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Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

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Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#11

Post by imiric »

Aardwolf wrote: post #2

> Additionally, there are features such as Protected Audience that can serve you ads for “remarketing” (for example, Chrome tracked you visiting a listing for a toaster, so now you will get ads for toasters elsewhere), and Attribution Reporting, that gathers data on ad clicks. Why is this actually effective? When you bought a toaster (which is a likely reason why you visited the listing), why would ads for other toas…

Because you'd likely want to buy a new toaster in a few months, after the one you just bought breaks due to planned obsolescence, or low quality parts, poor QA, and no possibility to fix it yourself. /s

Those advertisers, they think of everything. :)

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#13

Post by cheeko1234 »

Aardwolf wrote: post #2

> Additionally, there are features such as Protected Audience that can serve you ads for “remarketing” (for example, Chrome tracked you visiting a listing for a toaster, so now you will get ads for toasters elsewhere), and Attribution Reporting, that gathers data on ad clicks. Why is this actually effective? When you bought a toaster (which is a likely reason why you visited the listing), why would ads for other toas…

Me visiting a listing for a toaster means that I'm in the market for a toaster, doesn't necessarily imply I already bought one.

Also, with this data, they can potentially build a better model than Amazon's recommender model. Most consumers have a pattern when buying and there's a lot of money in figuring it out.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#15

Post by [deleted] »

Aardwolf wrote: post #2

> Additionally, there are features such as Protected Audience that can serve you ads for “remarketing” (for example, Chrome tracked you visiting a listing for a toaster, so now you will get ads for toasters elsewhere), and Attribution Reporting, that gathers data on ad clicks. Why is this actually effective? When you bought a toaster (which is a likely reason why you visited the listing), why would ads for other toas…

[deleted]

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#16

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

thejohnconway wrote: post #8
tyingq wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon still re-shows toaster ads when they know for certain you've bought one. Maybe the likelihood you're buying one for someone else as a gift is higher than their guess of what else you might buy?

I’ve always thought it was because you’re more likely that you’ll buy another toaster than something in any other individual category. More likely that your next purchase will be another toaster than a pitchfork, for example. Still stupid though.

I always opt for the toaster-pitchfork bundle with monthly subscription from Prime, because a toaster would be nothing without its accompanying pitchfork!

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#17

Post by havnagiggle »

tyingq wrote: post #6
havnagiggle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they don't know if you bought it or not. They are gambling that you didn't and are trying to capture a sale for the ad buyer. Presumably that is somewhat effective since it's so common.

Amazon still re-shows toaster ads when they know for certain you've bought one. Maybe the likelihood you're buying one for someone else as a gift is higher than their guess of what else you might buy?

Maybe, but I'll suggest an alternative view that's probably unpopular: big ad companies walk a fine line between what knowledge they can share even from _inside_ the same company. Ad sellers cannot have perfect information for probably several reasons: auditing, privacy, safety, and legal. Evidence of this is that ads are reported as being encrypted between business units (e.g. if you work on ranking product listings, you may no idea what ad is injected at the top).

Obviously the result looks stupid to us as consumers which is quite memorable. I suggest it is a by-product of intentional choices. IMO this is a better explanation than "oh this company is just too stupid to do it right, but also they are all knowing about everything you do and are just so doggone evil." Maybe they are that evil, but I am sure they have learned how not to overturn their apple cart and this is an obvious result of that.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#19

Post by starbugs »

This appears to be the same as this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37427227

Top comment on that one was:

Key actionable info: to fix this, go to this URL:

    chrome://settings/adPrivacy
and turn off the toggles on each of the three subpages.

Alternatively, go to this URL https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ to fix this permanently.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#20

Post by anon____ »

tyingq wrote: post #6
havnagiggle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they don't know if you bought it or not. They are gambling that you didn't and are trying to capture a sale for the ad buyer. Presumably that is somewhat effective since it's so common.

Amazon still re-shows toaster ads when they know for certain you've bought one. Maybe the likelihood you're buying one for someone else as a gift is higher than their guess of what else you might buy?

It doesn't make much sense in case of a toaster, but if you bought a pen (or socks, SSDs, lightbulbs, etc.), you may buy some more after you tried it and liked it, or maybe you will try another brand.
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