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Privacy Analysis of FLoC

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Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#151

Post by JW_00000 »

wearywanderer wrote: post #50
leipert wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I just dislike ads altogether. Especially Instagram feels very manipulative. So far nothing we have bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in the long run. Personally I prefer to either have a need for something (I want to solve problem X) and do some research based off of that. Or I share an experience with a friend where they make a recommendation. Funniest Facebook ad by the way: I…

Advertising is linked to depression, body dysmorphic disorders like anorexia, and numerous other adverse mental conditions. The advertising industry has a whole lot of blood on their hands. This is an industry that doesn't think twice about exploiting people's feelings of vulnerability or isolation to help sell products. The more vulnerable the demographic, the more abusive the advertising industry gets. Just look at…

Do you have a source (or more than one :) ) for that first statement? I believe it intuitively but would like to know if it's actually true.

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#152

Post by tpxl »

giantrobot wrote: post #55
throwaway2048 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is the only place on the internet I've seen people expound their love for personalized advertising.

I don't mind the concept of ads. I didn't really mind early ads on the web. They were a lot like magazine ads, the website owners would run ads in the same broad interest category as their site. Then early AdTech happened and went fucking insane. Google's early text ads, before the DoubleCkick reverse takeover, were a sane reaction to insane web ads. Google's ads too went insane. Now ads aren't just ads but crazy tra…

> They were a lot like magazine ads, the website owners would run ads in the same broad interest category as their site.

Funnily enough, this is targeted advertising. Before the current shitshow, ads were targeted, then came tracking and they became targeted in a different manner. Now we block trackers and people decry "but how will they target ads?!". Well, the same way they did before.

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#153

Post by [deleted] »

hyperhopper wrote: post #133
yarcob wrote: post #129

If you peel away the buzzwords, FLOC is basically just your browser tracking you, and telling advertisers which ads you are most likely to click on. Google claims to do this in a way that preserves your privacy, but ultimately these are empty promises. There is no way to spy on people without being creepy. Many (most?) people don't want to be tracked at all, "privately" or not. It's such a pity that online advertisin…

> There is no way to spy on people without being creepy. What "creepy" is, is an entirely subjective opinion that changes from person to person. I'd say there are totally ways. When I go to a grocery store and swipe that card for a discount, I know it's just being used to correlate purchases and track me, but I don't view it as creepy at all. All they got from me was my payment information, but they literally already…

[deleted]

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#154

Post by HWR_14 »

jedberg wrote: post #128
HWR_14 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am kind of amazed, because you are the first person I've interacted with who (a) claims to like personalized ads and (b) has actually answered that question. Those are interesting. I understand the Pride Lego set being an ad, but the comma2 was? Do you know why the comma2 was advertised to you?

Why wouldn’t the comma2 have an ad? It’s a commercial product. No idea why it was marched to me, but it worked.

I'm surprised that comma2 would assume anyone interested in their product wouldn't have ad blockers. Or that anyone would want to context switch to looking into it from Instagram.

I would have assumed ads for comma2 to revolve around sponsored content on various DIY/hacker sites. But I am not a good marketer, nor do I pretend to be (I do recognize it's value and wish I was, but I just don't get it.)

I suppose comma2 doesn't pay for blocked ads. So that is less surprising on reflection.

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#155

Post by addingnumbers »

loosetypes wrote: post #141

I’ve read here that in prison, if inmates are learning to code without internet access that they’re given offline dumps of stack overflow. Or maybe offline Wikipedia in the library is a better example. I’d really like to be able to buy preloaded offline versions of certain websites to be able to use indiscriminately. For things like embarrassing questions which I might want to search for within a given subreddit with…

For wikipedia it's pretty easy if you've got even the most basic systems administration experience...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Of...

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#156

Post by HWR_14 »

lawl wrote: post #148
HWR_14 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has ads, but don't I have to go searching for them to find them? I think it's Stack Overflow's ad model too. We'll curate a group of readers that are appealing to people seeking jobs, put up a "jobs" tab, and charge companies to list openings.

