Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I Work on Ads

jefftk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 882 posts

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#381

Post by UncleMeat »

smsm42 wrote: post #344
UncleMeat wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the span of just a few comments in the thread below, I've seen people claim that the ethical problem is: 1. All ads in general. 2. Targeted advertisement, regardless of the privacy implications. 3. Data collection for targeted advertisement. 4. Data collection for anything. 5. Whether or not users consent to all of the above. So I don't really think it is fair for anybody to insist that there is a single agreed up…

Why it has to be a single ethical problem? The industry is quite capable of having multiple ethical problems in parallel.

Because everybody is complaining to everybody else that they aren't discussing the real ethical problem. This is being pointed at OP as well as commenters. It makes conversations difficult to have because as soon as people start talking about one thing, somebody jumps in and says "but you aren't talking about the real problem".

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#382

Post by UncleMeat »

xondono wrote: post #354
UncleMeat wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the span of just a few comments in the thread below, I've seen people claim that the ethical problem is: 1. All ads in general. 2. Targeted advertisement, regardless of the privacy implications. 3. Data collection for targeted advertisement. 4. Data collection for anything. 5. Whether or not users consent to all of the above. So I don't really think it is fair for anybody to insist that there is a single agreed up…

Yes there is, because none of what you mentioned is “the problem”, the problem is that all these practices are deliberately put into practice without users consent, or by trying to trick users into inadvertently give consent.

I'll add that one to the list.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#383

Post by jefftk »

fxleach wrote: post #195
the_snooze wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is. Exactly. If you want online ads done right, look no further than how podcasts do it. The medium doesn't allow for stalking. Podcast producers often stake their own reputation by voicing the ads themselves. That editorial freedom lets them be creative and respectful of their audiences. And advertisers can use podcast-specific coupon codes to attribute ad campaigns to sal…

The issue is that you cannot have good online advertising without a little bit of the stalking. Do you listen to podcasts? Their ads are shite. I don't want to hear another ad about "Coroner" on Netflix. The only reason they are making money is because podcasts are "hot" right now and everyone is throwing money at them. That money pile will slowly deplete in due time and they'll find a way to introduce ads that are m…

> The issue is that you cannot have good online advertising without a little bit of the stalking.

Perhaps today, but not if we design browser APIs that allow targeting without cross-site tracking: https://github.com/WICG/turtledove https://github.com/WICG/privacy-preserving-ads/blob/main/Par...

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#385

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #344
UncleMeat wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the span of just a few comments in the thread below, I've seen people claim that the ethical problem is: 1. All ads in general. 2. Targeted advertisement, regardless of the privacy implications. 3. Data collection for targeted advertisement. 4. Data collection for anything. 5. Whether or not users consent to all of the above. So I don't really think it is fair for anybody to insist that there is a single agreed up…

Why it has to be a single ethical problem? The industry is quite capable of having multiple ethical problems in parallel.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#386

Post by floatrock »

loeg wrote: post #285
floatrock wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounded like buying indulgences to me. "My sins are forgiven as long as I tithe some of my profits". Buys your way out of the issue, doesn't change the lifestyle.

He'd have more take-home income if he worked outside of ad-tech and didn't give 50% of income to charity. So from a utilitarian perspective, I think I'm basically fine with this? Even if ads are "evil" (I am skeptical), they are very much a first-world problem compared with major global problems like malaria, clean drinking water, and hygienic bathrooms.

The trick to the utilitarian calculation is to include the externalities of all the work he's putting in -- an engineer's salary is only a subset of the value they create for the company.

The question is really how do you count all that excess "value", and is it good-value or evil-value. Once upon a time, the culture over there explicitly stated that they didn't want it to be evil... the bikeshedding going on here is opinions about the current implications of it all.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#387

Post by mycologos »

notsobig wrote: post #97

Not only do you spend your day job helping to clutter our web experience, suck up our personal data, and track us across the web, but you want to spend your free time whoring out your blog to us to try to justify the career choice you feel guilty about? Just stop. We get one chance on earth, do something of value.

This comment seems much more venomous than it needs to be?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#388

Post by jefftk »

aflag wrote: post #363
jefftk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is. My primary work is on https://github.com/WICG/turtledove (discussed in the post), which allows well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers

Hm, with that system, isn't it possible for the advertiser to ultimately know which users saw the ads and ultimately what their interests are?

Nope! The proposal includes:

* Ads render inside "fenced frames" where they cannot learn what page they are on and the page cannot learn what ad is being shown

* Reporting is available, but it is aggregate-only

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#389

Post by lurkerasdfh8 »

falcolas wrote: post #123
omginternets wrote: post #13

I'm always surprised that someone would go through the trouble of justifying their involvement in something prima facie unethical -- in writing, no less -- and fail to address the actual ethical issue. As other have noted in comments, the problem is not with advertising in general, but with the specific way in which Google advertises. I have a hard time believing the author is unaware of this, so I'm left wondering:…

> the problem is not with advertising in general I disagree. Advertising is intrusive and designed to convince you to do things you wouldn't normally do. It's large scale psychological manipulation that's only considered ethical because we've been doing it for so long.

> only considered ethical because we've been doing it for so long.

my take on this is to call advertisements/marketing as "lies" on regular conversations. "I watched a lie from nike the other day..."

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#390

Post by cm2012 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #375
cm2012 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, do you have an example of someone being hurt by tracking and data collection done by Facebook and Google?

Sure. FB knows your ethnicity. In violation of US federal law, this information is used to show you different apartment ads. This makes it harder for black people to live in integrated communities. Similar things happen with jobs and ethnicity, jobs and gender, with jobs and age discrimination, etc.

FB does enforce the fair housing act and other laws. The platform is actually quite strict nowadays and catches lots of innocent ads in their filters for protected categories. Ad platforms should follow the law, that's working as planned.
Post reply on HN