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Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

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

#101

Post by mLuby »

Mirioron wrote: post #50
Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers don’t magically get more money to spend so as long as everyone has access it’s equally effective at scale. The only real difference is it’s ability to shift where advertising dollars are spent.

But consumers could get better services and products, because they'll know that there's a choice to be had. I always go to the same place to have my hair cut, because it's the only one I know. Maybe there are better options for me -cheaper, closer, faster, better. But I don't know about them and I'll probably never know about them as I don't really care enough about it to go out of my way to look into it. If someone…

> consumers could get better services and products

Those services and products are not necessarily better, they're just better advertised. (In fact, they're likely worse.)

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

#102

Post by mLuby »

ghaff wrote: post #28
PeterStuer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are effective bans on advertising for certain products, e.g. cigarettes, in large parts of the globe.

Which are acceptable because people generally (in many places), are fine with discouraging, or certainly not promoting, the use of tobacco products (and some other product categories) even though they're legal. This is not true with the usage and purchase of most other legal products.

The irony is that, as with anti-smoking, massive ad campaigns would be necessary to convince the citizenry to favor a ban on ads. Time for "the ad to end all ads?"

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

#103

Post by jkingsbery »

As I read the article, these are some ads that I see:

* Cascade - Useful

* Some IBM Power and Storage Webinar - not so useful

* Used Cars - not so useful (I anticipate doing less driving than normal the next few weeks)

* Constant Contact - not so useful

* Nike - not so useful

* Auto insurance - not so useful

There is something funny about an article arguing against targeted advertising surrounded by ads that do a pretty bad job of targeting.

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

#104

Post by PatentlyDC123 »

monadic2 wrote: post #83
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

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

Transacting without offering money as an exchange medium.

Wouldn't this cover bartering? I could also see someone trying to twist this definition to cover gift cards and other mediums that are not strictly "money." Such a skewed interpretation is why I think drafting such a bill would be difficult.

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

#105

Post by effingwewt »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #25

I'd add nuance to this: Ban _involuntarily_ targeted advertising. I am 100% ok with Google, Facebook etc. knowing that I live in Oxfordshire, UK; that I love cycling; that I play the church organ. That's who I am. If they want to target cycling, classical music, and local ads at me based on this information, that's great. I would happily log onto these sites and click checkboxes based on this (or do it via browser se…

This is fine in theory, but in practice you'd visit some site with an opt out cookie that gives auto approval just by visiting said site, who would then sell that to one of the huge adco's, and nothing would change.

Adverts pollute our lives in many ways, it's past time we stopped them IMHO.

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

#106

Post by ddevault »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #56
ddevault wrote: post #7

Why don't we just ban advertising?

As concerned as I am for my privacy and control over my information I don't know that I would accept a straight theory of "Advertising is bad". 1. I appreciate, in principle, the notion that I may be informed of opportunities, products, services that might interest me. I'm more focused on my ability to control a) Information you gather on me and b) How when and what it is presented to me - rather than its existence.…

>1. I appreciate, in principle, the notion that I may be informed of opportunities, products, services that might interest me. I'm more focused on my ability to control a) Information you gather on me and b) How when and what it is presented to me - rather than its existence.

You should research products that interest you, rather than being manipulating into choosing something that you otherwise might not.

>2. As another poster pointed out, why are we focusing on advertising part (the outcome) rather than tracking and profiling (the cause)?

Because I don't like any of those things: advertising, tracking, or profiling. Advertising in its own right is mind hacking and I am wholeheartedly against it.

>3. How do you define advertising? What definition do you propose that would without ambiguity allow indexes, listings, reviews, and sponsorships? In a world without "advertising", how do I find a product or service I require?

Word of mouth would be permissible (and within that, reviews), but it'd be illegal to pay for reviews. You could offer sponsorships, but only talk about them in your own domain (such as your company's blog). A key distiction I'd make is between "pull" advertising and "push" advertising, and would make the latter illegal. If the user "pulls" your ads, i.e. specifically indicates that they'd like to receive them, for example by signing up for your mailing list, then that'd be acceptable to me (opt-in, not opt-out, and harsh pentalties for buying or selling lists of emails).

There's a lot of nuance and you would find it difficult to find an unamgibuous definition, but that's also true of all other laws. The law is not a turing complete program, it's a system interpreted by humans.

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

#107

Post by gtyras2mrs »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #62
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #25

I'd add nuance to this: Ban _involuntarily_ targeted advertising. I am 100% ok with Google, Facebook etc. knowing that I live in Oxfordshire, UK; that I love cycling; that I play the church organ. That's who I am. If they want to target cycling, classical music, and local ads at me based on this information, that's great. I would happily log onto these sites and click checkboxes based on this (or do it via browser se…

Targeted advertising is not the problem. The problem is it motivates them to collect too much data about you. And once they have it they can misuse it or give it (voluntarily or not) to someone else. There already have been cases when Google reported an innocent man to the police so he was put in prison.

Parent comment seems to suggest the same thing.

Ban the collection of data for targeted advertising. Instead the only data that targeted ads can use would be provided by the user voluntarily. Not collected. No checkbox for consent.

If user wants the advertiser (say Google) to know something - they need to enter that in on a form.

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

#108

Post by libertine »

stoev wrote: post #87
libertine wrote: post #78

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…

I understand completely your argument, and the article argument - I've used plenty of contextual advertising, and it's better than what we call ROS (Run Of Site), but it's worst than targeting based on interests.

But let me give you a inside view: there's been a war from major media groups to try to take down Facebook and Google (let's see what they come up with for Amazon).

This solution for them is the best solution for news websites, that since 2013 have seen their advertising budgets being siphoned to Google and Facebook.

All because they cannot compete with their level of data granularity - and trust me they tried! Hell some tried to build their own data systems to have more refined targeting.

I can even tell you one of the solutions on the table was to force Google and Facebook to share their data with media groups.

So this "white knight in shinning armor" article, despite showing valid arguments, is most definitely biased, because it's in their best interest that contextual advertising prevails and interest/behavioral falls. For years their agenda is to get back media investment from the big boys.

So bare this in mind when you read these articles.

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

#109

Post by hrktb »

ch4s3 wrote: post #71
spodek wrote: 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 you’re misunderstanding why people like soda and McDonald’s. You’re hardwired to love sugar, fat, and salt which soda and fast food provide in abundance. Advertising these products is about capturing dollars that might otherwise flow to competitors products. This isn’t to say that ads can’t help drive overall consumption, but the lift isn’t huge and the demand has to already be there.

I think you are seeing it in a culture where soda were already pushed to people's eyeballs for decades. Perhaps removing ads now wouldn't bring a dramatic change in the next months or even years; But for comparison, asian or european countries with more push on other drinks (e.g. tea, can coffee, sparkling water) have less of an inclination towards soda.

It might be a chicken and egg problem, but at least I think there are ways out of the situation.

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

#110

Post by mantas »

Mirioron wrote: post #46
bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

The argument for massive Pigouvian taxes on advertising seems much clearer. Advertising imposes massive costs on society and the viewers. These costs aren't borne by the advertiser, so they should be captured through massive taxes and put to good use. And many brands wouldn't feel much of an impact: what matters to Coke is that it spends more than Pepsi. If their $6B on advertising only buys 1/10th as many ads as it…

On the flip-side, businesses that rely on ad revenue would disappear. That means most of the commonly used websites. No more Google, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, almost all news sites etc. This also means that everything goes back to essentially subscription only and this without a credit card don't get much access to stuff (like it used to be).

How did TV and paper press existed? Non-targeted advertising brings €€€ too.
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