Nope, they're injected into the frontpage sometimes. It's the entries without an upvote button and comment page.

Ah, I see them now. That is a well done ad system. They even get around a default ad blocker.

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#157

Post by WorldMaker »

saurik wrote: post #54
jedberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like personalized ads. If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like, I'd rather have them personalized. Instagram is really good at this -- I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads. So as a user, the benefit would be better ads. Honestly I'll probably leave FLOC on if given the option (although I use Firefox and Safari, and as far as…

FWIW, I am "personally" sick of the Internet reminding me of the thing I already bought yesterday, along with doubling down on ads for things I only engage with because I want to show my friends how stupid the ad/product is, which seems to be the state of the art of "personalized" Internet ads. I would honestly get more value--if I am forced to see ads--out of less personalized ads. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKd…

We have centuries of evidence that unpersonalized ads are both the best for brands (if you aren't preaching to the choir you are opening the door widest for expanding your buying audience) and individuals (discovering things that you didn't know you needed, discovering things that other people in your life might need but aren't directly relevant to you, avoiding the mental health detriments of how the more targeted an ad becomes the more likely it uses psychological tricks to manipulate you [all advertising is manipulation; but the amount of manipulation you can get away with in a general ad is very different that what we are seeing in targeted ads], etc).

The only people really benefitting from targeted ads are the companies making the ad tech (including and especially Google) making billions of dollars from "platforms" that do way too much to prop up "metrics" that mean way too little in practice (but are great for creating fancy invoices to charge just about whatever you want to the rubes [sorry, advertisers]).

(I've been taking a lot of steps to opt out of personalized ads, without outright running ad blockers, though these days a lot of sites now believe Firefox to be an ad blocker, and the ads are better unpersonalized. It's just amazing that so much of our culture on either side of the ad tech "platforms" has been sold such a bill of goods to think that personalized ads are doing anything but sucking money out of good companies into at the very least morally gray if not unethical ones.)

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#158

Post by wearywanderer »

pabs3 wrote: post #116
wearywanderer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is flat wrong in my experience. I browse with javascript and CSS both disabled by default, using uMatrix. Only a minority of sites I browse require me to whitelist JS or CSS; maybe 1-in-10. Most newspapers and blogs do not require JS or CSS.

I note that uMatrix is archived, do you have a plan for when it stops working? (I'm also a user)

I fear I don't. Probably I'll end up using the web in general a lot less.

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#159

Post by imiric »

Nicksil wrote: post #146
jefftk wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then how is the website jedberg likes supported?

>And then how is the website jedberg likes supported? What a bizarre argument; the implication that advertising is the sole method of remuneration and sourcing support for some venture is the responsibility of anyone besides the venture. The idea just reeks of entitlement.

The author works on ads, so I can't say I'm surprised.

Re: Privacy Analysis of FLoC

#160

Post by gerash »

imiric wrote: post #139
gerash wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this alternative? Something that a publisher can use to fund itself that's neither paywall nor advertisement. I'm genuinely curious.

The fact it doesn't exist doesn't mean it can't exist. The only reason ads are so prevalent is because they're the easiest and most lucrative way to monetize, at the expense of the user. FWIW I think the Brave Browser model is a step in the right direction, even though Brave Inc. has made some missteps along the way. Give the user the choice of which services they want to support, and make that process as frictionles…

You didn't answer the question.

How about this: you have a business that sells stuff online and but then a buyer suddenly refuses to give you money in return and says "I don't like money as it has corrupting power. I prefer an alternative means of compensation but can't think of any but it doesn't mean it cannot exist. Since you have a profitable business it's on you to find the alternative payment that I like".

The Brave model is innovative but I don't understand it. They're trying to pay the consumer BAT tokens for consuming. Isn't the consumer the one that needs to pay to consume?

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