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Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

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Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#251

Post by Jonsvt »

Jonsvt wrote: post #244
jefftk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure which part of the post you're referring to when you say that FLoC isn't more private than the status quo; is it the "FLoC will expose your data. More than ever." section? That has "Now every website will get to see an ID that was generated from your behaviour on every other website", but this is not what Chrome has said: "Websites can exclude a page from the FLoC calculation by setting a Permissions-Poli…

Suddenly the tracking includes all sites and pages. That is not an improvement. Having an opt out or even an opt in is not the solution here. We have all seen how that works. The tracking just has to stop. Google can generate plenty of revenue without tracking us. They were in fact making plenty before they moved from context sensitive ads to surveillance-based ads.

Your statement below is both funny and misleading at the same time and I guess it is also why opt-in is often such a misleading term.

So you start with all pages that have ads, meaning most all pages that are tracked today. Then you add to that by "opt-in". Now, most sites are not built by hand. The tools they use may thus "opt-in" for them. Also, this method may make it harder to block the tracking, so you end up tracking more in practice, which is obviously why this is being introduced, as so many have chosen to use tracker blocking of some kind.

Your statement on "opt-in" really needs be reiterated. In many cases you are left with options like: do you want to use this product? Then you have to "opt-in". Great examples are Windows 10, that insists on you logging in with Microsoft. Similarly many products require you to "opt-in" to use them.

We need this to stop. Ban surveillance-based ads now!

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#252

Post by pasabagi »

Jonsvt wrote: post #250
pasabagi wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a state is the entity that has sovereignty in a given country. So in principle, it always has access to all of the resources of that country, even though in practice it's bound by all sorts of laws and customs. Also in practice, these laws and customs tend to have exceptions in exigent circumstances. Personally, I think dividing between the state and business is simplistic. Most businesses and most states have…

I do not know which country you come from and maybe what you describe is correct in your country. I can say that it is not in my countries, Norway and Iceland and this has not been my experience running an international company either. In any case, I think mixing the two is not helpful in any shape or form. What we need is to regulate what private companies can do. I think that is enough scope for this particular dis…

Unless you're a sheep farmer or something (in which case, you still rely on the state for security) you need an enormous number of state services to run even a very simple business, but on a more basic level, property rights are defined and guaranteed by the state, currency is produced and given value by the state, employment relations and legal structures also, and so on.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#253

Post by mateo411 »

Jonsvt wrote: post #246
mateo411 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was Google's business model before they sold ads?

Google started as a search engine. Their results were accurate and there were no ads. Gradually they started doing ads on search results, related to the search itself. This was better than what many of the competitors at the time were doing, which was for paid searches to be at the top. Gradually Google became more and more an ad company. In 2007 they bought DoubleClick that was one of the leading ad companies on the…

Sure, Google started as a Search Engine, but it's monetization strategy has always been to serve ads. According to Wikipedia it first released Google AdWords in 2000. It became a public company in 2004.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#254

Post by dev_tty01 »

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…

>"Surveillance" is essential to internet advertising.

I think you are missing the point. As a user, my basic response to "my job is harder if I don't do surveillance" is I don't care. If you say that you can't do a certain type of advertising without surveillance, then my response is find another job. There are lots of interesting problems out there to work on for fun and profit. Find another one.

Or, stay in advertising and target ads based on what I am doing right now. If I read an online journal about mountaineering, show me ads for mountaineering equipment. Sure, it may be less effective (and boring), but us users are fine with that.

Advertisers don't have a right to take away my privacy so they can do what they want. This disconnect keeps coming up over and over. Just because an industry has become large does not inherently make it appropriate.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#255

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#256

Post by _proofs »

jefftk wrote: post #126
matheusmoreira wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it collects any data at all, it's surveillance. Anything else is a loophole.

Let's say a streaming music service collects information on what you have listened to and how long. Is that surveillance? What if they use it to back a page where you can see what you've been listening to recently? If they start recommending new artists based on your listening history?

this is by definition surveillance -- a "...monitoring of behavior, activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, managing, or directing." [0]

to possibly downplay it or imply otherwise because the collected information may (or may not) benefit the user is just spin.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#257

Post by kerkeslager »

tqi wrote: post #209
kerkeslager wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is an ad, exactly? You cite Consumer Reports as a model - they have affiliate links on their reviews. Is that an ad? I agree that Consumer Reports does include some advertising, but it's not necessary for their business model to work--consumer reports predated the internet by over 50 years, so it certainly predated affiliate links. At least at some points their primary source of income was subscriptions, and j…

> But if you claim not to know that a 30 second video clip in the middle of your TV show... The obvious cases are not what make this unworkable, it's the edges. Is a paid product placement an ad? Is simply furnishing clothes for the actors to wear on set an ad? Your original suggestion was that this letter didn't go far enough, and that we need to ban advertising altogether. But it actually seems like what you actual…

There are two very large logical leaps you've made here:

1. You've leaped from "we haven't discussed what details would make this work" to "it's unworkable". As I said before: obviously details need to be worked out. Your answer to why people downvoted me is basically that I didn't draft fully-formed legislation before presenting the idea on HN. If you'd like to discuss details, I'd be happy to do so, but saying "it's unworkable" outright without hearing those details, or worse, downvoting without explanation, are not ways to continue that discussion.

