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Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

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Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#391
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah, so if a user is logged into chrome, Google has permission / is able to track all web activity for that user?

Frankly, I'm not sure about the current state of things, seeing as it likely has changed several times in the past few years. However, a) I'm not sure why Goog would want to bother with browser accounts otherwise, and b) my use of Chrome ceased soonish after I had the following experience in the early 2010s: - set up a new empty site, listed absolutely nowhere, on quite dedicated hosting. - open it in Chrome. - a cou…

> I'm not sure why Goog would want to bother with browser accounts otherwise

Cross-device sync of passwords, autofills, bookmarks, history, open tabs

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#392
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, we didn't see that many people go to jail for rigging the LIBOR rate. There were a few fall guys but a lot of people made a lot of money.

It was a fake rate anyway and they only moved it around a little, what Jedi Blue did was far more criminal and egregious. The ad networks act with impunity, for example, they know when a user has installed an app with no connection to them and then they serve that user ads for the app and then attribute the install to themselves! out and out fraud but they'll just claim the algo is really complex and our ML/AI doesn'…

>It was a fake rate anyway

It was my impression that everyone uses LIBOR, so even a tiny change has massive consequences.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some do. Others spend a million dollars a month on whatever stupid idea a team of Account Managers in $6000 suits/outfits with $500 haircuts pitch to them. And then congratulate themselves when the Analytics Department produces graphs of whatever meaningless metrics they can find or make up that go "up and to the right" for each month. And the Regional Ad Buyer and the Digital Agency will convince themselves that att…

This isn't the 1900s. You can measure how well an ad performs and how well it converts into a sale.

You can.

Some people do.

The rest of my post stands.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... the biggest win would be a business model that could win with them in the free market. The alternative business model is so simple and is already in place --- simply advertise based on expressed interest. This is what DuckDuckGo is doing very effectively. Show ads based on search words. No global, privacy invading network required. Amazon is doing the same quite effectively. Their ad business is growing by leaps…

That's how Google used to do things back in the day! I still don't get how in the hell could personalized ads be more profitable. All I've heard is the "we'll keep showing you ads for toasters after you bought one because you'd buy another if the first one breaks" meme but where's the hard evidence on personalized ads getting more clicks?! Contextual at least intuitively seems to make way more sense.

You know who the best person I could show an ad to? The person who went to my website but didn’t click buy.

Had him 99% there. Payback is great on these users.

If a few really did buy already? Who cares, beats showing the ad to a room of 20,000 random people

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#396
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentivize the economy to not overproduce bullshit ad nauseam. Vote with your wallet, and push for it culturally, or spiritually - offer alternative experiences and goals to consumerism. Stop working for companies producing products nobody asked for, which are made for “economic growth” as a goal in it self. (If your factual constraints allow for it.) As long as there is this enormous pressure to sell you ever more…

"Vote with your wallet" might as well be "stop thinking about it", especially when it comes to a niche site like Hacker News.

"Vote with your wallet" is crony capitalist-speak for don't complain to the government to protect your consumer rights and / or create a fair market for small businesses too.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#397
Yeah and apparently UFO's are real too, and Edward Snowden was right, nobody cares man, nobody cares. If we cared we'd smash our phones and bake our neighbors cookies, but instead house after house settles in for the fear fest blasting right into our face from inches away. Begging for more. Just more.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... the biggest win would be a business model that could win with them in the free market. The alternative business model is so simple and is already in place --- simply advertise based on expressed interest. This is what DuckDuckGo is doing very effectively. Show ads based on search words. No global, privacy invading network required. Amazon is doing the same quite effectively. Their ad business is growing by leaps…

That's how Google used to do things back in the day! I still don't get how in the hell could personalized ads be more profitable. All I've heard is the "we'll keep showing you ads for toasters after you bought one because you'd buy another if the first one breaks" meme but where's the hard evidence on personalized ads getting more clicks?! Contextual at least intuitively seems to make way more sense.

> I still don't get how in the hell could personalized ads be more profitable.

It's because it creates a new profitable business model for BigTech.

Personalized ads require that the network collect as much data about you as possible. The idea is to use this data by trying to create some behaviour model to determine how and when a user purchases stuff. (Currently this doesn't really work as advertised, as you guessed).

But the US government, with PRISM, created a new revenue stream for BigTech - buying the raw data of the users directly. As with any government contract, this is actually way more profitable than serving ads to cheapskate internet users. Seeing how easily and successfully BigTech is able to get this data, the US has effectively decided to privatise spying (partially) to the BigTech. To sabotage the creation of regulation and privacy laws that may prevent such data harvesting, and to create an even more profitable market for the BigTech, they have also started to rope in other countries too. (See Five Eyes (FVEY) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes ).

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#399
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a campaign like Mozilla did to promote firefox when ie6 was a monopoly work? Promote a different browser when someone uses chrome with the possibility to get explanations about it. Contacting admins of sites that only works in chrome, this kind of thing. Could this information be used to try to push chromium based browser like brave and edge to switch to another engine, lowering the influence of google on the web…

> Can a campaign like Mozilla did to promote firefox when ie6 was a monopoly work? Yes; it worked. somehow, they blew the goodwill away. /me still a Firefox user. I'll fly away if something better comes along - FF is very much a compromise.

I'm with you on that, still a Firefox user as well but I'm not a fan of a lot of Mozilla's decisions. I still trust them more than Google though.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone reading this on Chrome should switch their browser today. Get off of Gmail while you're at it. There is no perfect alternative, but all those reasons why you think you can't switch don't add up to anything a fraction as bad as what Google is doing.

What's a good alternative to gmail? Fastmail? Protonmail? Other? I don't mind paying a small subscription.

Not saying it’s a good alternative, but if you believe Apple’s marketing about privacy, they now allow you to use your own custom domain for family emails.
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