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Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

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Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#141

Post by charcircuit »

rolenthedeep wrote: post #101
crazygringo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do you think legislation should be the one forcing that choice on everyone, rather than the market allowing consumers to choose? The issue isn't what we personally like or prefer for ourselves -- it's more about when we think it's legitimate to take away the right of businesses to experiment with business models, and of consumers to be free to enter into the tradeoffs they prefer. Why shouldn't a consumer be…

"the market" isn't some omnipotent magical force that inherently provides all options. Given the current status quo, it's pretty clear that "the market" isn't solving this problem. Legislation is needed because "the market" has failed to regulate itself. "the market" does not work for consumers, it's shaped for and by sellers. Left to its own devices, capitalism creates conditions that are explicitly harmful to the p…

>it's pretty clear that "the market" isn't solving this problem.

Have you considered that it isn't being solved because consumers don't actually mind the extra tracking? All the tracking does is attempt to give them better ads. Better ads provide a better user experience. Personalized ads are a win win for both the company and the user.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#142

Post by AdrianB1 »

monero-xmr wrote: post #72
Nextgrid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This, among other things of course, helped sentence millions of people to poor and deprived lives for centuries. Wealth inequality is much worse in the US than Europe, so relatively speaking, "poor" in EU is still much better than "poor" in the US.

Europe is a museum at this point. Tourism is their future. What industrial sectors are left are protected by huge government subsidies and tariffs, but as energy goes up in price and their economic dynamism continues to fall, their future is keeping the capital cities pretty for US and Chinese to visit and take pictures. A friend of mine is a Norwegian in the US. He told me all the ambitious people in Norway scheme t…

No idea why you are downvoted other than downvoters having different political opinions that ignore facts.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#143

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

quotemstr wrote: post #80
jdiez17 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This decision, as I understand it, renders large swathes of tech service revenue models untenable. To be honest, good riddance. If it is no longer possible to offer users a "free" service in exchange for extremely invasive spying and psychological manipulation (without explicit consent [0]), it forces companies to 1) innovate in order to offer such services for a sustainable price, and 2) encourages competition fro…

> To be honest, good riddance. If it is no longer possible to offer users a "free" service in exchange for extremely invasive spying and psychological manipulation Is it right that a tiny but loud minority be able to ban these ad-supported services for all of society? Going by revealed preferences, most people don't consider targeting advertising to be "spying and psychological manipulation". If they did, usage patte…

How does this reconcile with the vast majority of people clicking “ask app not to track” when given the option? Revealed preferences can’t distinguish between things people don’t know about.

Like imagine running an experiment where in option A you get $20, and in option B you get $10. Everyone picks option A, and then the experimenter punches them all in the face because buried 50 pages into the fine print filed in the basement you didn’t know existed, it says that’s part of option A. It would be absurd to then claim “revealed preferences show that people are willing to get punched in the face for $10.”

Regardless, Meta is still allowed to do this, they just have to ask for consent now. So informed preferences will be revealed soon.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#144

Post by Nextgrid »

malyk wrote: post #94
elcomet wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no one will ever give them permission. Why would you?

If I'm going to be shown ads I might as well see ones that I'm more likely to be interested in.

Thankfully, the GDPR still allows you to opt into personal-data-based targeted advertising if you want to.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#145

Post by thehappypm »

elcomet wrote: post #57
bunbun69 wrote: post #35

Meta can still use personal data for ads. They just have to explicitly ask for consent. I do not like these sensationalized titles on HN.

And no one will ever give them permission. Why would you?

If the “yes” button was easier to click than the “no” button 90% of people would.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#146

Post by crandycodes »

crazygringo wrote: post #88
jdiez17 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This decision, as I understand it, renders large swathes of tech service revenue models untenable. To be honest, good riddance. If it is no longer possible to offer users a "free" service in exchange for extremely invasive spying and psychological manipulation (without explicit consent [0]), it forces companies to 1) innovate in order to offer such services for a sustainable price, and 2) encourages competition fro…

But why do you think legislation should be the one forcing that choice on everyone, rather than the market allowing consumers to choose? The issue isn't what we personally like or prefer for ourselves -- it's more about when we think it's legitimate to take away the right of businesses to experiment with business models, and of consumers to be free to enter into the tradeoffs they prefer. Why shouldn't a consumer be…

It is rational for governments to be defensive of practices which externalize costs onto 3rd parties, and they have to balance it with a number of factors including innovation.

It is easier to understand this with health, as compared to privacy, I think. The meat packing industry used to use substances such as formaldehyde to preserve meat longer. This wasn't transparent to the end customers and the health issues lead to lower productivity of the population as a whole. Soldiers eating this meat lead to lower fighting capabilities and higher illness. The meat packing industry fought against any transparency here knowing that it would hurt their profits. After an enormous amount of advocacy over decades, there was regulation added. There is a balance here - some substances are outright banned and some are just required to be documented on the food. This makes sense, in my opinion, because we can't expect every person to be a food chemist and know what's good and not good. Market makers have relatively large amounts of money to spend to confuse customers with misinformation, if given the option.

Applying this to privacy, the question that governments have to find out is what is fair for end users to be allowed to make a choice on and what is outright harmful such that a rational, informed person wouldn't make that choice. It is a tricky thing to get right and this bill may be overreach, but that is the nature of government and any policy - iteration. But there is always a place for a government to be in the market. Otherwise the market will be dictated by the powerful, not the people. Without perfect information transparency and the ability to interpret that information, there is no such thing as a free market.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#147

Post by e_i_pi_2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #44
jdiez17 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This decision, as I understand it, renders large swathes of tech service revenue models untenable. To be honest, good riddance. If it is no longer possible to offer users a "free" service in exchange for extremely invasive spying and psychological manipulation (without explicit consent [0]), it forces companies to 1) innovate in order to offer such services for a sustainable price, and 2) encourages competition fro…

If the standard becomes "make illegal business models that the media gets enough people upset about" (without even a vote where the alternatives [paying for service] are clearly explained), then -yeah- people are going to be left poorer. Europe already endured centuries of this when the majority Christian ethos was that usury & banking were an evil to be banned. This, among other things of course, helped sentence mil…

> If the standard becomes "make illegal business models that the media gets enough people upset about"

I think you're giving "the media" too much credit here, it's also very possible that the business models are actually unpopular and people are upset after learning about them. I think in general that's the basis for all the laws we have - a bunch of people thought there should be a law against something and made it.

The only alternative to this is someone doing top-down laws based on what they personally think is right or wrong, and I'd argue that's much more what was happening in Christian-ruled Europe. The church was making laws - they weren't coming from a democratic government.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#148

Post by Nextgrid »

dylan604 wrote: post #107
tpxl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reset all preferences to 'no' for affected users, and ask them on the next login whether they would like this or not. Simple.

Simple for you and I, but not so simple if you're a lawyer working for Meta that can twist words and interpretations of those words strung together into sentences in a legal contract. At the end of the day, you and I don't matter in our interpretations. It is the lawyers and judges. Who do you trust?

GDPR actually mandates consent to be informed, so a simple, user-friendly explanation is more likely to win over 100 pages of legalese.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#150

Post by Nextgrid »

thehappypm wrote: post #145
elcomet wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no one will ever give them permission. Why would you?

If the “yes” button was easier to click than the “no” button 90% of people would.

Thankfully the GDPR mandates that the "accept" option can't be more prominent than the "decline" one.
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