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Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

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Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#71
post #3

Get ready for ads to start addressing you directly by name and doing other like things to get your attention. Google isn't usually _too_ overt about these sort of things but the less savory ad networks could get really unpleasant. "Hey there George Thompson, click to see one weird trick to hide your arrest records from your wife Mary"

I am curious, why do they always say the word "weird" in these ads? It's too tacky for most people to think they are "dispassionately" describing the product. One weird trick. It's almost a shibboleth now of hucksters.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#72
Reading a lot of the comments in this thread, you guys are taking this announcement and running with it in some weird directions. Google's just playing catch-up with ad targeting features that Facebook has had for years. Nobody is targeting individual users. There are HUGE amounts of depersonalization work and legal review that go into making something like this a reality. If you think Google's engineers spent more time developing this than Google's legal team spent approving it, you're probably wrong.

Say a company wants to target ads to people that are in their email subscription list. Or a brick-and-mortar retailer wants to marry up their in-store customers with online data to target in-store shoppers with online advertising. These are features that have been supported for a while through Facebook and through third-party services like Liveramp. Google is building the infrastructure to support these natively. It's not a new technology. It's a very old one - what used to be called database marketing back in the days of direct mail and catalogs.

Granted, I make my living in marketing, so I may be biased, but I think a lot of folks are looking at this the wrong way. More targeted advertising is less annoying, not more. (A) You aren't getting spammed with things that are irrelevant to you. The ads you are shown are more likely to be related to something you actually care about or could potentially want to buy. (B) Advertisers don't have to spend as much money on targeted ads as they used to have to spend spamming the world with untargeted advertising (see also TV, radio, sponsorship & endorsement deals, etc), so their margins go up and they can afford better product development, lower prices, etc.

The risks here are that you will somehow be outed as someone that shops frequently at a particular store, not that you're going to be "spearfished" or that the NSA will send drones to your house to kill you with missiles.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping me from setting up 500 recognized emails?

For this Google offering they're likely to use the same tech that powers their new CAPTCHA-less reCaptcha.

Which is (a) cheaply broken by hiring a few hundred bored students, and (b) is also even possible to be broken analytically. It is actually easier to break than the highest level of the previous captcha, as now you just need a Google account with semi-normal activity and a JS runtime that pretends to be a normal browser. The semi-normal activity is simple to be possible by running it as a bot and feeding it with search queries for 8h a day, running a query every few minutes. Which, in turn, gets the account marked as active.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#74
post #57
post #28

The article gave gave an example of 'Rewards program' of a company. Using that example, most rewards program give you the option not to receive 'promotional emails' from them. Does this mean such companies will also not upload to Google, the email of someone who has opted not to receive promotional emails? If the companies don't do that, how can a user 'opt out' of not receiving such targeted advertising?

This isn't about sending emails. It's about Google AdWords display ads. I think it's technically possible to "hide" individual advertisers, but the short answer is: no, the company is under no obligation to stop showing web ads to people who previously said they don't want emails.

Yes, the company may not give your E-Mail address to ANY third party unless directly authorized, and, in the future, even if authorized, companies may not give data of EU users to ANY US company.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#75
post #3

Get ready for ads to start addressing you directly by name and doing other like things to get your attention. Google isn't usually _too_ overt about these sort of things but the less savory ad networks could get really unpleasant. "Hey there George Thompson, click to see one weird trick to hide your arrest records from your wife Mary"

I am curious, why do they always say the word "weird" in these ads? It's too tacky for most people to think they are "dispassionately" describing the product. One weird trick. It's almost a shibboleth now of hucksters.

Most people on HN have probably grown sick of those stock phrases, but if they're still using them in ads, there's probably "plenty of other fish in the sea" willing to take the bait... if you've ever observed "normal" computer users browsing for any length of time, you'll see what I mean.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it says "Active visitors", makes me think it might not work with 1 real address and 999 fake ones

Well, google doesn't know if people are active on non-google sites. And they couldn't tell advertisers or people would be able to upload 999 fake emails and 1 real one and tell if they're an active google user.

- google doesn't know if people are active on non-google sites -

I don't have numbers, but I know that the overwhelming majority of sites I see in a given day, week, or month use google analytics. A helpful 'free' tool that gives site owners excellent stats, and gives google insights into almost all of the off-google browsing that happens...

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#77
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far more sinister would be "Your wife Mary has an arrest record, click to see it!" (but of course, she doesn't - they just want the click, and get to imply validity by means of knowing other personal details). As you said, I doubt Google would try/permit this, but this will certainly come through.

Wouldn't that be classed as defamation?

"Does your wife Mary have an arrest violation? Visit now to find out!"

URL: http://www.arrestd.com/mary-smith

H1: Is your wife Mary secretly a criminal?

Body: Who knows what secrets are being hidden from you -- right under your nose! Do you know Mary as well as you think you do? For only $2.99/month we will alert you to any criminal actions and public records that we find on your wife. Get started today! Easy payments with Paypal

Related Stories: Is your ex-wife Harriet on Ashley Madison? Is your brother Blake in debt? Are your parents Anita and John under foreclosure?

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#78
post #72

Reading a lot of the comments in this thread, you guys are taking this announcement and running with it in some weird directions. Google's just playing catch-up with ad targeting features that Facebook has had for years. Nobody is targeting individual users. There are HUGE amounts of depersonalization work and legal review that go into making something like this a reality. If you think Google's engineers spent more t…

Your post assumes that marketing generally helps people do the stuff they want, not manipulate them into doing stuff according to advertiser wishes(to some extent). Many users here don't share that notion.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#79
post #74
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about sending emails. It's about Google AdWords display ads. I think it's technically possible to "hide" individual advertisers, but the short answer is: no, the company is under no obligation to stop showing web ads to people who previously said they don't want emails.

Yes, the company may not give your E-Mail address to ANY third party unless directly authorized, and, in the future, even if authorized, companies may not give data of EU users to ANY US company.

That's something different: a legal question. I have no knowledge of EU law.

Re: Google introduces 'Customer Match' – target web ads to email addresses

#80
post #38
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

def scumbag_targeted_campaign_builder(accounts): for name, users in groupby(accounts, key=lambda x: x['first_name']): users = list(users) while len(users) Some variation of this is pretty easy, and likely will become common.

I wonder how easy it is. Google says they require 1000 "Active visitors." So you need to not only create 1000 fake accounts to target a single real individual, but run 1000 undetected clickfraud bots (and then pay out on your own clickfraud). Not sure of the current state of the clickfraud arms race, but maybe there are cheaper and easier ways of snooping?

I don't imagine targeting any random user is particularly efficient, but when you are dealing with multi million user databases, finding close to a thousand people who share a first or last name probably isn't hard. They don't even have to address it to a person, simply provide some details (details vary based on database). Think "How was you recent trip to Hawaii? Click here for winter deals!"
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