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GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

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Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#411

Post by robin_reala »

TylerE wrote: post #300
hadrien01 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took ten minutes to implement GDPR on a small ecommerce website: we deleted Google Analytics (HTTP logs and carts tracking is more than enough) and replaced Facebook widgets by a simple link. Newsletter was already opt-in only, we don't sell private data, and user account deletion was already possible.

That seems extraordinarily flippant. I can't imagine giving up Google Analytics for http logs on a content-driven site.

Why would you give up on GA? You’re already not allowed to store personal data in it according to their TOS so (assuming you’re abiding by them) you can just leave it running.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#412

Post by beojan »

hannasanarion wrote: post #340
vor1111 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is referring to brands that typically pay for ads, not provide them.

That makes even less sense. Really, ZERO brands have found customers from web marketing? Not even Audible, or Harry's, or all those mattress brands, that weird tongue brush all over YouTube in 2012? No success stories at all?

> Not even Audible, or Harry's, or all those mattress brands

They advertised through sponsoring podcasts or Youtube channels, which is the sort of traditional advertising that's being contrasted to tracking-based adtech.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#413

Post by zaarn »

downandout wrote: post #403
zaarn wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a law it's a regulation and EU regulation is largely intended to be more of a carrot before the unpack the stick. See the Smartphone Charger regulation. It requires all smartphones vendors to come up with a standard for charging, everyone picked microUSB (though moving to USB C now). The EU is fine with that and the smartphone vendors know that if they start pulling the "everyone has their own port" shit aga…

Now you can pick which one you want. I don’t have to pick either. My company is not subject to the GDPR, and we will never put ourselves in a position to be subject to it. I will not be dictated to or threatened by a foreign government. Art. 83 of the GDPR details this. Art. 78 details what rights you have against them imposing a fine. People keep saying things like this, and yet neither article a) requires that a wa…

>I don’t have to pick either. My company is not subject to the GDPR, and we will never put ourselves in a position to be subject to it.

Canada, Japan and some other countries and even the US have indicated to copy the GDPR if not in letter atleast in spirit, though the US response is a lot weaker.

>I will not be dictated to or threatened by a foreign government.

The US is a foreign government and does it all the time to me, why is it a problem now?

>I would love for someone to just say “yes, technically there are no required warnings or limits other than the $10/$20 million”. Because that’s the only true statement that there is about GDPR fines.

You won't have that. The GDPR has a strict guideline on how to impose fines, it's not a law an won't be enforces as such. The regulatory bodies have bite because large players like Facebook or Equifax that leak large amounts of userdata require more than an angry letter in their mailbox.

As these articles mention, the agency imposing a fine should severely think about the level of fine and ensure it's appropriate. If you get hacked by a 0-day, you followed the advice of your regulatory body, your shit gets leaked and you inform your users immediately, it's very unlikely anything will happen.

If you get hacked because you didn't update your MySQL server in 5 years, you ignored what your regulatory agency said and you don't tell your users, don't expect them to go easy on you.

Easy as that. If you don't like it you can sue back and get the fine reduced or rescinded.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#414

Post by wastedhours »

taeric wrote: post #351
reaperducer wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. If that was true, Coca-Cola and McDonald's wouldn't exist.

Coke's most successful marketing trick was a giant fluke. Even then, most of their success is probably in cornering the market, not just marketing. In large, many (most?) places sell it because they have an exclusive license that provides cups and supplies. McDonald's is a funny one. They really don't seem any worse than most other fast food to me. I suspect they saw more expansion from their franchise methods than a…

I think you're doing a disservice to marketing - both of the elements you've mentioned actually fall under the marketing banner:

- Coke: their branding, market research, and consumer strategy got them where they are today. All are marketing functions.

- McDonald's: franchise go-to-market strategy, branding, consistency of product. All are marketing functions.

Whether or not paid advertising helped them is a whole different argument (and one I'd argue, as when 'tis the season, it's always the real thing...)

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#415

Post by isostatic »

briandear wrote: post #232
isostatic wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you don't target EU customers, you're fine.

And “target” is such an arbitrary idea. Just existing could be argued as trying to target. The standard should be: “do you have a physical nexus in the EU.” That’s it.

