Live data from Hacker News

The EU's war on behavioral advertising

thisisunpacked.substack.com

201–210 of 420 posts

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without trying to dismiss your opinion: Was the internet before Google/ad-tech not "open, free (as in beer)"?

Well it certainly wasn’t equitable, connected computers were the realm of the rich. The problem with free services is scaling them to significant portions of the entire population.

My family wasn't rich and we had a "connected computer" in 97/98 before ad-tech really took over. Getting online was far less costly than the computer itself.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#202

Interesting how this is forcing these companies to objectively improve their products -- chronological feeds, friends and follows only, etc is what users have been begging for and being ignored, because advertising trash salad is more profitable. If the long-term effects end up being along the lines of the big social corps withdrawing from the EU, I see that as an enormous win for that economic zone. The presence of…

[deleted]

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#203

"Meta recently conceded that in-app behavioral advertising in the EU can no longer be opt-in by default, marking the end of an era. The regulators won, at least for now." "Opt-in by default". In other words, "opt-out". Is this some wordplay designed to "comply" with regulations against opt-out. Yes, it's opt-in, with the opt-in box already checked to save people the trouble. Sounds like a so-called "dark pattern".

[deleted]

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#204
post #202

Interesting how this is forcing these companies to objectively improve their products -- chronological feeds, friends and follows only, etc is what users have been begging for and being ignored, because advertising trash salad is more profitable. If the long-term effects end up being along the lines of the big social corps withdrawing from the EU, I see that as an enormous win for that economic zone. The presence of…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#206

Seeing many folks ITT questing the value of advertising (behavioural/contextual) so some points: 1. Advertising ideally works as match making by connecting buyers to sellers where the seller is unaware of the buyer. (i.e. the unknown unknown problem). Companies usually collect advertisements and place them on limited ad slots. 2. In earlier, physical, forms of advertising such as newspapers, TV, Retail Stores etc, th…

[deleted]

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it certainly wasn’t equitable, connected computers were the realm of the rich. The problem with free services is scaling them to significant portions of the entire population.

My family wasn't rich and we had a "connected computer" in 97/98 before ad-tech really took over. Getting online was far less costly than the computer itself.

Damn an in my country (Indonesia) even in 2010 it's still the other way around. Even to this day I can't see my fellow countrymen paid for anything online partly because everything used to be so expensive we always have to find cheaper (pirated) version. By comparison privacy is worthless (for us).

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#208
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it's really the EU regulators at war with companies' abilities to make better products.

Advertising is not a product

gestures broadly at advertising everywhere

OK, I’ll bite, then what is it?

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#209
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you say here is accurate, that's all very good news. But how does that square with the fact that the online ad industry continues to be at war with people who don't want to be tracked?

> If what you say here is accurate, that's all very good news. Ummm. Except for the part where basically a few players will have a monopoly on online advertising. It's really a slow return to how TV advertising and etc worked. > continues to be at war with people who don't want to be tracked How so? There are infinitely more privacy rules and safeguards than there were a decade ago. Let alone the amount of tools like…

> It's really a slow return to how TV advertising and etc worked.

TV advertising is the opposite of targeted. Literally every person picking up a broadcast signal sees the same ads.

My neighbors having my name and address in the phone book doesn't bother me the way Google tracking every damn thing I see on the internet does. People don't notice it, but the latter is far more invasive.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#210
post #143

As a lawyer working on these topics, this is a poor phrasing. EU regulators don't need to "war" with advertisers - they have complete control over them. There's no other side of this war, just regulators issuing commands that industry tries to follow. It's confusing as a war is because the regulators decided not to make the law say, 'behavioral advertising is illegal,' and instead have spent years slowly awakening to…

It’s as if they actually don’t want to introduce unnecessary regulation! Or they weren’t paid enough in legal and illegal bribes before, if you prefer the cynical take.

And/or they realize that trying to introduce too large changes in one go will throw the markets into damage control mode, and the results will not be favorable to the legislators and their constituents. Better boil the frog gradually than have it jump out and take its money elsewhere.
Post reply on HN