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Google’s GDPR Workaround

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Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#611

Post by paulddraper »

intopieces wrote: post #93
hexadec wrote: post #5

This some great work on tracking down all of these measures to track users. I really hope we get to the point where dumb ads rules the web once more. Hopefully this results in more than a slap on the wrist, but I doubt it.

Why should ads rule the web at all? Surely the cleverest engineers to walk the planet can come up with a new way of making money that doesn’t involve psychological manipulation.

> Surely the cleverest engineers...can come up with a new way of making money

New ways of building things is the province of engineering.

New ways of making money is the province of MBAs.

Not that really matters; I doubt you will succeed in replacing ads with something "better".

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#612

Post by close04 »

panarky wrote: post #471
close04 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while ignoring far worse behavior by Google's competitors. That’s because whataboutism ia rarely an excuse, if ever. At best it could offer some context. But given the sheer scale of Google’s operations there's not much context to add. They have both the power to do everything on a massive scale: both the violations and the subsequent “opinion shaping”. The only reason mentioning a competitor would be relevant in m…

> the pro-Google camp is doing more overtime on the interwebs By "pro-Google camp" do you mean paid shills trolling and astroturfing to promote Google? If so, I'd love a cite or three, because I haven't heard of pro-Google astroturfing campaigns. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but I have heard of very real anti-Google campaigns sponsored by business competitors and ideological warriors.

I clearly said it’s my subjective experience. On top of that I just heard things the same way you did. Also some common sense.

Is your implication that ideological warriors can only exist on one side, against Google? Or that Google would resort to plenty of things that are borderline immoral or illegal but they draw the line at playing the PR card to make it look better? How about some of the thousands of employees that support the company line?

You have switched between “whatabout the other guys” and “Google never does this but all their ideological warrior opponents do”. The wording alone is already suspiciously aggressive, not to mention the naive implication that a company like Google would not resort to something all of its opponents are (apparently) doing.

Perhaps Google’s real strength is getting people to blindly support their crap. You see, it doesn’t actually have to be a “campaign” if all they did was train people to distract and constantly point the finger at others, pretend everybody else is bad but Google can’t be, and try to censor (via downvotes, reports, etc.) any internet opinion that doesn’t conform. Might sound weird but it’s more or less a literal summary of what you did in the previous 2 comments.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#613

Post by pvg »

jacquesm wrote: post #608
pvg wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the 'quite in the open' evidence you have of this?

The profiles and declarations of 100's of users of HN.

How is that evidence of "vote/flag brigadeering around subjects that center on one of these companies [...]" by those people? This story sat on the front page for a day, has zillions of votes and comments and as far as I can tell, even people who work in the field can't actually figure out what it's about.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#614

Post by aeorgnoieang »

rpastuszak wrote: post #591
aeorgnoieang wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From [the guidelines]( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ): > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Thanks, didn’t know about that. I wish I had received a better feedback there, though, as I’m deeply interested in the topic and generally it’s quite hard for me to find negative opinions, counterarguments I could work on. I find negative feedback more helpful, if it’s constructive.

I think maybe the problem with the comment was that it started with "I think that’s incorrect" but it reads like a non sequitur. The comment to which yours was replying was claiming that matching ads to viewers is itself a privacy violation but your point seems to have been that it – matching ads to viewers – is unnecessary, which, altho related, is a different point and doesn't follow from you thinking that the other commenter's point is "incorrect".

I think you're right in that "site content" is a good-enough proxy for users/viewers/targets for advertising, tho I also readily understand why advertisers would always like more info with which to target their ads.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#615

Post by aeorgnoieang »

chii wrote: post #546
aeorgnoieang wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would it matter that the bidders are able to match up the IDs with each other, aren't they all receiving the same profile anyway? I would guess that yes, they're all receiving – _from Google_ – the "same profile" but they also are collecting additional info that they can then share with each other and, because they can match profiles exactly, they can access each other's info about specific people. > Wouldn't p…

If it's the different advertisers who are going to share info, then why aren't they responsible for their own adherence to GDPR, rather than Google?

I'd imagine they are responsible too, not just alone, and that Google is a much more attractive target for GDPR enforcement both because they're larger, have more money, are more visible, but also because they're directly facilitating the "different advertisers" sharing that info.