It's either "target", or it apples to all EU customers. "target" is far less of a problem for companies that don't consider their customers data to be important.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#416

Post by salvar »

nikanj wrote: post #8
shawn wrote: post #2

And that’s on top of the main problem: tracking people without their knowledge, approval or a court order is just flat-out wrong. The fact that it can be done is no excuse. Nor is the monstrous sum of money made by it. I use Piwik ( https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo ) and track visitors without their knowledge or consent, because I need analytics. Piwik is also configured to respect the "Do not track" header, so o…

Why do you need analytics, aside from ads and ad-tech?

To provide data for UX decisions?

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#417

Post by downandout »

zaarn wrote: post #413
downandout wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you can pick which one you want. I don’t have to pick either. My company is not subject to the GDPR, and we will never put ourselves in a position to be subject to it. I will not be dictated to or threatened by a foreign government. Art. 83 of the GDPR details this. Art. 78 details what rights you have against them imposing a fine. People keep saying things like this, and yet neither article a) requires that a wa…

>I don’t have to pick either. My company is not subject to the GDPR, and we will never put ourselves in a position to be subject to it. Canada, Japan and some other countries and even the US have indicated to copy the GDPR if not in letter atleast in spirit, though the US response is a lot weaker. >I will not be dictated to or threatened by a foreign government. The US is a foreign government and does it all the time…

People keep saying all of this. Again, there is absolutely nothing enshrined in GDPR limiting fines, other than $10/20 million. It says they should consider some things when determining the fine. But (for example) one of the 28 countries could decide that in their country, the lowest level fines are “only” $5 million, and they go up from there based on the factors they are supposed to consider. That would still be enough to destory most businesses.

You cannot tell me that there is anything limiting the fines (other than the cap) because it isn’t written. You’re saying that you hope and think that each of the 28 governments involved here will be reasonable, but in truth you have no way of knowing, and they have every incentive to not be reasonable.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#418

Post by Sylos »

lajhsdfkl wrote: post #292
user5994461 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AB testing doesn't require personally identifiable information.

How do you bucket users into a control and enabled group without having some way of identifying them? (usually ip address)

You could for example bucket them based on the last digit of their IP address.

So, everyone whose IP address ends in 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 gets the new version, everyone else gets the old version.

You don't need to store the IP address for that, you just need a rule that decides which version to serve as the user requests it.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#419

Post by zaarn »

downandout wrote: post #417
zaarn wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t have to pick either. My company is not subject to the GDPR, and we will never put ourselves in a position to be subject to it. Canada, Japan and some other countries and even the US have indicated to copy the GDPR if not in letter atleast in spirit, though the US response is a lot weaker. >I will not be dictated to or threatened by a foreign government. The US is a foreign government and does it all the time…

People keep saying all of this. Again, there is absolutely nothing enshrined in GDPR limiting fines, other than $10/20 million. It says they should consider some things when determining the fine. But (for example) one of the 28 countries could decide that in their country, the lowest level fines are “only” $5 million, and they go up from there based on the factors they are supposed to consider. That would still be en…

I hope that my government won't do this. As a EU citizen I only have to care about the one in my country.

Again, if you think the fine you got is too heavy you can escalate this to the courts (even EU courts).

There is also no incentive for the regulatory agency to impose such fines if the business cannot pay them. In that case they would get less or even nothing as the business collapses and it has not been the modus operandi in any EU regulatory body I know or experienced.

If they aren't reasonable than the EU courts will make them reasonable or the EU will add additional paragraphs to the GDPR to prevent excessive fines. Simple as that.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#420

Post by dsearls »

rossdavidh wrote: post #59

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…

Read The Waste in Advertising is the Part That Works: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4733724_The_Waste_i....

In it E. Ann Hollier and Tim Ambler make a strong case for what has been known from the start about branding: that mass media do it best, without performing at the personal levewl. One corollary for their case might be, "Not everything you value can be measured, and not everything you can measure has value."

Because digital advertising can be both targeted and measured, the whole advertising business decided that ads perform only when they are targeted and measured. But that's not advertising, really. That's direct marketing, which -- as I say in that post -- is descended from junk mail and a cousin of spam.

It's no accident that the $trillion or more spent on adtech hasn't produced a single brand known to the world.

The unanswered question is the one raised in The Problem With Targeting (https://www.dotcoma.it/2015/06/22/the-problem-with-targeting...), and pretty much everything Don Marti and Bof Hoffman (look them up) have been writing as well: is it possible for online advertising to brand products the way offline print and broadcast media could, and still do?

I suspect the answer is no. But my mind is open on the matter.

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