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Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

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81–90 of 188 posts

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#81

I'm a suspect because I worked in digital media in a media agency some time ago, and let me tell you that this is quite a broad request. Why? Let's start by asking: what is targeted advertising? Is it based on interests? Behavior? Demographic? Psychographic? Contextual? Placement? Geolocation? Search queries? The list goes on. Even if they want to narrow it down to collected data from users, this still has a lot of b…

What is targeted advertising needed for?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#82
post #32

How would such a law define targeted advertising? (Serious question.)

Advertisement that not related to the page you are browsing?

That's a little too broad, it's fine to let tech sites run tech industry ads and hobby sites could still run hobby ads, etc.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#84
post #18

The images of Sao Paolo before and after banning billboards https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... illustrate the difference in a different space. Personally, I found the difference greater and more lovely than I expected and support reducing advertising. Other cities are doing it. The parties that would suffer most are shareholders of companies that advertise products most people probably wo…

I think the parties that would suffer most would be the companies that have specialized in providing and generating targeted advertising - ie. Google and Facebook, and the ad agencies which run ads on those platforms.

Regardless, I'm not sure recognizable megacorps would suffer much. A Big Mac is a known quantity, and everyone recognizes the Golden Arches, whether you're in Seattle or Shanghai. It's the local gastropub that would have a hard time promoting themselves to the tiny subset of the population that is 'vacationing foodies' without targeted advertising. At the same time, I don't see them advertising much - perhaps it's the middle of the road regional franchises that have the funds to employ ad agencies for that purpose.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#85
post #81

I'm a suspect because I worked in digital media in a media agency some time ago, and let me tell you that this is quite a broad request. Why? Let's start by asking: what is targeted advertising? Is it based on interests? Behavior? Demographic? Psychographic? Contextual? Placement? Geolocation? Search queries? The list goes on. Even if they want to narrow it down to collected data from users, this still has a lot of b…

What is targeted advertising needed for?

To get information to those that are interested in it. While some dislike any kind of advertisment, many (me included) don't mind having ads, as long as they're not too intrusive and actually useful.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#86
post #81

I'm a suspect because I worked in digital media in a media agency some time ago, and let me tell you that this is quite a broad request. Why? Let's start by asking: what is targeted advertising? Is it based on interests? Behavior? Demographic? Psychographic? Contextual? Placement? Geolocation? Search queries? The list goes on. Even if they want to narrow it down to collected data from users, this still has a lot of b…

What is targeted advertising needed for?

Perhaps to inform people about the goods and services that you offer that they might be interested in buying?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#87

I'm a suspect because I worked in digital media in a media agency some time ago, and let me tell you that this is quite a broad request. Why? Let's start by asking: what is targeted advertising? Is it based on interests? Behavior? Demographic? Psychographic? Contextual? Placement? Geolocation? Search queries? The list goes on. Even if they want to narrow it down to collected data from users, this still has a lot of b…

I think it’s well defined in the article - the author means behavioural advertising that has to do with targeting any information specific to the user (whether we consider that personal or not). The proposed alternative is contextual advertising which puts the targeting emphasis entirely on the context in which the ad is shown, not on the person seeing the ad. The idea is that if it is executed correctly, contextual targeting will lead to the same person anyway, just without sacrificing his or her privacy.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#88
post #85
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is targeted advertising needed for?

To get information to those that are interested in it. While some dislike any kind of advertisment, many (me included) don't mind having ads, as long as they're not too intrusive and actually useful.

There are other ways that users can fulfill their information needs which don't require targeted advertising.

You mention you don't mind ads; would you also prefer to be subject to targeted advertising rather than to have software running on your own device which displays equally-relevant reference material without sharing your personal data?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#89
post #13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah our societies functioned for centuries without targeted ads, and we can do it again. It's only the past decade or two that we've had targeted ads. I think you could compare targeted ads to selling drugs: there's clearly a market for it and it will sustain many peoples' livelihoods, but as a society we've seen the ill effects of letting them run rampant and decided we're better off highly regulating them. It's ti…

We've had targeting for at least as long as we've had publications with different subscriber bases. Do you think there are the same ads in Wired magazine, Sports Illustrated, and the Wall Street Journal? And even just traditional local newspapers targeted based on locale and readership. The New York Post is going to have different advertising than The New York Times.

All readers of these print publications are seeing the same ads. I think what most people mean with targeted advertising is when every reader sees a different ad based on extensive data collection.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#90
post #18

The images of Sao Paolo before and after banning billboards https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... illustrate the difference in a different space. Personally, I found the difference greater and more lovely than I expected and support reducing advertising. Other cities are doing it. The parties that would suffer most are shareholders of companies that advertise products most people probably wo…

Online, without personalization it's the other way around Local and niche businesses can only advertise on Facebook/Google Ads because their clientele can be defined and targeted. Without targeting we'll be watching ads for Coca-Cola and McDonalds and other brands that have 'mass' appeal.

Why can't they target content instead of visitors? i.e. articles and videos about X instead of people that showed even minimal interest in X in the past month or so.
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