If Google ceases to provide them the means of readily sharing info then all of those entities will no longer be violating the GDPR, in the scenario anyways.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#616

Post by dang »

trpc wrote: post #523
juanbyrge wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless this is a very calculated PR move by Brave. And the privacy zealots and anti-google cadre on HN and elsewhere are eating this up. They are effectively giving Brave free advertising and playing right into their hands.

To be honest this is the only useful comment in this entire thread and that's why you're getting mass downvoted by the online army of Brave shills (they are employing shills all around 4chan and reddit too). Brave has been repeatedly exploiting this website (or maybe YC just has business interest in it?) by attacking the company that made the product Brave contributed nothing to but theming and rebranding it and sell…

Accusing others of astroturfing and shilling breaks the site guidelines. You don't know why other users downvoted a comment, and jumping to public accusations about that degrades this site badly.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. You've been breaking them a lot and we've had to warn you many times already.

We don't micromanage HN according to YC's particular investments in startups; what's in YC's business interests is to make HN as good as we can, because that's what keeps the community coming here. But if it helps, I don't think YC has any investment in Brave.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#617

Post by soraminazuki »

rtkwe wrote: post #609
soraminazuki wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitely possible, but you're just doing everything manually that ad networks do for you. You've just explained how contexual ads used to work, which doesn't need all the invasive surveillance modern internet users have to put up with.

Yeah and there's a reason the tech moved on from that. It was a LOT of work on both ends to negotiate and monitor the relationship. Instead now we have a central broker who both parties work with that has set up a computerized way to manage these relationships. Personally I think the solution that lets us keep ad supported content and easy ad placement would be for Google to force companies to provide bots they could…

> Yeah and there's a reason the tech moved on from that. It was a LOT of work on both ends to negotiate and monitor the relationship. Instead now we have a central broker who both parties work with that has set up a computerized way to manage these relationships.

I'm not disputing the necessity of a central broker. Contexual ads based on search keywords or website content used to work fine without surveillance, and can perfectly be automated by a central broker.

Years ago, I didn't have much issue with online ads (with the exception of popups and spam emails). Nowadays, I'm forced to block them altogether to avoid the extensive surveillance by adtech. It doesn't have to be this way if adtech respected user privacy.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#618

Post by JohnFen »

rtkwe wrote: post #609
soraminazuki wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitely possible, but you're just doing everything manually that ad networks do for you. You've just explained how contexual ads used to work, which doesn't need all the invasive surveillance modern internet users have to put up with.

Yeah and there's a reason the tech moved on from that. It was a LOT of work on both ends to negotiate and monitor the relationship. Instead now we have a central broker who both parties work with that has set up a computerized way to manage these relationships. Personally I think the solution that lets us keep ad supported content and easy ad placement would be for Google to force companies to provide bots they could…

> I think the solution that lets us keep ad supported content and easy ad placement would be for Google to force companies to provide bots they could run internally so the profiles never leave Google's datacenters

Honestly, that wouldn't do much to alleviate my privacy concerns, as it does nothing to protect my privacy from the likes of Google (or other ad-slingers).

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#619

Post by JohnFen »

teamspirit wrote: post #187

I think the HN community, and most consumers, tend to look at things from only one angle. Imagine you start work at some small shop that manufacturers widgets for consumers. What would you do when you have to advertise your product? You'd have to turn to Google is a similar company. Are there any real alternatives? (I am asking because I really want to know) I say this because I am in this position now. I have to fig…

I've started a few successful businesses, and all I can say is what's worked for me.

I've never needed to turn to Google or other ad-slingers. Instead, I've done things the old-fashioned way, by going to where my potential customers tend to congregate and engaging with them (this kickstarts word-of-mouth, which is still the best advertising you can get), hosting my own online forums for customers, going to trade shows as appropriate, and supplementing everything with a few direct-placement ads in carefully selected media.

Yes, it's more work -- what Google et. al. are actually selling you is convenience, after all. But the rewards in terms of of ROI as well as fostering a real community, complete with evangelists, are more than worth it to me.

Of course, ymmv.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#620

Post by pas »

shakna wrote: post #529
pas wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where does your PII end up, only at Google, no?

IP addresses and identifiers are considered to be PII under the GDPR. These get sent to the advertisers.

Is that necessary for some reason? Can't they just send the /24 of the IP? (Or other pseudoanonymized versions?)
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