Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization • Hacker News Board

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#121

Post by forapurpose » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #17

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches. Personally I'd love to support more w…

I worked on this a while ago at Mozilla. There was a presentation at ACM CCS '16 on what we did. Unfortunately the effort was discontinued, but we definitely solved a lot of the technical issues.

Wasn't that how ads were actually implemented on Firefox's homepage several years ago? IIRC, Mozilla developed it in cooperation with IAB as a solution to privacy (the ad-funded web being practically unavoidable), deployed it (maybe only in alpha or beta), and then people went ballistic over advertising in Firefox - without realizing it was a huge privacy gain - and Mozilla pulled it. Here's one article I found quickly; note that ads are based on local browser history.

https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-officially-kicks-off-ads-i...

And it looks like Mozilla is trying it again, though this is from a few months ago. What happened to it?

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/04/30/a-privacy...

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#122

Post by mahmoudimus » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches. Personally I'd love to support more w…

We're working on something similar to this @ my company. Feel free to ping me directly, I'm happy to elaborate.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#123

Post by wlesieutre » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

rock_hard wrote: post #109

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches. Personally I'd love to support more w…

Star Wars of all things provides a interesting vision here. Did you ever notice that for the most part the machines/robots are not networked? That AI seems to exist but is intentionally kept dumb (C3PO). I think this is a interesting model. To as society come to the conclusion that more connection of devices, smarter AI is not the right solution. That what works best is the right amount of connection and AI

Except that they helpfully leave unsecured network ports all over literally every ship and building so that R2 units can plug in and do whatever they want. We can ignore that part for a “right amount of connection” example.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#124

Post by forapurpose » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #113

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches. Personally I'd love to support more w…

> I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. Mozilla did this for Firefox, except a step better: the client pulled the same set of ads from the server regardless of the user preferences, but decided (client-side) what to display, so the server could never ev…

> people didn't care

> there just really isn't market for privacy-focused advertising

My impression was that people just didn't understand it and Mozilla's communication about it was poor. That doesn't mean that there's not a market.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#125

Post by kromem » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #25

apinstein wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the big idea I always pitched at hackathons (like startup weekend). I think it’s a great idea. 100% opt-in ads. My tagline was “a sufficiently relevant ad is indistinguishable from content.” It’s meant to be aspirational. The idea is that if you are looking to buy something, awareness of choices or information about that choice should be so valuable that it’s considered to be a benefit by the user. It’s basic…

Unless I specifically seek them out, I have no interest in learning about new products or services ever. Thus, an ad would never be relevant enough to be content for me.

So when a friend talks to you about a product they recently used and loved and think you'd love as well (and I don't mean a friend on MLM payroll), you aren't interested in hearing about that recommendation?

And I'm guessing you skip over any HN posts that are about a new product or service you weren't already aware of?

There's a reason word of mouth is the most influential medium for converting to a sale, and it's because a recommendation from a friend is typically not "polluted" by advertisers lacking scruples - so the "pitches" you hear are about things someone who knows you decently well thinks you'll like, and only for products/tv shows/services that the person actually thinks are good.

It's also part of why recommendations motivated by affiliate rewards or MLM sales are seen with such disdain, as it's behavior from a friend that crosses a love for acceptable behavior.

If we only saw ads online for things that matched our interests AND are very good products, we'd have a different attitude about advertising (but that will never happen, as it requires prisoner's dilemma type agreement across too many parties).

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#126

Post by kromem » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #107

magicalhippo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I do. Sometimes there's a product or a service that can provide value in a way I haven't thought about, or I haven't come around to specifically seek out yet. I don't mind seeing ads for such things. What I do mind is seeing ads for stuff I don't care about at all, and if the ads get in the way of what I'm doing.

I've been considering buying a 3D printer lately. I don't have a lot of experience in the domain and I'm not sure where to start, so clearly I'm actively looking about information regarding 3D printers. What I'm definitely not looking for is ads. Actually I try to avoid anything that might remotely look like one, from official websites (obviously) to comparisons of 3D printers that look like they could be biased one…

You always see high conversion rates for new ad mediums, and those rates reduce over time as marketers abuse consumer's attention.

One of my favorite examples is Amazon reviews. Once you a time, those were legit and you'd see consumers referencing online reviews for products even if buying the product in a store physically, because it was valuable content.

