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Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

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Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#181

Post by dont__panic »

sarsway wrote: post #110
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe don't use Facebook at all? And block any and all Facebook DNS queries with a PiHole.

Yep go delete your WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram accounts now. Takes 10 minutes. No one truly needs them. Don't make excuses why you need them. In fact these apps only hurt you. So don't hesitate, just do it. It can feel uneasy, but in only a week or so you'll be happy you pulled through.

Too bad it takes 1 month for any of those services to permanently delete your account -- logging in up to a month after clicking the "delete" button, even accidentally, fully restores the account and you have to go through the entire process again.

Need more incentive? Just try finding the delete button on your Facebook or Instagram account. Go ahead, just look for it right now.

You weren't able to find it, right? Just "disable"? That's because you can only delete either account through the delete account page, which you can only navigate to via... a link. Nowhere in the UI leads to this. And the Instagram one clearly hasn't been maintained since 2007 or so.

Pages:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/accounts/remove/request/permanent/

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/account/delete

Haven't deleted your account yet? Just think for a minute about why you maintain an account with a company that respects your autonomy so little that they make you jump through multiple obnoxious hoops just to delete your account. And make you wait a full month, just in case you aren't 100% sure. Because they're your friend.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#182

Post by Pick-A-Hill2019 »

Engineering-MD wrote: post #126
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #12

Even with all the tracking, the generated ads still suck, showing things already purchased. This reminds me of the overhyped lead generation tools out there, they do not work as expected. Someone's financial interest is the root cause here, someone is making good money with ads. The ones who sell ads? For sure. The ones who buy adds? Not many success stories out there.

The explanation I have heard previously is that people have bought an item are actually more likely to buy another: unhappy with the current purchase, or people who need multiple items. Sure, for most people it’s irrelevant as they are happy with their purchase, but most ads are ignored anyway.

One of the other things to consider* is that the details of person X that is looking to buy item Y are a snaphot at the time that information was brought/sold.

When person X buys item Y from company Z, company Z is unlikely to broadcast that fact. Ergo, the 'system' doesn't know that you have now brought item Y and that you no longer have an active interest in purchasing Y.

*Things may have changed in 20 years so the above is just an outdated observation based on a brief stint at a turn of the century B2B marketing start-up.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#183

Post by addingnumbers »

cheschire wrote: post #111
aviraldg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

If subscriptions were always as easy to manage in one place like they are on an iPhone, I would have absolutely no problem with 20 subscriptions. Where’s the subscription management startup model?

> Where’s the subscription management startup model?

https://patreon.com/

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#184

Post by JohnFen »

janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads".

My response to that is "I prefer random ads, because relevant ads are an indication that I'm being spied on". My objection to ads isn't the ads themselves -- I'm going to ignore those no matter what -- it's all the spying the ads bring with them.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#185

Post by uvesten »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #141
uvesten wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this even be theoretically possible? I mean, if you know someone’s personal details, they per definition has lost that privacy towards you.

Allow facebook into your private circle of trust and boom! personalized ads and privacy!

:facepalm:

Why didn’t I think of that?

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#186

Post by _zzaw »

cm2012 wrote: post #116

I own an advertising agency. I've tracked ios impressions % over time on all of our remarketing campaigns (as a proxy), its down about 30% from peak and stabilized. Not a huge deal. LOL at this below: "Seufert estimated that in the first full quarter users see the prompt, the iOS changes could cut Facebook’s revenue by 7% if roughly 20% of users agree to be tracked. If just 10% of users grant Facebook tracking permis…

I think it's a bit early to be claiming that iOS impression loss has "stabilized".

I'm the first one most of my friends come to for tech questions, and I make a point of explaining privacy issues to them and helping them counter creepy behavior in apps/websites. When my parents buy iPhones, the first thing I'll be telling them is which button to push when apps want to stalk them.

By myself, I'm an irrelevantly small data point, but it's not just me—most of my "tech support" friends are privacy-aware and evangelize it. I suspect iOS losses have only just begun, and will continue.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#187

Post by jaywalk »

School-Cotton wrote: post #160
inesta wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah on wifi, but if your home, its only your household. i thought cellular you get a unique ip? or does the cell operator hide your ip. i'm not aware how routing on cellular works.

> i thought cellular you get a unique ip? In the US at least, yes, because most cell providers switched to IPv6 long ago. In other places, carrier-grade NAT is widespread.

CG-NAT is widespread in the US as well, but is only used when a site isn't reachable over IPv6.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#188

Post by PaulHoule »

I got an iPad and was shocked to see an ad load on the web twice that on an Android tablet or on an ordinary computer. For instance, two prerolls instead of one preroll on Youtube.

I installed an adblocker and found that almost all sites with advertising would refuse to server content to my ipad, whereas an adblocker on my computer gets blocked only occasionally.

It seems if you have a iDevice people think you're made out of money.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#189

Post by masswerk »

masswerk wrote: post #143
aviraldg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

How about tracking back to content related advertising rather than tracking based advertising? All related studies are showing that the latter isn't working anyway. And, as these metrics (and ethics) suggest, it has been an illegitimate invasion, right from the beginning. The fancy "conversion rate" dashboards are just not worth it. Bonus: Maybe this will be an opportunity for content providers to reset the decline o…

P.S.: An interesting experiment may be an ad-blocker with an option "block animated ads and tracking only" (or rather, "show static ads only"). And maybe another option "filter ads to greyscale".

I guess, reducing distraction and moving towards a client-based and user-controlled "ads manager" may have a decisive impact on overall blocking habits.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#190

Post by JohnFen »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #156

Alright HN, so what is the end game here? I'm sure some of you have some experience working in the "ad supported" space, and obviously most of the internet and many of its services run on the ad model. So where are we going to end up if there is a full on public distrust of the current ad model?

With a different ad model. It wasn't really that long ago when it wasn't possible for ad companies to engage in such widespread spying -- but ad-supported things existed nonetheless. It's not like nobody knows how to do this correctly.
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