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Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

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Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#291

Post by oliwarner »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #233
oliwarner wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either. It's very difficult to get cookie based ad targeting right Tell that to the likes of Amazon and Ebay. Their cookie-based advertising is extremely effective. They not only get to advertise things at you that they already know you like, they also learn about other things you like by knowing what websites and content you're viewing. Why are we worried abou…

> they also learn about other things you like if they do that it's very, very subtle. I get mostly product that I bought, with a handful of product that I saw recently, and zero original suggestions, even if I'm open to impulse buy, I am driven by new impulses, showing me something I haven't bought once is not going to tip me over as that decision was already rationalized.

You're thinking too linearly.

In the adverts they show you what is most likely to convert today. Stuff you've been looking at recently. But every adview is another blob of data to profile you with for future recommendations.

We talk about Facebook knowing too much about us but they really only have a social handle on us. Amazon knows where we live, what we buy, how much money we have, when we're going on holiday, when we're pregnant, how many children we have, what pets we have, what cars we drive, what we like to watch, what we like to listen to, when we're home.

Every new B2C service they launch is another intrusion. Advertising is just one ring in a long chain. It gives them reach over everything you view online.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#292

Post by swish_bob »

shantly wrote: post #175
Zak wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has been repeatedly showing me office chair casters as a suggestion after I bought a set on Amazon. Despite having much better information on things I actually spend money on than the average ad network (all my devices have adblockers), Amazon isn't clever enough to figure out that I'm probably done with that product category for years.

The explanation I've seen is that yes, most people who buy certain products (a microwave oven, say) are probably done for a long time and less likely than the average person to buy one, but overall the group of people who just bought a microwave oven are still much more likely than the average person to buy another one. So yeah there are a bunch of people for whom the ads seem extremely stupid because of course you d…

I've read loads of suggested explanations for why this is a thing over the years, and none of them have ever felt satisfactory to me.

However, none of the people doing this really care why this is a thing, they care that, for some reason, this is a thing. It's vastly more profitable than nearly every other type of advertising, and since nobody _really_ knows how that works either, they just follow their tried and tested patterns that work.

Obvious _you_ wouldn't be this dumb. But it turns out that, on average, you are exactly this dumb ...

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#293

Post by criddell »

buboard wrote: post #161
criddell wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan should be to make something so good people will pay for it. Asking Apple to help with that is a little like asking a guitar company to help musicians make money.

if you go by that analogy, it's as if apple is taking away all the tip jars from musicians because they dont like them. wouldn't musicians be right to protest?

That's a stretched analogy, but I'll go with it.

In this case Apple isn't saying you can't have a tip jar, just that your tip jar has to be ethical.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#294

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

Mirioron wrote: post #280
zwaps wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably would be well advised to read up on the economics of consumer differentiation and price discrimination. All of today's ad-tech is set up and developed for that purpose. Whether overtly or covertly, it is the singular purpose, because the case is so clear cut: We are distributing the share of the pie between companies and consumers. It is therefore clear why people aware of basic economics consider agress…

> All of today's ad-tech is set up and developed for that purpose. Whether overtly or covertly, it is the singular purpose, because the case is so clear cut: We are distributing the share of the pie between companies and consumers. That's not entirely true though. Better ad targeting increases the "size of the pie" by increasing the chances that a consumer will find something that's useful to them. > At this stage, i…

>That's not entirely true though. Better ad targeting increases the "size of the pie" by increasing the chances that a consumer will find something that's useful to them.

Most ads people see are not for novel products solving problems. The ads are just fighting for brand recognition and space in peoples brains. This parasitic and wasteful industry is squandering some of the brightest minds of several generations to dare. Ad cos are also wasting untold billions of dollars suffocating development of infrastructure and industries that increase quality of life.

The house of cards needs to come down.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#295

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

thomaskcr wrote: post #218
onion2k wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data[1]. People believe the web works the same way - when they visit someDomain.com they, entirely reasonably, accept they're sharing their data with someDomain but don't realise they're also sharing their data with whichever tracking/surveillance services someDomain has insta…

> If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data You can literally buy that data. Either by targeting credit card transactions of people who shopped at a walmart via a broker or you can get more direct data (albeit probably more limited) from them directly here: https://www.walmartmedia.com .

