I left the ad industry because of data tracking
fastcompany.com
I left the ad industry because of data tracking
1–10 of 241 posts
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#2There are many reasonable proposals in the article but they are only wishful thinking: there is no way the USA passes a law similar to GDPR, no matter what people want and how many similar articles appear.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#3There are many reasonable proposals in the article but they are only wishful thinking: there is no way the USA passes a law similar to GDPR, no matter what people want and how many similar articles appear.
Well, we'll see what CCPA looks like by the end. If someone else makes a different law then a federal law will come so as to harmonize the requirements. If no one else makes a different law, CCPA will become a de facto federal law because you ignore California to your own detriment.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#4Had a similar experience - worked in a big ad agency who hired a new web-developer for one of our clients. As they are one of the biggest website providers, they could identify most of the people that visited a client's site - it even automatically saved the identified user's profile pic from facebook into their database.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#5There are many reasonable proposals in the article but they are only wishful thinking: there is no way the USA passes a law similar to GDPR, no matter what people want and how many similar articles appear.
As for GDPR: at least in Germany it's problematic. Our system typically relies on competitors to enforce law abidance in companies (so called "Abmahnungen" based on the "Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb", UWG for short, a set of laws regarding unlawful competition). One court recently ruled that GDPR violations don't fall under those laws (https://www.datenschutzbeauftragter-info.de/landgericht-stut...).
That leaves us with: - reporting violations to the officials. They are chronically understaffed, have little technical expertise and it takes months to years for them to act. They are very hesitant to hand out fines, but theoretically can. - individual citizens suing a company to force them to abide by the law. This is rare because the citizen will have to cough up the money to go to court, and even if he wins, the company will only be forced to abide by the laws regarding this citizen, not in general. - publicly shaming companies into compliance.
A higher court might have different opinions, and I very much hope they will, because GDPR quickly becomes meaningless without enforcement.
Edit: I have literally no idea why this is downvoted. Unless it's just because you personally don't like me, please leave a comment explaining what is incorrect.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#6Another very frustrating article about advertising. I don't doubt any of his conclusions, or his moral claims. But, I do want more details. What are the various tracking and correlation mechanisms, what do they look like practically? Does anyone actually really use canvas the way we all fear, or are smartphone apps and Android itself doing all the heavy lifting? Would a user's privacy settings in their phones mitigated any of this? Why or why not?
I appreciate that we know in general what the answers to some of these questions might be, but I'd really like if more of these articles got into specifics.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#7The Pwned website shows you which websites your account details have been leaked for.
Is there one to show you what the ad industry has on you, and perhaps how it can by it?
If people had insight to this for how much longer would this be a problem?
I imagine there’s a website that does this which was launched five years ago.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#8Another very frustrating article about advertising. I don't doubt any of his conclusions, or his moral claims. But, I do want more details. What are the various tracking and correlation mechanisms, what do they look like practically? Does anyone actually really use canvas the way we all fear, or are smartphone apps and Android itself doing all the heavy lifting? Would a user's privacy settings in their phones mitigat…
That the ad industry tries to justify its data harboring with questionable consent is certainly a factor.
Ads mostly suck, that is why people have blockers and why those are so successful.
If I do not want to get tracked or targeted by ads, I have to jump through many hoops that are not manageable by average users. This is why I plainly hate this industry.
I don't really care about your models, while they might provide interesting data, I do not want to be part of it.
Oh, and the ad industry is currently in the process of sanitizing the larger platforms, because you do not want to be associated with losers. It is the great ad industry we are talking about. I don't like them because of that too.
These are the larger issues that prevent useful discussion about specific tracking mechanisms.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#9There are many reasonable proposals in the article but they are only wishful thinking: there is no way the USA passes a law similar to GDPR, no matter what people want and how many similar articles appear.
As for GDPR: at least in Germany it's problematic. Our system typically relies on competitors to enforce law abidance in companies (so called "Abmahnungen" based on the "Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb", UWG for short, a set of laws regarding unlawful competition). One court recently ruled that GDPR violations don't fall under those laws ( https://www.datenschutzbeauftragter-info.de/landgericht-stut... ). That…
Unless the site is only available to German users, you should be able to file a complain with any of EU member state regulators, and not all are so timid as that.
NOYB, the non-profit org founded by Max Schrems, has already been filing complaints with the French, Austrian, Belgian and German authorities: https://noyb.eu/
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#10Had a similar experience - worked in a big ad agency who hired a new web-developer for one of our clients. As they are one of the biggest website providers, they could identify most of the people that visited a client's site - it even automatically saved the identified user's profile pic from facebook into their database.
> it even automatically saved the identified user's profile pic from facebook into their database.
Please share more information.
Did that require the user to be logged into FB?