Now, the reviews are so untrustworthy there are multiple sites that automate going through them to flag BS.

The unfortunate thing is that even after an ad medium becomes ignored by the majority of an audience, there's still an audience that's one to two standard deviations below the norm in suggestability that get preyed upon by advertisers. So it's those people that are the 0.1% clicking on general banner ads and purchasing a product. These are the same people that "call now" for those late night TV marketing commercials.

So the cycle for any ad medium is to get the attention of an audience, abuse it until most people stop paying attention, and then prey on the suggestably handicapped. It's a shitty industry, and quite unfortunate as if everyone could agree to not be awful, the fundamental feedback loop is one intrinsically motivated (find out about crap I'm highly likely to enjoy). But we're talking about a class of organizations (corporations) that can't even self regulate when lives and health are on the line, so that's certainly not going to happen for ads.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#127

Post by bobthepanda » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #120

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches. Personally I'd love to support more w…

In the late '90s there was a place that did something like that. That was a time of slow internet connections, with a majority still on dial-up. They had a product for Windows computers that provided a caching, prefetching web proxy. The deal with it was that if you let it show you adds occasionally (I think it was whenever you launched your browser to your homepage or once a day if you visits to your homepage were l…

This type of thing is also generally considered malware today. As a person who used to do IT support for a university, one of the most common malware issues would be Chrome extensions or whatnot switching your homepage to point to a ads-infested search engine instead of Google, and redirecting all search engine websites to the ad-infested one.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#128

Post by nloomans » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #59

probably_wrong wrote: post #51

In their example, under "Gather consent seamlessly", their example shows "Yes" and "Other Options". Now, I haven't yet read the GDPR in detail, but I was under the impression that opting out should be as easy as opting in. A quick search returns: > The ICO also said that, while "GDPR does not specifically ban opt-out boxes," that method of communication is "essentially that same as pre-ticked boxes, which are banned"…

Having cleared all cookies recently, I'm re-encountering all these dialogs. They've gotten cagier. Anecdotally, a third of these cookie dialogs are violating those principles, either preselecting all third party advertisers, or claiming all 60+ third parties are necessary for the functionality of the site so Allow or Go Away. Or having only one OK/Agree button. It's not just little guys. Slate.com for example: Slate’…

Interestingly, Dutch news websites usually handle GDPR popup dialogs property. Example: https://nos.nl/.

It's just as easy to opt-in as to opt-out. Just tap the checkmark or the X and then Save your preferences.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#129

Post by hyperman1 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

There are actually parts of this I like better than the current status quo:

* Ad blocker detection and a way to ask for funding? Seems nice. We will get a view on the actual market value of the content. As the Internet started out free and hand plenty of content, I assume content producers will get a rude messages about their actual value here.

* A good base platform for the GDPR is also nice. A big player like Google cant flaunt the law too much, and browser plug ins have one big target to block, verify or modify

Some extras to make the ad ecosystem sane again:

* Micro-payments. You could get to choose between an ad, a micro-payment, or no content.

* Content producer vetting and taking responsibility for their ad's. Todays ads are bottom feeders. If, say, a car site would get an image from e.g. a car company, and place ads on their own site, you get a better ad for the customer, no privacy violation, and more respect and use for the ad vendor. This is the stack oveerflow/jobs model.

* A header element like X-Interested-in. Use your browser to set a free-form value, and let the ad vendors get some input to give better ads , while you are completely anonymous to them.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#130

Post by cirenehc » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #119

cirenehc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's true isn't it? What's with this entitlement that sites should be ad-free while still providing value? I own a blog, there is no way I could have a profitable subscription based model (believe me, I tried).

There's an entitlement problem, but it isn't on the part of readers. Advertisers, ad networks, and publishers have made so many terrible decisions that they drove readers like me to ad blockers. I'm not against ads, but I don't want to be tracked. I don't want a 500 word article to download megabytes of crappy javascript. Publishers are probably costing their audience more in battery life and bandwidth than they are…

"Publishers are probably costing their audience more in battery life and bandwidth than they are ever making from the ad they are showing". Have you done any calculation? The bandwidth/battery life cost for serving JS negligible. It's nothing compare to fetching/rendering images/videos, or even your mobile OS.