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How to See What the Internet Knows About You

nytimes.com

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Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#21

Post by blacksmith_tb »

jpdaigle wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #6

These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hour…

I'm asking for something even more basic from ad targeting: as a Canadian, with a Canadian IP address, don't advertise products/services to me that are US-only. You'd think the web advertising industry would at least figure out how to never show me an ad for Hulu or Blue Apron, seeing how those companies don't do business outside the US so the ROI on having me click that is zero.

Ah, but they are "building brand awareness" (or who knows, maybe even legitimately testing the waters to see if they want to expand to Canada).

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#22

Post by Godel_unicode »

jpdaigle wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #6

These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hour…

I'm asking for something even more basic from ad targeting: as a Canadian, with a Canadian IP address, don't advertise products/services to me that are US-only. You'd think the web advertising industry would at least figure out how to never show me an ad for Hulu or Blue Apron, seeing how those companies don't do business outside the US so the ROI on having me click that is zero.

Nobody from the US ever visits Canada? This is a good example of how the spotlight effect combines with confirmation bias to make advertising look awful. All algorithms like this are going to have false positive rates, if their most successful ads are the ones shown to Americans in Canada should they stop because sometimes Canadians see them and are annoyed by them?

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#23

Post by tomdell »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #22
jpdaigle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking for something even more basic from ad targeting: as a Canadian, with a Canadian IP address, don't advertise products/services to me that are US-only. You'd think the web advertising industry would at least figure out how to never show me an ad for Hulu or Blue Apron, seeing how those companies don't do business outside the US so the ROI on having me click that is zero.

Nobody from the US ever visits Canada? This is a good example of how the spotlight effect combines with confirmation bias to make advertising look awful. All algorithms like this are going to have false positive rates, if their most successful ads are the ones shown to Americans in Canada should they stop because sometimes Canadians see them and are annoyed by them?

It's doubtful that the most successful ads are ones specifically shown to Americans in Canada, and the number of Americans in Canada at any given time is probably very insignificant compared to the number of Canadians in Canada.

It really does seem like a boneheaded advertising strategy to market yourself to a consumer audience when the overwhelming majority of them can't pay for your products, and when it's presumably easy to screen that audience out by IP address.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#24

Post by commenter98456 »

Why is targeted advertising acceptable? it is not ok for a seller to stalk potential buyers.

I get that everyone has accepted this as a "fact of life" but consider how TV advertising was done. The advertisement is tailored to the show you are watching and the time of day.

In other words, if I'm on a tech blog, advertise to me tech products, if I'm reading a cooking recipe, advertise kitchenware,grocery delivery and the like.

As a consumer, I am more likely to remember an advertised product if the AD is within the context of the web page I'm visiting.

Target pages not users! not even as precise as I mentioned above but statistical approximations can be made, much like with TV ads (for example, "ycombinator visitors are likely to buy artisnal cookware compared to people visiting nytimes" )

The problem at the end of the day is that users in general don't like to be tracked. some may sacrfice the privacy for the convenince but most will prefer if the sacrifice wasn't neccesary.

I think better advertising solutions are what is needed. It is unfortunate how much money is instead spent on technology to stalk users, as if using a complex computer system makes it more accpetable or ethical.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#25

Post by giancarlostoro »

andmarios wrote: post #18
jasonrhaas wrote: post #16

I recently got tired of all the creepy targeted advertising, so I hit the nuclear option. Turned off all targeted ads on all social networks, cleared all cookies, all search histories, and installed the Disconnect Chrome extension. Also disabled all images in my email to stop those email trackers. I've always used an ad-blocker but I don't think that stops the data collection aspects of it. I've always known this is…

I tried it a couple years ago with Google and once targeted ads were off, I would get many ads about gay dating sites. Once I turned targeted ads on again, these ads disappeared.

I had a similar experience, but it was single women, and there was no way to ask Google to stop showing me those types of ads. At the very least allow me to block adult advertisements. Maybe it's on purpose...

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#26

Post by johansch »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #25
andmarios wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it a couple years ago with Google and once targeted ads were off, I would get many ads about gay dating sites. Once I turned targeted ads on again, these ads disappeared.

I had a similar experience, but it was single women, and there was no way to ask Google to stop showing me those types of ads. At the very least allow me to block adult advertisements. Maybe it's on purpose...

Maybe no-one ever made that call, and it's all just based on the results of continously running automated and fuzzed A/B experiments.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#27

Post by schoen »

jasonrhaas wrote: post #16

I recently got tired of all the creepy targeted advertising, so I hit the nuclear option. Turned off all targeted ads on all social networks, cleared all cookies, all search histories, and installed the Disconnect Chrome extension. Also disabled all images in my email to stop those email trackers. I've always used an ad-blocker but I don't think that stops the data collection aspects of it. I've always known this is…

By the way, some of the trackers may still be able to track you:

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

(which does not even include all of the potential methods of browser fingerprinting)

Hopefully over time Disconnect, Privacy Badger, and other tools will be able to recognize and interfere with or block a lot of these methods. I'm not sure what I think the long-term prognosis is.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#28

Post by PhasmaFelis »

jasonrhaas wrote: post #16

I recently got tired of all the creepy targeted advertising, so I hit the nuclear option. Turned off all targeted ads on all social networks, cleared all cookies, all search histories, and installed the Disconnect Chrome extension. Also disabled all images in my email to stop those email trackers. I've always used an ad-blocker but I don't think that stops the data collection aspects of it. I've always known this is…

I tried turning off targeted Google ads on my phone, and got only the worst ads possible from then on. Like, 100% strobing "YOUR PHONE HAS 37 VIRUSES, CLICK HERE TO CLEAN". Eventually I had to turn it back because ad-supported apps are nearly unusable with strobing banners at the bottom, which I'm sure was Google's intent.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#29

Post by II2II »

owlninja wrote: post #6

These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hour…

A local grocery store has a points card that bases its offers on prior purchases, and suffers from the problem that you identified. I have often wondered if it would be practical to turn the tables by making a token purchase just before an anticipated sale, then reaping the rewards the following week.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#30

Post by anigbrowl »

jcoffland wrote: post #9

Most of what the article complains about can be solved with an ad blocker. The rest by staying off of Facebook.

Staying off Facebook means committing social semi-suicide for a lot of people.

It's the primary channel for my local community, contacting local elected representatives, family members in distant places, and several sociopolitical communities of which I'm a part. For many people it's a necessity, and other channels like email etc. are far less efficient precisely because they don't leverage the networking effects.

This advise is like telling someone who's worried about toxins in their food to eat less of it.

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