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Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

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Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#71

Post by nprateem »

Hizonner wrote: post #10
birdman3131 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the site if they are gonna use it as verification in the future. Im not gonna remember the randomly entered date. Its not like you can identify 87% of the US based on Date of birth, 5 digit Zip Code and gender. Oh wait. https://dataprivacylab.org/projects/identifiability/index.ht...

Does that mean you give real answers to the other "password recovery" questions? "Verification" questions should get random answers that get saved in your password manager.

It's always fun when you have to call up customer support though and have to spell your mother's maiden name.

"Yes it's right bracket, exclamation, capital R, dollar sign..."

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#72

Post by [deleted] »

sublinear wrote: post #54
zmgsabst wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney: “Gendered stereotypes are harmful — be more inclusive!” Also Disney: “Tell us your gender so we can target ads based on that!” I would take DIE advocates more seriously if they reformed themselves — rather than lecturing the rest of us while engaging in such blatant hypocrisy.

It's called "cultural Marxism". It's not necessarily a conspiracy, but it's certainly a thing. DEI is just the latest consultant scheme.

[deleted]

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#73

Post by b800h »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #46
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 00:00:00 UTC, I assume? I don't expect there's any reason for them to divide by a datetime...but one can hope that some ad server somewhere has crashed as a result. My go-to birthday has always been January 1st of the year I was actually born. That way it doesn't raise any eyebrows if I want to convert something to a real account or interact with real people, but it fails verification if they mishandle my credenti…

Even better, if it ever ends up mattering -- say, at a border crossing -- you have plausible deniability. "Oh, that's the first Unix epoch timestamp, must be a bug in the system." Not sure how much it would help at a border crossing... but with any kind of tech support it would immediately elicit a chuckle.

What, you reckon first or second line tech support would recognise that as the Unix epoch?

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#75

Post by Mindwipe »

Hizonner wrote: post #66
mankyd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I don't understand the outrage at wanting to know the age of your customer, especially when: a) there are laws involved b) you have a variety of content/products specifically aimed at different ages I won't speak to gender, that's certainly a different concept, but age doesn't exact ring alarm bells for me here.

Things you are entitled to know about your customers: what product or service they want, how it has to be delivered, and whether they will pay for it. Things you are not entitled to know about your customers: anything else whatsoever. Asking for people's age, gender, or whatever, is creepy and rude. Especially if you inconvenience the customer in the process. And... (a) You can comply with COPPA and similar laws by n…

I hate to break this to you but you are going to pine for these days very shortly.

The UK is pretty insistent that they will require almost every site on the internet to be suitable for under 13s or credit card age verify.

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#76

Post by dymk »

tomjen3 wrote: post #61
dymk wrote: post #15

Age and gender are the two highest signals that targeted ads take into account. The Facebook growth team has always wanted to remove gathering age / gender from the sign-up flow (which reduces friction to sign up). But, ad targeting would take such a large hit, they could never do so. It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a gender option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a nudge towards t…

Why in the world do they then collect all that data on us in general if ads still use age and gender for the highest value signals? Those are terrible signals and really should be replaced with something better.

They're not terrible signals. They're by far the highest-signal metrics that have been found for ad targeting. Legions of engineers and data scientist and project managers have been working on finding better metrics for a decade, and there hasn't been one found.

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#77

Post by b800h »

kibwen wrote: post #14
soperj wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry at 8 or 9 years old. They'd test you to make sure you were over 18 but if you said you were over 99, it would just reply "No you're not" and boot you. I don't remember what they'd do if you said you were under 18, I don't know if I was dumb enough to ever try it once.

Here's Leisure Suit Larry's age quiz, consisting of pop culture questions that would have suggested adulthood back in 1987: https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.ht...

Did they alter it for foreign markets? Some very US centric questions there.

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#78

Post by bdw5204 »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #62

At the start Netflix was about getting rid of ads ridden cable TV so you now you can get competing Disney+ which is now just a cable TV with targeted ads based on your personal data. It is evolving, only backwards.

At first, cable TV had no ads because it was funded by subscriptions. Then most cable channels slowly started adding more and more ads and demanding higher and higher rates from cable operators to carry their channels. Then the local channels started demanding rates from cable operators to carry their channels that are otherwise available for free over the air. Then eventually they even started showing ads at the movie theater before the movie you paid to see.

What is happening with streaming services adding ads was entirely predictable because the financial incentives of a company that adopts a subscription model are to add ads to the subscription once they think they can get away with it. If they already have ads, the incentive is to add more and more of them until there's pushback (i.e. the NFL has been cutting down on commercial breaks because they got long enough and frequent enough to become a common source of fan complaints when ironically the 2 minute warning was originally added to the rulebook in the early 70s to guarantee TV broadcasters at least one commercial break each half that wasn't because the clock ran out on a quarter).

This is why all of the people who want a subscription based model for online services that are currently free are hopelessly naive. If they get their way, things will get better for a few years and then will eventually end up right back where they are but worse because you'll have to pay for the privilege of watching ads.

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#79

Post by MichaelCollins »

phone8675309 wrote: post #13
mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

Just say you’re 6

You have to mentally be 6 if you’re enjoying the garbage they’re chucking onto Disney+.

It's like the existence of 40+ year old Harry Potter fans; the ones who were already adults when the books were first published. Hard to explain unless you acknowledge that many people are simple.

(At least with Star Wars, nostalgia for something they got into during childhood is a plausible explanation for anybody under 60 or so. But even so, I'm surprised more people don't grow out of it.)

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#80

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

falcolas wrote: post #48
bil7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it really is an amazing show. I hope it does very well. However I can forsee two groups; the first, who won't watch because "it's star wars and i'm not into star wars"; the second, "i like star wars but this show doesn't have any light sabers or jedis or the force - why would i watch it?? boring!"

Or, someone could be so burnt out on the dozens of new Star Wars offerings (representing hundreds of hours of wildly-varying quality video) that they've given up on it. Ditto Marvel.

I like your contrasting SW with Marvel here.

I'm not into SW and less into Marvel (I'm repulsed by ubiquitousness).

That said, I found Mandalorian, Boba Fett and Andor all enjoyable; I'm guessing because they stand pretty much alone.

Likewise, I dig Pennyworth and Legion. I was well into watching both before I realized they were Marvelesque. Less Marvel seems to be my favorite Marvel.

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