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Removing email registration improved retention

solitaired.com

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Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself this: Would you rather have targeted ads, for something you might be interested in, or completely random junk you couldn't care less about? Targeted advertising benefits both you and the advertiser.

How about zero ads instead?

The problem is in what the person said above - it works for them, with 30% conversion rate...they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't get money from other people that way...

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself this: Would you rather have targeted ads, for something you might be interested in, or completely random junk you couldn't care less about? Targeted advertising benefits both you and the advertiser.

Targeted advertising creates a liability for me in the form of leaking which services I use to a third-party advertising partner I may have no relationship with and haven't accepted their privacy policy (the service itself doesn't know whether I use Google/Facebook and sends them the information regardless). If advertising was targeted at the browser level (the browser has access to the entire catalog of ads out ther…

If you feel it's a liability, it is up to you to protect yourself. Use VPNs, disposable VMs, multiple email accounts, private browsing, and whatever else you think is necessary to preserve your privacy. "Tracking" is baked in to the web. The cat is out of the bag.

No advertising isn't a viable option in this world. I'd go as far as to say that the Internet, as we know it today, would not exist without targeted ads.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a core feature of every ad platform I've seen and is absolutely not a violation of the GPDR since users are giving consent when they signup. You've signed up for a web service and never seen ads on other sites for it ? Very strange.

I agree that this is a core feature. However, the GDPR mandates that consent should be opt-in, granular (you can provide consent for your data to be used for one purpose but not another) and you can't refuse service because a user is refusing to consent to non-essential data processing (ads would fall into that). So yes, technically you can ask the user for consent, but it has to be explicit ("we'd like to share your…

But you are not sharing your email with fb. The user already shared it with fb. I am only telling fb, if you have this user with this email, show him an ad. I really don't see the problem. Much better a targeted ad than ads about porn, casinos, viagra or poker.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#84
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a core feature. However, the GDPR mandates that consent should be opt-in, granular (you can provide consent for your data to be used for one purpose but not another) and you can't refuse service because a user is refusing to consent to non-essential data processing (ads would fall into that). So yes, technically you can ask the user for consent, but it has to be explicit ("we'd like to share your…

But you are not sharing your email with fb. The user already shared it with fb. I am only telling fb, if you have this user with this email, show him an ad. I really don't see the problem. Much better a targeted ad than ads about porn, casinos, viagra or poker.

That presumes that the email address is already associated with a FB account.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeted advertising creates a liability for me in the form of leaking which services I use to a third-party advertising partner I may have no relationship with and haven't accepted their privacy policy (the service itself doesn't know whether I use Google/Facebook and sends them the information regardless). If advertising was targeted at the browser level (the browser has access to the entire catalog of ads out ther…

If you feel it's a liability, it is up to you to protect yourself. Use VPNs, disposable VMs, multiple email accounts, private browsing, and whatever else you think is necessary to preserve your privacy. "Tracking" is baked in to the web. The cat is out of the bag. No advertising isn't a viable option in this world. I'd go as far as to say that the Internet, as we know it today, would not exist without targeted ads.

In this case you could say that we need to go back to the Middle Ages and we don't need laws & enforcement and if you are concerned about getting robbed or killed it's up to you to defend yourself by wearing body armor, carrying weapons and having your own personal army.

Society has laws for a reason when its constituents decide that certain behavior is detrimental to it and should be outlawed & discouraged by the use of appropriate punishment. I don't see why this shouldn't apply here? The GDPR is in fact a step in that direction, though its enforcement is severely lacking.

> No advertising isn't a viable option in this world.

This is debatable but it's a discussion for another thread.

> I'd go as far as to say that the Internet, as we know it today, would not exist without targeted ads.

The Internet originally was about sharing information freely. It facilitated commerce to a certain extent but commerce wasn't its core purpose. The internet as well have nowadays has actually become worse because of the increased focus on commerce & advertising.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#86
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about zero ads instead?

