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The EU's war on behavioral advertising

thisisunpacked.substack.com

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Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#51

Post by rollcat »

seydor wrote: post #3

... for no reason , to no effect, except the destruction of the entire eu online advertising industry

I wouldn't mind that, especially wherever behavioural profiling is involved.

You'd call a person wearing a tinfoil hat a crazy, yet we are tolerating what effectively could be considered an effort at mass scale, targeted mind control. It's obnoxious on the less competent end of the spectrum, and an outright violation on the other.

I used to consider advertisements an intellectual equivalent of fast-food; I think it's gone far worse than that, and as individuals, we are poorly equipped to stand up to it. I do understand businesses rely on advertising to stay alive, but without regulation, there just seems to be no end to how much abuse adtech is ready to inflict upon us.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#52

Post by dweekly »

I think this will evolve advertising in interesting ways.

"Ads 1.0" had a viewpoint of trying to scrape every last little bit of data about a user's interests: from their email, messages, calendar, search history, friendships, and discussions. There was a mental model that you can't really know what's going to resonate with a person until you have their life under a microscope. This the "surveillance capitalism" take.

There's a view, perhaps not universally shared, that humans may not actually be as complicated as all that. That if you have a person play a short game, engage in a chat session a few minutes long, swipe on people they find interesting, or even just pay careful attention to how much of a video someone watches -- that discerning their personality and interests is challenging but totally viable.

Let's remember: the Cambridge Analytica debacle didn't stem from a full dump of someone's private Facebook history - it was mainly personality tests that were very quick to complete. It turned out that such a quick & casual test is mostly sufficient signal to be actionable re: how they were likely to vote and how to influence that vote.

In this mode, we'll see the rise of superapps that have rich ways of engaging and rich telemetry to discern your interests without having to "snoop" on you. They'll just engage you directly.

In this way, privacy is preserved nicely but ads can still be well-targeted.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#53

Post by seydor »

someplaceguy wrote: post #44
seydor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you re in tech your salary depends on advertising money somewhere along the chain

> if you re in tech your salary depends on advertising money somewhere along the chain You say that like it's a good thing.

without online media, computers would be in the sector of scientific instruments

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#55

Post by someplaceguy »

seydor wrote: post #53
someplaceguy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you re in tech your salary depends on advertising money somewhere along the chain You say that like it's a good thing.

without online media, computers would be in the sector of scientific instruments

> without online media, computers would be in the sector of scientific instruments

Computers were already common household items before massive online advertising even existed.

So forgive me if I don't find your arguments convincing (and it's not just because of this specific argument).

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#56

Post by asu_thomas »

jklinger410 wrote: post #19
JohnFen wrote: post #2

This is a wonderful start. Here's hoping it catches on outside of the EU as well!

What about this free market that everyone talks about? I don't think there are any protections around the reasonable expectation of privacy from a private industry perspective in the US. If you use the internet, or an app, you must protect yourself. I assume everyone is a capitalist, so wouldn't adding laws here somehow subsidize and therefore tarnish the market?

> If you use the internet, or an app, you must protect yourself.

As in "choose a strong password"?

As in "never accept a terms of service agreement you disagree with"?

As in "read all code before running it"?

What thoughts were going through your head when you typed that?

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#57

Post by tsimionescu »

seydor wrote: post #27
mdhb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like they are trying to find alternative funding models for the web here… I fail to see that as anything other than a positive.

hint: there aren't . the web is like all the media before it

All the media that never tracked its users, yes.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#58

Post by adasdasdas »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #30
jklinger410 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this free market that everyone talks about? I don't think there are any protections around the reasonable expectation of privacy from a private industry perspective in the US. If you use the internet, or an app, you must protect yourself. I assume everyone is a capitalist, so wouldn't adding laws here somehow subsidize and therefore tarnish the market?

Does it impinge on your personal freedom, if the government decides to put up special privacy protections for groups it deems too vulnerable?

They're not special if they affect everyone

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#59

Post by seydor »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #37
seydor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

europeans did not go to the streets because they were afraid of advertising. politicians ran with it because it sounds good instead they go to the streets because of the awful economy, unemployment, inaccessible housing. Still waiting for a pan-european affordable housing regulation (not gonna happen because EU is run by the boomers)

Housing is a local, or at least federal matter. EU is about interstate commerce. The advertising/consent regulations are about commerce so it makes sense. Pan-EU housing regulations wouldn't as those are typically in the domain of each country/locality.

eu already affects the housing market with green regulations and housing standards, energy standards, policy on residence visas etc.

and communications was not among its mandates either

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#60

Post by JohnFen »

seydor wrote: post #38
slater wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found the online marketing person! And there are plenty of reasons.

if you re in tech your salary depends on advertising money somewhere along the chain

Sure, but not necessarily the terrible sort of advertising being addressed.
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