5 ms·

Maybe get your government to do this, instead of expecting some random company to do it for free indefinitely? This article could well be entitled "Google were

Maybe get your government to do this, instead of expecting some random company to do it for free indefinitely? This article could well be entitled "Google were the only people bothering to record our history."

dbspin 1y ago
Unfortunately people cannot 'get' their government to do much - and certainly not something as specific as this. Given that electoral leverage is a blunt and broad tool indeed. Also this is an EU level issue, not one pertaining to a national government.
AlecSchueler 1y ago
How could the government do this? At best they could make an archive of the data Google chooses to publish but to do it themselves would require mandating Google to share the data with them to begin with.
- weberer 1y ago
  The USA has https://data.gov https://data.gov. The EU could make something similar. >but to do it themselves would require mandating Google to share the data with them to begin with The data was already public
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > The USA has https://data.gov https://data.gov Could you link specifically to the datasets about political advertising reach available via that website? I get no results > The data was already public Where?
    - weberer 1y ago
      >Could you link specifically to the datasets about political advertising reach available via that website? I get no results You asked "how could the government do this"? Come on, bro. >Where? The linked article explains where they were getting the data before.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        > You asked "how could the government do this"? Come on, bro. And you gave a generic link showing that they could share "data" in general. Not this kind of data. Like "come on bro" both Ireland and the EU already have generic data portals... > The linked article explains where they were getting the data before. Yes, from the company who choose to share the data. There's no way to get the date from inside the company. In order for the government to publish the data they need to rely on the very same private company to supply them with it indefinitely, don't they? Again, "come on bro"...
grafmax 1y ago
These businesses built what have become the commons, which they retain control over through mechanisms like network effects, which allow them to make unaccountable decisions on the one hand and profit from rentierism on the other. It would probably be in people’s interest for their governments to seize these assets and socialize them as public utilities.
- pixl97 1y ago
  Then I suggest electing a government that's interested in doing what's in the people's interest.
  - grafmax 1y ago
    Big tech effectively owns the government, at least in the US. If people really want to fix this mess we need mass strikes.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
netsharc 1y ago
Meh, if your government then decides to make the country great again, it'll be deleting stuff that it thinks is not great...
titzer 1y ago
Missing in this analysis is that advertisers did not, in fact, put ads on Google for free. While it's surely not part of the terms of service that Google is going to "back up" your ads indefinitely, the calculus employed in this thread is very, very wrong. Google made huge profits on political ads and when it no longer suits them to spend paltry disk space on them, it's dropping them like a hot rock. Stop pretending like Google was somehow offering a platform that people were freeloading on. Rather, these political ads were 100% the funding that sustains the platform and makes them and all their shareholders money.
tigerBL00D 1y ago
This is a very naive comment IMHO. There are very few governments in the word, if any, which could be trusted with something like that.

dbspin 1y ago

Unfortunately people cannot 'get' their government to do much - and certainly not something as specific as this. Given that electoral leverage is a blunt and broad tool indeed. Also this is an EU level issue, not one pertaining to a national government.

AlecSchueler 1y ago

How could the government do this? At best they could make an archive of the data Google chooses to publish but to do it themselves would require mandating Google to share the data with them to begin with.

weberer 1y ago
The USA has https://data.gov https://data.gov. The EU could make something similar. >but to do it themselves would require mandating Google to share the data with them to begin with The data was already public
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  > The USA has https://data.gov https://data.gov Could you link specifically to the datasets about political advertising reach available via that website? I get no results > The data was already public Where?
  - weberer 1y ago
    >Could you link specifically to the datasets about political advertising reach available via that website? I get no results You asked "how could the government do this"? Come on, bro. >Where? The linked article explains where they were getting the data before.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      > You asked "how could the government do this"? Come on, bro. And you gave a generic link showing that they could share "data" in general. Not this kind of data. Like "come on bro" both Ireland and the EU already have generic data portals... > The linked article explains where they were getting the data before. Yes, from the company who choose to share the data. There's no way to get the date from inside the company. In order for the government to publish the data they need to rely on the very same private company to supply them with it indefinitely, don't they? Again, "come on bro"...

grafmax 1y ago

These businesses built what have become the commons, which they retain control over through mechanisms like network effects, which allow them to make unaccountable decisions on the one hand and profit from rentierism on the other. It would probably be in people’s interest for their governments to seize these assets and socialize them as public utilities.

pixl97 1y ago
Then I suggest electing a government that's interested in doing what's in the people's interest.
- grafmax 1y ago
  Big tech effectively owns the government, at least in the US. If people really want to fix this mess we need mass strikes.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

netsharc 1y ago

Meh, if your government then decides to make the country great again, it'll be deleting stuff that it thinks is not great...

titzer 1y ago

Missing in this analysis is that advertisers did not, in fact, put ads on Google for free. While it's surely not part of the terms of service that Google is going to "back up" your ads indefinitely, the calculus employed in this thread is very, very wrong. Google made huge profits on political ads and when it no longer suits them to spend paltry disk space on them, it's dropping them like a hot rock. Stop pretending like Google was somehow offering a platform that people were freeloading on. Rather, these political ads were 100% the funding that sustains the platform and makes them and all their shareholders money.

tigerBL00D 1y ago

This is a very naive comment IMHO. There are very few governments in the word, if any, which could be trusted with something like that.