2. You've leaped from "the edge cases are unworkable" to "all the cases are unworkable". Are you willing to admit that a law against the case we've both agreed is obvious would be workable?

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#258

Post by kerkeslager »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #212
kerkeslager wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is an ad, exactly? You cite Consumer Reports as a model - they have affiliate links on their reviews. Is that an ad? I agree that Consumer Reports does include some advertising, but it's not necessary for their business model to work--consumer reports predated the internet by over 50 years, so it certainly predated affiliate links. At least at some points their primary source of income was subscriptions, and j…

> This argument is just throwing FUD about implementation details: you're not responding in any way to my statement of the problem, or presenting any fundamental criticism of my proposed solution. On the contrary, these are fundamental questions that would need convincing answers for this discussion to move much further beyond what you have already articulated. Your statement of the problem concludes that "advertisin…

> On the contrary, these are fundamental questions that would need convincing answers for this discussion to move much further beyond what you have already articulated.

Let's be clear here: I'm happy to discuss details of what I think would be good legislation here. Don't accuse me of not wanting the discussion to move forward.

The discussion doesn't move forward from the assumption "it's unworkable". It also doesn't move forward from people downvoting without explanation.

> These are extreme views, supported only by your fond memories of Ye Olde Internet, with little substance for us all to discuss.

1. The view I'm responding to is that corporations are people and therefore the corporate right to lie and manipulate the public in harmful ways is protected under free speech. Why is THAT not an extreme view in your mind?

2. "supported only by your fond memories of Ye Old Internet" ignores nearly my entire post. Which of the following passages is "fond memories of Ye Old Internet"?

> Almost every problem with the internet right now is caused by advertising if you dig through the chain of causality. From social media patterns that addict you to conflict and conspiracy, to popups, adware and spam, to constant attacks on our attention even when we're driving and could literally kill someone with inattention, to spreading dissatisfaction, fear, and poor financial advice, advertising is the root of much evil.

> And that leads me to my third reason advertising should be banned: it's infectious. Advertising is Scott Alexander's Moloch[9]--if one entity does it, then all their competitors have to do it in order to compete. The entire purpose of the free market is supposedly that it results in the best outcomes, but this is clearly a hack that prevents that from happening: we want companies to compete by producing the best goods and services at the lowest cost, but when you allow advertising, companies can (and do) compete by manipulating consumers into buying inferior goods at higher costs. Advertising is an anticompetitive business practice that undermines the entire purpose of a free market.

Again, you don't get to accuse me of not pushing the conversation forward by not providing enough substance, when you ignore most of what I say. It's you that's trying to shut down the conversation by pretending I've given you nothing to respond to. Respond to what I've already said if you want to have a conversation.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#259

Post by bitten »

jefftk wrote: post #224
Jonsvt wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly not allowing anyone to track is good for competition. Now there are certain companies that collect data from multiple sources. That gives them a benefit compared to others. But what I do not understand is how they can do it? How can you accept that your company spies on its users and collects data on them? How can you say it is OK?

https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads

Regarding your "earn to give", I feel like I want to play devil's advocate and ask why not cut your salary in half by working or volunteering on more humanitarian projects and charities? Not sure the pay would exactly be half less, maybe even more, maybe less, but the net positive of what you do may be greater? (I say that, as if we can measure such impacts :p)

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#260

Post by stjohnswarts »

tomc1985 wrote: post #210
squiggleblaz wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simpler answer is to just ban it. The law doesn't need to be technically detailed or envision every single technological adaptation: it just needs to be sufficient for a judge to be able to recognise it when a prosecutor describes it and a defence lawyer attempts to pull the wool over their eyes. It needs to be focused on outcomes. Once banned, Google and Facebook will submit. They will attempt to lobby against t…

I'm all for big game hunting but taking down Google would be a gutpunch to every Gmail user ever

can't they just advertise based on what's in the email rather than keeping a profile on you? Not a lot of people want to see google go away, we just want them to stop being asses and get broken up.
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