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I left the ad industry because of data tracking

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Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#121

Post by mattkevan »

nerdponx wrote: post #46
DougBTX wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to lead the product team for a publisher that makes the majority of its income from ads. It was a constant fight between the commercial teams and us.

Commercial wanted to stuff every page with as many ads and trackers as possible. We wanted to ensure the user didn’t have a miserable experience. As the company liked getting money, we, and the user, generally lost.

I kept an instance of Chrome blocker-free to see the site in all its ad-stuffed glory, but after learning a bit about how things work, I block all the things with extreme prejudice for personal browsing. And ensure friends & family do too.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#122

Post by low_poly_shiba »

2Ccltvcm wrote: post #52

Hedge funds and intelligence agencies are fingerprinting all groups within our society by monitoring the responses of various target audiences to engineered stimuli. This comes in the form of observing the response to selective dissemination of content with a known effect on observers (you). A few years ago we heard about some outrage nobody did anything about when it became clear Facebook was manipulating reader emo…

Did a double take when I got to the white supremacist anxiety part

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#123

Post by colordrops »

overthemoon wrote: post #80
2Ccltvcm wrote: post #52

Hedge funds and intelligence agencies are fingerprinting all groups within our society by monitoring the responses of various target audiences to engineered stimuli. This comes in the form of observing the response to selective dissemination of content with a known effect on observers (you). A few years ago we heard about some outrage nobody did anything about when it became clear Facebook was manipulating reader emo…

This is paranoid. I remember the story about Facebook doing emotional manipulation through the feed, but you go from there to hyper rich hedge funds and shadowy intelligence agencies at the reins of public life shaping the course of history through social media black magic. I don't doubt there are bad actors trying to do bad things via advertising and social media, but this is quite the claim. The rich and powerful a…

> this is paranoid

Please don't label a paragraph of text with a trite insult. Just address the argument.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#124

Post by SPGWhistler »

This is fear mongering. I work in the ad industry as well - and I can promise you - 99% of the companies in the ad industry are NOT leading the way when it comes to tracking you and your data. They are incompetent and can barely do their jobs. Just take a look at any display advertising for belly fat ads and you know for sure they aren't targeting you. The 1% however (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook) ARE tracking you and are damn good at it. Google and Apple being the main offenders here, due to their cell phones. And when you browse around the web you WILL see those ads following you. But as much as it sounds terrifying - there just isn't much of a market for geo tracking individuals. Targeted ads aren't the enemy here anyway - its governments using this data in ways the infringe on our freedoms that is the issue. (Like freedom of press, for example....) And THIS is what we should be worried about.

To be clear: It is not the ad industry we have an issue with here. It is the data collectors - Google - Apple - Facebook. They are the irresponsible parties at fault.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#125

Post by everdrive »

somatic wrote: post #101
everdrive wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then I found myself in a rabbit hole of Tuskegee experiments, Operation Northwoodses, MKULTRAs, human-animal hybrids, and so on. These things aren't interrelated, or even very similar.

Sure they are: they’re all things which normal people wouldn’t do to other people, and in which the perpetrators weren’t punished. And by “normal people wouldn’t do to other people”, I mean “stark raving mad”.

I'm going to keep getting downvoted here, but it seems like people collect a bulleted list of spooky and bad things a government has done, and imply a meaningful connection via the act of simply listing the events together.

So, in our same list we have:

- A Cuban false flag operation with military intent.

- A CIA Mind Control experiment which is implied to be widespread, but documents don't actually support this. Torturing a few hapless individuals with LSD is certainly terrible, but it's different from "widespread government control."

- A terrible, scientific & racist medical experiment carried out against a vulnerable group of people.

- And then, "human-animal hybrids" ... I'm not sure how to respond to this? A few folks in China did some questionable things, maybe? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

These are all disparate groups, with disparate intent, and unrelated outcome. Please, how are these related? Some people in power did some things are morally wrong? Why include conspiracy theories in this list if that's the only similarity? If you simply wanted to discuss government transgression, you could avoid something as trivial as MKULTA and instead simply mention U.S. Slavery, or the Soviet Famine, or any of the many government-run genocides in world history.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#126

Post by throwayEngineer »

michaelt wrote: post #102
throwayEngineer wrote: post #78

Edit, remember not to shoot the people asking questions I'm not sure why that data is so horrifying. I work a job that I willing put on Facebook, and I live in a house i am a registered voter at. You can probably guess my route to work. I'm unsure why this is bad, it sounds more useless than anything.

Location data tells me how often you go to the gun shop and the shooting range, when your house is empty, which political protests you go to, how often you visit the pharmacy/doctor, what prostitutes you visit, what gay bars you visit, how often you break the speed limit, how much sleep you get, when you visit your lawyer or your STD clinic, whether you've kept up going to Alcoholics Anonymous, what restaurants you g…

Why?

Don't you want to hear your different lawyer options, STD check options, gun options, alcohol help, etc?

Or rather, would you rather have useful advertisement or spammy advertisement?

I still could not relate that those would be bad. The only thing I can imagine is blackmail. Which is cultural and not moral.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#127

Post by rolltiide »

user17843 wrote: post #12

I 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 have yet to see a real whistleblower report by someone deep into the ad industry revealing whats really going on there.

Its because nobody cares until Congress starts hauling in software developers and "data scientists" from tech startups, everyone is content watching Zuckerberg be the face of society's discontent.

As long as they keep asking the wrong people the wrong questions there is no need for everyone else to acknowledge their role in the problem.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#128

Post by stOneskull »

somatic wrote: post #101
everdrive wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then I found myself in a rabbit hole of Tuskegee experiments, Operation Northwoodses, MKULTRAs, human-animal hybrids, and so on. These things aren't interrelated, or even very similar.

Sure they are: they’re all things which normal people wouldn’t do to other people, and in which the perpetrators weren’t punished. And by “normal people wouldn’t do to other people”, I mean “stark raving mad”.

a lot of psychopaths rise to the top

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#129

Post by nerdponx »

SquareWheel wrote: post #81
nerdponx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was it just a proof of concept demonstration, or was there evidence that this method is being used in the wild by advertisers?

They stated that they were using it in production for that purpose.

Re: I left the ad industry because of data tracking

#130

Post by throwayEngineer »

majewsky wrote: post #96
throwayEngineer wrote: post #78

Edit, remember not to shoot the people asking questions I'm not sure why that data is so horrifying. I work a job that I willing put on Facebook, and I live in a house i am a registered voter at. You can probably guess my route to work. I'm unsure why this is bad, it sounds more useless than anything.

Ah, the old "I have nothing to hide". Just one of many obvious rebuttals: We need to be a large anonymous crowd to protect those among us most in need of anonymity: whistleblowers, activists, stalking victims, to name a few.

Hmm a stalking victim could not use Android / Google maps.

This sounds like potential for profit.

Interesting.

I'm assuming this already exists but 95% of people don't need it?

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