And yet banning nazis on Facebook is sooo hard...
I left the ad industry because of data tracking
41–50 of 241 posts
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#42We need to stand up and demand that all devices capable of surveillance run only open source software. Period.
Open source doesn't fix much. Most ad tracking today happens via well understood open technology, and then adtech companies build profiles server side. Here's something very simple and fully opensourceable that would still provide lots of tracking capability: * Get lots of sites to put an img tag that references your site, perhaps by paying them a tiny amount per visitor * When you get a request, assign a cookie if t…
At the basic level, you have no idea what the system software is gathering from sensors, like the accelerometer, barometer, GPS, wifi signals, etc, how it is processed, and how often it is sent, and to whom. After you find out how that works, then the next logical step is to ask just what the heck the other side is doing with it.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Open source doesn't fix much. Most ad tracking today happens via well understood open technology, and then adtech companies build profiles server side. Here's something very simple and fully opensourceable that would still provide lots of tracking capability: * Get lots of sites to put an img tag that references your site, perhaps by paying them a tiny amount per visitor * When you get a request, assign a cookie if t…
In the parent post's defense, open source would actually allow for looking at exactly what data is sent how. And hold the companies accountable. This would be dead easy, without the need for whistle-blowing, or reverse engineering
Most of the surveillance I am concerned about is website surveillance, as I don’t install apps. JavaScript is “source code available.”
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#44What are they doing with all this data tracking because it sure isn't giving me relevant ads. In addition to the often noted situation where you buy something online and then get ads for that thing you already bought, I routinely see totally irrelevant ads and recommendations. I've been on Facebook since around 2003. I've had an Amazon account for even longer. Their ads and recommendations for me are terrible. Two re…
I wonder how much of this is a scam on the advertisers too, sure the platform might have great detail for targeting ads, but if someone comes along and outbids on generic terms it isn’t going to do you much good as an advertiser either.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#45I have yet to see a real whistleblower report by someone deep into the ad industry revealing whats really going on there. There are almost no details about what's really happening on a technical level (beyond the little things we already know), and whether large data sets are abused in the sense that they get routinely de-anonymised.
I worked some in marketing and targeting modeling within retail finance. From what I saw, the data privacy rules and client contracts are followed scrupulously, and infractions are noted and remediated. Encryption slowed us down at least 10X,and bureaucracy another 10X. While frustrating at times, I appreciated that most if not all actually wanted to stay well within the legal guardrails. Of course, this is one perso…
> legal guardrails
What many companies do is they sprinkle some magic "anonymous" pixie dust on their data and then tons of laws no longer apply, even if the data is trivially identifiable stuff. And location data is often of that nature.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#46What are they doing with all this data tracking because it sure isn't giving me relevant ads. In addition to the often noted situation where you buy something online and then get ads for that thing you already bought, I routinely see totally irrelevant ads and recommendations. I've been on Facebook since around 2003. I've had an Amazon account for even longer. Their ads and recommendations for me are terrible. Two re…
I wonder how much of this is a scam on the advertisers too, sure the platform might have great detail for targeting ads, but if someone comes along and outbids on generic terms it isn’t going to do you much good as an advertiser either.
Judging from some of the comments I've seen here, quite a lot.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#47What are they doing with all this data tracking because it sure isn't giving me relevant ads. In addition to the often noted situation where you buy something online and then get ads for that thing you already bought, I routinely see totally irrelevant ads and recommendations. I've been on Facebook since around 2003. I've had an Amazon account for even longer. Their ads and recommendations for me are terrible. Two re…
Relevant ads were never the goal, it's just the least creepy sounding excuse for spying.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing to whistleblow. Advertising is applied sociology. As such, advertisers want to aggregate large data sets into large segments that are easy to manipulate statistically. (Where the central limit theorem starts working.) There is no demand for personal data or de-anonymization because that stuff doesn't sell. The personal data collection is done by Google, Facebook at al not for advertising purposes. The…
> There is no demand for personal data or de-anonymization because that stuff doesn't sell. Say what?? I’ve also worked in the ad industry and deanonymized personal data is shared and sold routinely . You speak of statistics and large segments but every advertiser I’ve interacted with is either doing individual-level targeting or striving towards it.
To wit, A few weeks ago there was a discussion here about a method by which you could figure out how fast a browser/machine could compute an SHA 512 hash, and that this was being used to fingerprint users even who had cookies, images, JavaScript disabled.
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#49What are they doing with all this data tracking because it sure isn't giving me relevant ads. In addition to the often noted situation where you buy something online and then get ads for that thing you already bought, I routinely see totally irrelevant ads and recommendations. I've been on Facebook since around 2003. I've had an Amazon account for even longer. Their ads and recommendations for me are terrible. Two re…
I am curious given that I have an Ad-blocker for most websites and am not on FB. How do you even see ads? Have FB et al found a workaround for ad-blockers?
Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an engineer, I'm amazed. As a person who doesn't want the person on the other end of every website I visit to know who exactly I am, I feel violated. At this point though, all I feel I can do as a hapless consumer is to desensitize myself to said violation. I use a VPN, Pi-Hole, Ghostery and Firefox. All of these a relatively recent additions though, so if a website can get my email and that links to an already ex…
Just making sure you're aware of the discussion around Ghostery that's happened here on HackerNews, so you can make an informed decision: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15969525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16809625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13652126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9617827
F-ing wonderful. Almost reaffirming the inevitability of it all really. Back to uBlock it is. Thanks for the heads up.