Facebook criticizes Apple’s iOS privacy changes with full-page newspaper ads

Even if the decisions are made in the name of noble causes like privacy, this raises huge antitrust flags.

But I do think you're wrong.

1. It's unlikely that FB doesn't sell your data if the buyer is willing to pay enough, have close enough connections. There's an asymmetry in your relationship with FB. You have no way of verifying that they behave in a way they say they do, while FB has huge incentives to behave in a way they say they don't.

2. Binning people is information about who they are. There are 2^33 people in the world. With 33 50-50 bins you can de-anonymize anybody. If you have an idea or a target in mind (say Italians, and then you bin by language), you can do much better than 23 bins.

For example, I could target my wife with personalized ads with, maybe, 5 bins - very unlikely nationality, unlikely job for a woman, unique set of languages. In fact, without knowing the nationality, job, or language, you can now probably target my wife fairly easily.

You example for Vancouver illustrated this. There's maybe a few thousand 18-25 year old security specialists that live in Vancouver. I'd guess less than 10k, certainly less than 100 000. A small group of people can manually comb through 100 000 profiles in a few days.

3. Given the spectacular security failures in this business, a mere claim of secure isn't good enough. Surely FB hires top talent, but they also have a history of epic failures or disregard for security to deliver early. If I can't trust Sony, a large tech (if not IT) company, to upgrade basic security after getting PWND the same way thrice, why should I trust FB? After all, Sony had great programmers before Zuckerberg was born.

4. Personalized ads necessitate a model of each individual. Most lay people never stop and think that that is the case, but most people are loath to have any profile of them being built and stored by anyone. Nevermind a company that has a (I believe a well earned) reputation for being sleazy.

5. You prefer personalized ads. Most people don't, especially when you point out that personalized ads necessarily means that a profile of them is being built by FB.

Most people prefer unobtrusive, lightweight irrelevant ads. Apple is not blocking personalized ads, they're changing their default settings to what it believes most of its consumers prefer.

I have never met an Android user say they prefer Android for the better ad or privacy experience. It's always price premium, feature premium, UI, and tightly locked down phone. In fact, I've converted many would be Android users by pointing out Google's more interesting practices (personally I'd get a librephone, but my original SE is still going strong).

Politician B is likely aware that asking for permission is going to cause the outcome that Politician A is predicting and is unhappy about, so in a way they are saying: "My privacy is more important to me than the SMBs' ability to survive." Which, to be clear, is a perfectly reasonable answer, and one that the majority of people will support. Except, that's not what they are saying. Their response ignores the inverse correlation between the two choices and paints a picture that represents the best of both worlds. Really smart and really effective - you help other supporters of your view ignore its downside and make them feel better about continuing to support it.

I've been asking myself why people argue this way, and PG's article titled Refragmentation [1] helped me understand some aspects of the new world we're living in. An alternative explanation is that it is - ironically given the context - all Facebook's fault which has been reinforcing the echo chambers of ideologies. If you believe that the Earth is flat and you wanted to find some validation, Facebook will be happy to do that for you. Just search for "flat Earth", join the biggest Facebook group on that topic [2], and within days you'll start getting content (and friend suggestions) that will make it hard to escape that alternate reality. They will feed you with convincing arguments that are better than what you can come up with, so that the next time someone says: "Dude, what about the ISS?", you'll be able to say, "I agree with you and think you bring up a valid point. I also think that [insert an argument that cannot coexist with the concept of the ISS]."

I am longing for the days when people would openly disagree with each other, because that forced them to actually listen to the arguments and then address them as opposed to talking to each other like politicians do, whose job depends on getting their constituents to support them even when their ideology is wrong.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html [2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/2205176794

Expose the logic. Put a "?" Icon button on the add that lists every data point used in the decision making process, who collected the data, when, and how.

E.g:

1.1.2020 @ Starbucks on main st in 90210 you bought a medium coffee, a gift card, and a cookie.

1.3.2020 @ Barnes and noble you bought a book and m&MS.

So when the customer wonders why they're being shown advertisements for cat litter they'll be able to see how the ml algorithm thought they'd be interested.

If the logic can't be explained in real time to the advertised too then it surely can't be justified to the actual companies buying said advertisement.

FWIW I know several small business owners (in Europe - well, in the UK) who use Google’s tools for business, Facebook, Twitter — most popular social media accounts, in fact. In addition to that they have a website, distribute flyers, publicise themselves with local newspapers/bloggers, and have “recommend a friend” programmes.