The problem is in what the person said above - it works for them, with 30% conversion rate...they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't get money from other people that way...

Criminal gangs could also say that crime such as theft, robbery, blackmail, extortion, etc works for them and makes them money. It doesn't mean we should be legitimizing and encouraging this behavior that most of us agree is detrimental to society.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#87
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a core feature. However, the GDPR mandates that consent should be opt-in, granular (you can provide consent for your data to be used for one purpose but not another) and you can't refuse service because a user is refusing to consent to non-essential data processing (ads would fall into that). So yes, technically you can ask the user for consent, but it has to be explicit ("we'd like to share your…

But you are not sharing your email with fb. The user already shared it with fb. I am only telling fb, if you have this user with this email, show him an ad. I really don't see the problem. Much better a targeted ad than ads about porn, casinos, viagra or poker.

But you sharing the data with Facebook.

If I'm not on Facebook (which I'm not) you are telling them that there most likely exist a user with this email address and an interest in your service. If many companies do this FB might even be able to build a profile of me without me doing anything

This is (or at least should be) not Bueno under GDPR / data minimalization.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#88
post #77

I have a fake email address I use to sign up when I am forced to. I login to that email account once every month not to lose access, but other than that it is a huge swamp of unread emails.

I use 10minutemail.com for this. Sadly though, it appears all these temporary mail domains are in some central list, that data harvesters use to deny access. It's almost impossible to sign up for forum accounts with these. So it's impossible to download files from vinylengine.com unless you allow them to spam you.

I run 2 addresses, both at my own domain (using Midagu for hosting).

One is my actual address that human people who I know have.

The other – referred to as “the sluice” – is everything else. I don’t really care what goes in it. A rule marks it as read as soon as it hits my inbox.

Simple but massively effective. I used to get stressed about spam but now I don’t give a crap.

Edit: also, the sluice mailbox is 2020@mydomain. When it does finally become too much of a cesspit, I'll just kill it and create 2023@...

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#89
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a core feature. However, the GDPR mandates that consent should be opt-in, granular (you can provide consent for your data to be used for one purpose but not another) and you can't refuse service because a user is refusing to consent to non-essential data processing (ads would fall into that). So yes, technically you can ask the user for consent, but it has to be explicit ("we'd like to share your…

But you are not sharing your email with fb. The user already shared it with fb. I am only telling fb, if you have this user with this email, show him an ad. I really don't see the problem. Much better a targeted ad than ads about porn, casinos, viagra or poker.

Regardless of whether Facebook has my e-mail, services providing them with a hashed version of it for advertising purposes still allow Facebook to tell "this hash is associated with these services" even if they never had the original un-hashed email. They can combine it with all the other information they have (stolen from people's contacts which may have the unhashed e-mail along with my name and potentially phone number) and create a pretty good profile on me even if I never signed up for a Facebook account and agreed to their ToS/privacy policy.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#90
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a core feature. However, the GDPR mandates that consent should be opt-in, granular (you can provide consent for your data to be used for one purpose but not another) and you can't refuse service because a user is refusing to consent to non-essential data processing (ads would fall into that). So yes, technically you can ask the user for consent, but it has to be explicit ("we'd like to share your…

But you are not sharing your email with fb. The user already shared it with fb. I am only telling fb, if you have this user with this email, show him an ad. I really don't see the problem. Much better a targeted ad than ads about porn, casinos, viagra or poker.

> I am only telling fb, if you have this user with this email, show him an ad.

You're also telling Facebook "by the way, I have a relationship with someone with this email address". That's personally identifiable information that you're sending to Facebook. Under the GDPR you can only do that if you have the explicit and freely given opt-in permission to do that from each respective person. "By using this site you agree to..." or "by signing up you agree to..." does not qualify as consent under the GDPR.

If the person does not live in Europe and you are not in Europe then the GDPR doesn't apply, of course.

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