Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification • Hacker News Board

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#61

Post by jcrawfordor » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

edoceo wrote: post #56

throwaway483284 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when you look closer If you have US based LLC there is no looking closer. The only thing public will be your registered agent and company name, nothing else.

Just looked at my LLC. Has business address and agent and lists my human name as the Governor of the company. Your claim seems incorrect.

This depends entirely on the state. Four states, notably including Delaware, permit registration of an LLC with absolutely no public disclosure of parties involved beyond the agent. Other states consider this information public record but don't make it easily accessible.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#62

Post by jcrawfordor » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #52

ipython wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there is a government identification with photo of a real person associated with the ad, there is no transparency. Shell corporations and complex ownership structures will obscure any attempt at tracking the source otherwise.

Corporate structure should be public data and involve real people with verified identities, yes? Anything that reduces the difficulty of tracing should be seen as an improvement. It's a long road from here to perfection, but that's no reason not to take a step.

Four US states permit entirely anonymous LLCs.

Definitely this policy is an improvement, but many of the worst offenders have more than sufficient resources to avoid any impact from this change. It's already the norm for political organizations to adopt entirely useless names. What's the difference between "People for the American Way" and "Citizens United?" And these are both decades-old organizations, not a modern occurrence.

Various regulations (some hinging on direct involvement in electoral advocacy) require various degrees of disclosure of funding sources and beneficial owners, but the system is uneven and often minimally enforced. In practice I expect a huge number of legal entities running advertising whose operators cannot readily be ascertained. This is already the case with groups like Metric Media Foundation where a good degree of investigative journalism was required to figure out who was pulling the strings.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#63

Post by ogre_codes » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

This has big implications when advertisers get banned due to bad behaviors. Previously a bad actor who gets banned could easily just quickly reopen a new account. If they need to get verified, there are a few steps which increase expenses and turn around time. If they need to create a new shell entity every time they get banned, it adds significantly to amount of time and money required to get their shady advertising out.

This is particularly important right now as the cost of advertising on Google (and in general) is going down right now because of the pandemic.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#64

Post by close04 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

isoos wrote: post #58

close04 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until that ownership takes an offshore detour.

Compliance rules could be extended to include due diligence on partners, and block contracts and payments to and from entities that have no clear ownership.

It could but realistically it's unlikely to happen. Nobody would ever accept taking responsibility for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of partners, and the expenses involved in validating every last one of them. Not to mention the lost business on either side. Even the IRS or banks can't keep up with long ownership chains or properly identifying customers and they have a more vested interest.

Laws and rules are far slower to adapt than the workarounds that bend them. And clear ownership says little. Everything can simply point to a more or less real identity that nobody will ever find.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against such rules. I'm just saying that the likelihood of them achieving the results we imagine are slim.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#65

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #40

kpmcc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is certainly one part, but we could also shift business models away from advertising. Ads are a cancer on content and attention, and the fact that so much of the economy is centered around them is mind boggling.

Ads are often the lowest hanging fruit for ROI. Is it often far easier (less time consuming, less resource intensive, less risky) to manipulate human perception at large into buying your product than providing a functionally better product. Techniques are well established and broad reaching across all domains since it focuses on the consumer's perception. There's a reason businesses pour so much money into marketing…

> Ads are often the lowest hanging fruit for ROI.

And manufacturing may be cheaper without worrying about polluting or waste dumping, but when those were no curtailed, manufacturing didn't stop, it just found better ways.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#66

Post by edoceo » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #61

edoceo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just looked at my LLC. Has business address and agent and lists my human name as the Governor of the company. Your claim seems incorrect.

This depends entirely on the state. Four states, notably including Delaware, permit registration of an LLC with absolutely no public disclosure of parties involved beyond the agent. Other states consider this information public record but don't make it easily accessible.

Ok, makes sense. I'm in WA and we've got what some call good FOIA and "sunshine" laws.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#67

Post by clairity » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

hardikgupta wrote: post #46

keiferski wrote: post #20

Prepare yourself for ads from amorphous organizations with names like The Committee to Re-Establish Democracy or The Project for a New American Freedom. (No idea if these are real, I just made them up.) I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense. The only long-term solution is education: foster a sense of skepticism towards all adv…

> I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense. Think from the perspective of an advertiser. Earlier, an advertiser could pay for any ad anonymously. Now any ad you want to show can be traced back to you. This is a meaningful difference. Even if you as a viewer can't pinpoint the specific person behind an ad, they are not completely…

yes, there's tension between transparency for businesses and privacy for individuals (which is the stance i support). on one hand, you want transparency to elucidate crime and even neglect and aggression. on the other, the people behind companies have the right to privacy as well, lest those people be unfairly attacked (e.g., planned parenthood workers). the best tradeoff is not obvious here.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#68

Post by bootlooped » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

annoyingnoob wrote: post #8

With verification, will Google be culpable the next time one of my users is redirected to a tech support scam from a Google ad? At least twice a year at my business users are redirected to tech support scams from Google Search ads. Its always a similar story, "I searched for Amazon and clicked the first link".

If somebody with a blue check mark on Twitter commits a crime, is Twitter responsible?

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#69

Post by dmix » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #63

This has big implications when advertisers get banned due to bad behaviors. Previously a bad actor who gets banned could easily just quickly reopen a new account. If they need to get verified, there are a few steps which increase expenses and turn around time. If they need to create a new shell entity every time they get banned, it adds significantly to amount of time and money required to get their shady advertising…

It's a good time to be running shell company services. I wonder what kind of turn around time you could achieve...

The hard part will probably be finding an agent to represent the company. Assuming they validate bans based on company representatives.

Re: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

#70

Post by anticensor » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #64

isoos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compliance rules could be extended to include due diligence on partners, and block contracts and payments to and from entities that have no clear ownership.

It could but realistically it's unlikely to happen. Nobody would ever accept taking responsibility for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of partners, and the expenses involved in validating every last one of them. Not to mention the lost business on either side. Even the IRS or banks can't keep up with long ownership chains or properly identifying customers and they have a more vested interest. Laws and rules are far sl…

How hard is a policy stating maximum of n-levels depth of nested ownership allowed and any kind of cyclical ownership causes loss of control in both ways?