That's the entire problem! Every store doing this should have a mandatory seminar before every shopping visit that outlines every single data point they collect, names every company, intermediary, and consumer of the data they collect directly and clearly, one. by one. These parasitic and disturbing methods only thrive because they have not been brought into the light of day so every consumer can consciously choose what data they want to share at every point. Any other methods except complete informed consent are fraudulent, invasive, and should be illegal. The sheer greed and lack of any morals in ad tech is sickening.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#296

Post by tempguy9999 »

buboard wrote: post #273
tempguy9999 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's rephrase that > I fail to understand the fuss about cookie based targeting ...because he... > worked in ad tech for half a decade, To continue > It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either Then why's it being done? Because it doesn't work, or because it does? > Instead most companies do the bare minimum and try to make a guess that is slightly better than a coin flip Uh huh. From https://en.wi…

> That's the bare minimum. Right. That's not addressing the argument. Advertising follows eyeballs, so naturally it went online. There is no evidence that its effectiveness has increased however, despite all the claims about high ad tech.

> There is no evidence that its effectiveness has increased however

If you're right, those who commission ads are idiots because they aren't doing the most basic cost/benefit analysis.

And this in an area where doing so is very easy (don't run the ad then do run the ad, then see the immediate and longer-term difference).

Also, from the same wiki link I gave

"The EU limitations restrict targeting by online advertisers; researchers have estimated online advertising effectiveness decreases on average by around 65% in Europe relative to the rest of the world."

Further, by "There is no evidence that its effectiveness has increased" are you saying no studies have been done, or studies have been done but show no such evidence? In the latter case please post a few links, thanks.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#297

Post by dorgo »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #32
jedberg wrote: post #7

I was talking to my friend about this the other day. He's an executive at an ad company (not Google). He had an interesting take on this: Yes, it is in fact working and breaks targeting and retargeting. But what is the outcome of that? The CPMs (how much the website makes) are 10x higher for re/targeted ads. So as they stop working, do you think the website will cut their revenue? No, they'll either put up a paywall,…

I'm not nearly as anti-ad as many people I've interacted with on HN and Twitter. I like the idea of getting free-to-me content supported by ads. I resisted running ad blockers for a very, very long time. But. The ads just got bigger. And bigger. And more intrusive. They approached 50% of the visible content (and that's on the desktop, not mobile). They played more video. They played more music. They started blocking…

> the original sin of online advertising: measuring an ad's success through the number of clicks it gets

The measure is often the number (or even the value) of conversions an ad gets. I think it is a good measure for everybody. I wouldn't block ads if they were garanteed to have conversion-rates > 90%. This would mean that I only see ads which are highly relevant. What we have instead are conversion rates >only successful ad is one that makes you go AAAAH MUST GO BUY RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW DROP EVERYTHING AAAAAAAA...

Exactly. That would be a good ad. Instead we see useless distracting spam ads which bring no value to users nor businesses.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#298

Post by tpxl »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #200
mertd wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the retailer that sold the perfume? They'll usually auto sign up the customer to their product emails and/or adapt their landing page to customer's interests (like Amazon).

> They'll usually auto sign up the customer to their product emails Fortunately, at least in the EU that's illegal.

Under GDPR this kind of self advertising falls under legitimate use of an email address, so if you inform the user you'll send them the emails, it's legal to do so without explicit opt-in. (AFAIK IANAL)

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#299

Post by giancarlostoro »

panpanna wrote: post #269
acdha wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using “FUD” in one sentence and calling WebKit “crippled” in the next is not a good way to establish yourself as a rational analyst. Firefox is my primary browser but I don’t think advocacy like that is helpful.

3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different webkit engine than third party browsers.

> 3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled.

Not only that but if WebKit has an exploit, all browsers have an exploit.

> I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different engine than third party browsers.

Correct, Chrome used to be based off WebKit's HTML rendering engine, which Google forked and created Blink instead. Firefox has their own engine (Gecko?) which is all being redone in Rust.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#300

Post by windexh8er »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #299
panpanna wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different webkit engine than third party browsers.

> 3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. Not only that but if WebKit has an exploit, all browsers have an exploit. > I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different engine than third party browsers. Correct, Chrome used to be based off WebKit's HTML rendering engine, which Google forked and crea…

Isn't WebKit still native to IOS with regard to requiring a system update vs being able to update WebKit OOB like a normal App Store app as well?
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