171–180 of 629 posts
Is it enough that a RTB ID is pseudo-anonymous? (it always identifies the same person, but cannot be used to find that person's real information) - OR - is a RTB ID not even pseudo-anonymous?
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> Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion I'm inclined to believe you, but sources please. Especially interested if you (or anyone) have anything on Google in this respect.
https://www.reddit.com/r/shills/ It's not going to be entirely legitimate but there's going to be some eye opening items in there for you I suspect.
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Google has been fined a 5 billion dollar fine already last year, that claim simply isn't true. But I agree with the implicit demand, they clearly haven't gotten the message. The EU should slap them with billion dollar fines again until they learn their lesson.
5 billion is peanuts to google. if the fine is low enough that it can be written off as a cost of business, it's too low. effective fines devastate profit margins rather than merely crimping them.
Free startup idea: An ad service that did things simply without any targeted stalking involved.
These exist. But so long as adivertisers can buy ads with tracking, fraud detection etc, they will. The key to getting reasonable ads back is making the bad ads impossible for advertisers to buy.
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I'm no marketing expert, but I doubt that the best way Google can think of to sway public opinion is to call people privacy nuts. Google employs over 100,000 people and even more people work at similar companies like Facebook or buy targeted ads. Many of these people browse Hackernews and get offended if others accuse their livelihoods of being evil.
Every company I've worked at has had an explicit policy of not commenting on that company's business on the internet.
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That sounds like something fairly trivially avoided by having the punishment be proportional to revenue. And I believe this is already the case for GDPR? A quick search indicates "Up to €20 million, or 4% of the worldwide annual revenue of the prior financial year, whichever is higher" https://www.gdpreu.org/compliance/fines-and-penalties/
This is being quoted in every comment but if you have enough lawyers anything is possible. Google has come out of antitrust cases relatively unscathed. They've even violated GDPR itself once before explicitly, and got out with a 57MM$ fine. This case won't be any different than all the other times that Google has blatantly violated laws and walked away with a slap on the wrist. I would be very very very shocked if th…
>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.
What's more likely: that Google's willing to risk being outed for employing shills or that there are people who actually hold the opposing viewpoint? Personally I tend to think of most people on HN as privacy nuts. Honestly of all the problems in the world to get worked up over, online advertising is pretty low on my list. There's nothing I can do about Google/FB/whatever, so why even think about it. If Google or who…
Actually, of all the stuff going on in the world, this is the one thing where you have an actual degree of control that matters.
Sure, one individual won't change business policies. But: you can easily take steps to prevent or reduce the amount of data these companies have on you.
Don't use their services, use an ad blocker, use tracking preventing, etc. You can even easily tailor it to your specific needs.
Compared to stuff like Brexit, fires in the Amazon, Hong Kong, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, attacks on democracy in Turkey, Hungary etc., it is trivial to do something against Google/FB that has at least the effect of protecting you.
>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.
> Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. This is the lazy and ignorant method of dismissing other people's arguments. Shill or not, what does it matter if what they state are facts?
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Should their point of view just not be heard then, in such discussions?
Hi kspacewalk2, I'm John and I have views on privacy that are completely genuine and happen to align with what benefits the corporation(s) that my company, TotallyLegitimateComments LLC, contracts for. I believe advertisement is a force for good in the world and can bring together people and products that enrich their lives while creating value for shareholders! While I'd love to share what wonderful businesses my co…