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The EU's war on behavioral advertising

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Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#351

Post by mantas »

LelouBil wrote: post #288
mantas wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is EU really trying to slow it down? TikTok ban in US seems to be a common talking point. Meanwhile here very few people talk about it and those are seen as lunatics in most cases. Most people seem to happily approve all the GDPR dialogs too. While doomscrolling TikTok/Instagram/FB.

When you have a truly compliant gdpr dialog, aka simple yes/no, I found lots of non tech people around me click no. I'd say about 50%

I rarely see yes/no. Websites doing no tracking (thus no dialog) seem more common. Usually it’s „accept recommended trackers“ or customize by unchecking trackers one by one.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#354

Post by mantas »

FredPret wrote: post #340
mantas wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad targeting may be old good regional advertising. Or advertising in specific content rather than trying to target specific human beings based on their profiles.

What if the target market for your specific content is 10k people? And they are spread out geographically? Let's say you develop a new product/service aimed at a thin slice of the population - say, dentists in Chicago, or 19 y.o. females across the US, or beginner coders, or people with older dogs in the state of Utah. How do you reach these people? Not through a national/regional ad campaign - your ad budget is like…

What could be a product only for such a specific niche?

All dentists is Cervelo market :) Even if you really really want to target specifically Chicago dentists, you’re probably better off doing a presentation at local dentists’ union or something along those lines. Or just doing old good cold calls.

As for 19 year olds, just advertise in whatever is popular among such crowd? If 18 or 20 y/o sees it, it’s probably not far off, eh?

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#355

Post by stevage »

johndhi wrote: post #130

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…

Surely the other side is public opinion. If corporations convince the public that the regulators are going to make their life worse, the regulators lose.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#356

Post by dcow »

nologic01 wrote: post #344

So many words to defend the indefensible. Its not a "war", it is asserting the collective will of an entire continent (made up of fairly diverse cultures and a long history of painful social strife, political and racial oppression and persecution). The aim is to close Pandora's box that was (as it happened) opened by the amoral and asocial advertising industry that cannot see beyond its (admittedly long) nose. The is…

Let’s play devils advocate for a moment:

Why should I be able to control what someone else knows about me? Seriously? If you sit in a park bench and watch me running around on a hot day I can’t compel you to “forget I was there”. And if you use that knowledge as data to support opening a lemonade stand, and even to reach out to me directly and offer a discount on cold drinks, who is being socially harmed? Where is the “social atomic bomb” here?

And, if I consent to this because you can offer me better prices if I allow you to cookie me, and I don’t see a problem, it seems everything is humming along ethically and harmlessly.

So I’m not sure I buy the conclusion that “behavioral advertising is ethically bankrupt”. Notice in your comment you have to evoke the idea of “mass behavioral knowledge”. What does this mean and how is it bad or different from “minor or regular behavior knowledge”?

Please understand I’m not writing this comment to defend the advertising industry. I’m writing it because I also believe this stuff is potentially grievously detrimental, but I don’t think we have a good foundational construction today for why. And we can’t say what is wrong. If we could, we could more easily point a finger at it, declare it unethical, and make laws against it.

But, no, I don’t think we’ve yet landed on the answer. It’s not some innate “right to be forgotten” and it’s not GDPR telling everyone abstractly that “you can’t use PII in your application”. (The GDPR bit is kinda moot because you argue that it’s unilaterally not okay regardless of consent and the GDPR argues it’s okay with consent, so the GDPR is not a solution to your argument.) There’s something else here to build a case against.

If real harm is impacting individuals or society then shine a light on it! Otherwise it’s just ra ra we hate behavioral advertising because it’s spooky. Which while fun to rally around, doesn't really carry social and legal weight. Pointing this out does not bring me snarky joy, rather it frustrates me because I think we’ll be stuck banging our tech heads trying to make every internet standard and protocol 100% anonymous fighting the digital boogie man until we try a new approach. In order to make social and legal progress, because I do suspect the solution is social and legal, we need a really clear understanding of the problem.

In the face of a globally connected world, what new fundamental right do humans have, that behavioral advertising robs them of, that we must take extreme measures to protect as a society?

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#357

Post by kmlx »

t0bia_s wrote: post #257
kmlx wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait till you find out about politicians. the corps have nothing on them.

Really? How about that politicians constantly spamming antisocial networks? What would they do without those tech corpos? Big tech literary give them a power. And manipulate with politicians as well. You'll not free once you caught into trap of likes and virtual audience dopamine.

that’s exactly my point. they took that power that those companies gave them and used it for their own goals. they’re infinitely worse than any company just by the power they yield. the abuse part is the cherry on top.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#358

Post by GeekyBear »

dcow wrote: post #356
nologic01 wrote: post #344

So many words to defend the indefensible. Its not a "war", it is asserting the collective will of an entire continent (made up of fairly diverse cultures and a long history of painful social strife, political and racial oppression and persecution). The aim is to close Pandora's box that was (as it happened) opened by the amoral and asocial advertising industry that cannot see beyond its (admittedly long) nose. The is…

Let’s play devils advocate for a moment: Why should I be able to control what someone else knows about me? Seriously? If you sit in a park bench and watch me running around on a hot day I can’t compel you to “forget I was there”. And if you use that knowledge as data to support opening a lemonade stand, and even to reach out to me directly and offer a discount on cold drinks, who is being socially harmed? Where is th…

> Why should I be able to control what someone else knows about me?

Why should companies be allowed to relentlessly spy on everything you do without your consent?

For instance, Google literally buys a copy of everyone's credit/debit card transaction data.

> as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/05/25/242717/google-no...

I fully support a requirement that citizens must give consent before a company is allowed to invade privacy to this extent.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#359

Post by glitchc »

kranke155 wrote: post #161
sib wrote: 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

According to what definition? It has clients, it needs to be marketed. Budgets are assigned to deliver it. A good ad campaign gets awards. A commercial is intellectual property.

By all attributes, it is a product.

Re: The EU's war on behavioral advertising

#360

Post by dcow »

GeekyBear wrote: post #358
dcow wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s play devils advocate for a moment: Why should I be able to control what someone else knows about me? Seriously? If you sit in a park bench and watch me running around on a hot day I can’t compel you to “forget I was there”. And if you use that knowledge as data to support opening a lemonade stand, and even to reach out to me directly and offer a discount on cold drinks, who is being socially harmed? Where is th…

> Why should I be able to control what someone else knows about me? Why should companies be allowed to relentlessly spy on everything you do without your consent? For instance, Google literally buys a copy of everyone's credit/debit card transaction data. > as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit…

Note that the GGP is arguing a stronger stance: that no amount of consent makes this okay. You’re saying “it’s okay with consent”. You’re taking a weaker stance, one which I don’t necessarily disagree with, but that’s besides the point.
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