Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#71

Post by mdp2021 » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

The problem is with the match of partial virtual profiles with individual-specific identities.

That A uses a profile to visit www sites about code optimization, leisure mathematics, statistic software and StackOverflow, and commercial information about some IDE is shown, that may be welcome.

That A uses another profile to visit www sites about baking cakes, nutriment science and ethnic restaurants, and information about some IDE is shown, that is unwelcome as an understatement.

That A is Adrian Oberweller of Tamaxa, MT and his individual-specific identity is associated with his private concerns, that is "you must be joking" swinging at the edge between dystopia and ridiculous.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#72

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

apatheticonion wrote: post #60

Physical storefronts have over time learned how to optimise their presentation to achieve higher conversion. Initially it was experimentation with layouts, with time they added cameras which helped understand customer behaviours. This expertise is commonly outsourced to physical marketing companies who dispatch "merchandisers" to your store to help optimise your layout to fall in line with the layouts they have desig…

They don’t want to know us, but they appear to have very few limits on what they’re willing to do to sell ads. So far we’re basically counting on our interests and theirs being coincidentally similar, I would not bet on that in the long run. Better to handcuff them before they decide that doing something incredibly unseemly is necessary for ad sales.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#73

Post by layoutIfNeeded » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #70

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The user's time will be wasted because they are not interested in what I am selling. I'm not interested in what you're selling. In general, I'm 100% not interested in anything anyone is selling through advertisements. Where can I indicate this, so that advertisers stop wasting their money on me?

Use an adblocker.

Too bad that advertisers are busy breaking my adblocker again and again. Why could they be doing this? Surely they wouldn't want to waste money by showing me their ineffective advertisements, right...?

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#74

Post by Nursie » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #8

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Do we have a good proposed legal definition of surveillance-based advertising?

The report defines it as >In this context, we use the term ‘surveillance-based advertising’ as a blanket >term for digital advertising that is targeted at individuals or consumer >segments, usually through tracking and profiling based on personal data. This is ridiculous. If I am trying to advertise an Elixer IDE, then I don't want my advertisements shown to any random person on the internet. The majority of users on…

> This is ridiculous. If I am trying to advertise an Elixer IDE, then I don't want my advertisements shown to any random person on the internet.

> I want to be able to advertise to a consumer segment

This sounds like a you problem.

And you shouldn't get to push surveillance on me to solve it.

I don't want to be advertised at at all, let alone be stalked round the web so you can do it better.

I don't care at all that any advertising I see might be better targeted, it's all an annoyance as far as I'm concerned anyway. The idea that I should be happier if I'm getting 'relevant' ads, like I should thank you for surveilling me so you can spam me better, is absolutely laughable.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#75

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #8

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Do we have a good proposed legal definition of surveillance-based advertising?

The report defines it as >In this context, we use the term ‘surveillance-based advertising’ as a blanket >term for digital advertising that is targeted at individuals or consumer >segments, usually through tracking and profiling based on personal data. This is ridiculous. If I am trying to advertise an Elixer IDE, then I don't want my advertisements shown to any random person on the internet. The majority of users on…

And I don’t want you to know my means of employment online. I believe that my right to privacy trumps your economic interest.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#76

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #27

danbruc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous. If I am trying to advertise an Elixer IDE, then I don't want my advertisements shown to any random person on the internet. The majority of users on the internet are not even developers. I want to be able to advertise to a consumer segment which consists of people who are interested in Elixir. "Surveillance" is essential to internet advertising. This is ridiculous. And it is your problem. Why shoul…

Because I don't want to waste the time of people who aren't interested in my ad in seeing my ad. It's a waste of money for me. The ad network will not be able to make money from having them click the ad. The user's time will be wasted because they are not interested in what I am selling. It's a lose lose lose situation. I want to create more win win win situations where everyone benefits. Tracking and profiling is ne…

You’re asking us to give up our rights for your convenience.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#77

Post by codecutter » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

I read the open letter. I learned about businesses that support user privacy and I will be supporting them with my wallet. (already use Mailfence and Duckduckgo )

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#78

Post by natmaka » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

apatheticonion wrote: post #60

Physical storefronts have over time learned how to optimise their presentation to achieve higher conversion. Initially it was experimentation with layouts, with time they added cameras which helped understand customer behaviours. This expertise is commonly outsourced to physical marketing companies who dispatch "merchandisers" to your store to help optimise your layout to fall in line with the layouts they have desig…

> Physical storefronts ((...)) with time they added cameras which helped understand customer behaviours.

R. Doisneau, a French photograph, may have in a way be a precursor https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-4572128/?intobjectid=45721...

> you can infer a lot about an identity from seemingly unimportant things like browser resolution

Oblink: EFF's "Cover tour tracks" https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#79

Post by pasabagi » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

pjerem wrote: post #66

pasabagi wrote: post #55

I think there's a simpler way to achieve this. Force companies who leak personal data to pay reasonable damages to all the individuals involved, on the scale of 10-100 dollars, depending on how much personal info has been leaked. That would make businesses very quickly reassess how much data they need to keep, and how careful they need to be with it, without requiring any really radical legislation.

Yeah but what is a leak ? Do you consider it a leak when a data transfer to another company is intentional ? Companies like Google are probably secured like fortress and will probably not leak data anytime soon (lets hope) so your idea wont have any effect against giants that takes security seriously. However, I really like your point and you'll probably have a good side effect on middle size companies. But giants ar…

Well, my suggestion is kind of aiming to be as pragmatic and unambitious as possible, so the fact it doesn't have an effect against giants who spend a lot of money on security is part of the pragmatism - it means you split the opposition a bill like this would face. The big companies would see it as a way to expand their moat, and so, they'd probably lobby for it, or at least, you could convince them not to lobby against it.

If you can build a big coalition of people for whom privacy is something important, then you can start making ambitious policy proposals because you'll have the voters to back it up. Before that point, I think you have to try for easy wins.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#80

Post by ColinHayhurst » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #55

I think there's a simpler way to achieve this. Force companies who leak personal data to pay reasonable damages to all the individuals involved, on the scale of 10-100 dollars, depending on how much personal info has been leaked. That would make businesses very quickly reassess how much data they need to keep, and how careful they need to be with it, without requiring any really radical legislation.

Johnny Ryan is having another go this time in Hamburg. "Online advertising causes the world's biggest data breach. We are going to court to stop it." https://www.iccl.ie/rtb-june-2021/

As he eloquently explains there, and in detail, RTB auctions "broadcasts private information about what you are doing online, and where you are, to many other companies in order to solicit their bids for the opportunity to show you their ad."