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GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

blogs.harvard.edu

201–210 of 454 posts

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What privacy? Knowing that user dhsidhujdjdowhdyyehheis is using my website is not an infringement on your privacy! Why do you think you can control what I do with data you send to me? Don't send me data I'd you don't want me to have it.

Why do you think you can control what I do with data you send to me? Are you really interested in rehashing this conversation? You got plenty of answers last time¹, I doubt you'll get new ones ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16957978

Obviously no one said anything convining. Sure, it's law under the gdpr and I'll comply. That doesn't mean I think it's a reasonable law.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#202
post #109
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more stuff to do with ML and make money than ad targeting

What did you have in mind?

To me, the best applications are going to be those by which the human and the ML'd AI will benefit each other by a greater degree than if each were on their own.

At my particular company in logistics, I can see many places where it can be applied- especially in the dispatching of deliveries and helping to set up a call with customer support.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring them to check an "I agree to be tracked" checkbox and signing an agreement (which has just happened to me yesterday in an EU country in accordance to GDPR) before they can use a product/service is hardly much better. That's specifically not allowed under the GDPR. Either the information is needed to provide the service (and needed means actually needed, not "my business model depends on it"), in which case…

How is "my business model depends on it" not a bona fide legitimate purpose for information collection? Nobody is forcing anyone to patronize a business that relies on data collection for profitability. I'm extremely skeptical of regulation that interferes with consensual deals between economic actors. You want transparency? Fine. But you don't get to randomly outlaw certain entire classes of business.

Personally, I am extremely skeptical of entities where the only motivation is pure profit, and I personally would like to organize to protect myself against these entities that don't align with my civic concerns.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think you can control what I do with data you send to me? Are you really interested in rehashing this conversation? You got plenty of answers last time¹, I doubt you'll get new ones ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16957978

Obviously no one said anything convining. Sure, it's law under the gdpr and I'll comply. That doesn't mean I think it's a reasonable law.

I'm just saying there's no point starting over, you'll just get the same kind of responses. You should preempt them if you're hoping to get anything new. Though I doubt you'll get it anyway.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#205
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you have in mind?

To me, the best applications are going to be those by which the human and the ML'd AI will benefit each other by a greater degree than if each were on their own. At my particular company in logistics, I can see many places where it can be applied- especially in the dispatching of deliveries and helping to set up a call with customer support.

Predictive maintenance I think will be big as well

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so it’s hard. Nobody is entitled to that being easy in the way that they are to privacy.

What privacy? Knowing that user dhsidhujdjdowhdyyehheis is using my website is not an infringement on your privacy! Why do you think you can control what I do with data you send to me? Don't send me data I'd you don't want me to have it.

> Why do you think you can control what I do with data you send to me?

Legal protections, like the GDPR.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#207

Completely oblivious and ignorant here: If a company has no official office in Europe, how does this affect them? All advertisement and business focus is say only in the US, is it business as usual? What if an EU citizen decides to sign up? Are US companies forced to deny customers not par of say an IP block (half assed method I know, but just speaking in general)?

The guidance we have received is that if your business is not located in the EU, not targeting EU countries, you don't have parts of your site translated to languages spoken in EU countries, and do not have an EU-based domain name extension, your EU traffic is considered incidental and GDPR probably does not apply to you. But, as with everything in the GDPR, that is extremely murky. This law is subject to unique interpretations and degrees of enforcement in the courts and regulatory offices of 28 distinct countries. This is why we simply chose to block EU traffic - there's no need for us to take on the liability of EU traffic, and hope that some country over there doesn't need fines from us badly enough to decide that article 484208408 makes us subject to it.

With regard to enforceability outside the EU, that is anyone's guess. If you're in the US, there are already mechanisms that allow for the domestication of EU judgments in the US. Once domesticated, the judgment would have the same force and effect as if it had been issued by a US judge. However, the treaties that allow this are very complex, and allow for a large number of exceptions. So it would be up to a US judge in each specific case to decide whether or not a judgment for a fine issued under the GDPR can be domesticated. There are currently no treaties specifically relating to GDPR in the US, and I'd imagine there would be (very welcome) strong opposition to such a thing.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#208

Oddly, I think the article underestimates the size of the change coming. I think one side affect of the surge of IT into advertising, is that it has become easier to measure exactly how well advertising works. By and large, it doesn't, very well. I am reminded of this, from Paul Graham, about his time at Yahoo: http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html "...The reason Yahoo didn't care about a technique that extracted the…

> By and large, it doesn't, very well. I know Twitter isn't known for being the best at advertising, but it was made exceptionally clear to me that online advertising is a massive bunch of lies when I did my GDPR Twitter data export and it included me in a bunch of incorrect, non-sensical and contradictory ad targeting groups. Twitter claims I: * Own a cat, dog and other animal (I don't) * Have between $100k- $999k l…

Yeah, my impression is that this whole "smart, targeted ads" thing is actually just a lie, and that it's really more of a "spray and pray" kind of thing.

It's a bubble!

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#209

Oddly, I think the article underestimates the size of the change coming. I think one side affect of the surge of IT into advertising, is that it has become easier to measure exactly how well advertising works. By and large, it doesn't, very well. I am reminded of this, from Paul Graham, about his time at Yahoo: http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html "...The reason Yahoo didn't care about a technique that extracted the…

If true, it makes a very amusing reversal from the usual story. Rather than peddling their wares to suckers, the placers of the ads have themselves been suckered into buying a product that doesn't work as advertised!

The more you think of it, the more it seems to be totally expected. It's the advertising industry we're talking about. They're not exactly a paragon of honesty. On the contrary, I suspect everyone tries to bullshit everyone else. The few observations I made from working next to people in marketing & advertising supports that viewpoint.

EDIT: reminds me of that one story about A/B testing, which pretty much directly told us how adtech companies are bullshitting their own customers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10872359

I highlighted the more interesting parts back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, if a EU resident decides to visit your website and you're tracking them (Google Analytics etc) you have to comply with GDPR when handling his/her data. The IP block has a logic to it because the law applies to people in the EU rather than EU citizens.

Really? I was under the impression that it applies to EU residents, regardless of where they are accessing the website from.

This is technically true, however if the site is not targeting EU residents, the traffic is supposed to be considered incidental and the GDPR is not supposed to apply.
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