0_____0 2y ago

When I met my ex and we linked over what was then Google+, we found that I had been auto labeled in a photo of a protest from years before we met. They've got a lot of info that they don't surface...