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Why we should end the data economy

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Re: Why we should end the data economy

#201

Post by rootusrootus »

xibalba wrote: post #173
cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

If you think the problem is merely Facebook, Google, or Apple, then I think you are underestimating the amount of data and who is processing it. There is an entire industry of companies you have never heard of that are thinking up ever more creative ways to put data together from various sources, identify it, correlate it, and then sell the 'insights' to whoever wants to pay.

At the very least, at a bare minimum, I think we need legislation that covers how this kind of data processing happens by third-party companies and we need to provide a way for citizens to at least see what data has been collected about them and what 'insights' it has generated.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#202

Post by brokencode »

SonicScrub wrote: post #53
brokencode wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody know if targeted ads based on tracking even work? Are they worth all the extra cost and complexity compared to traditional ads? It doesn’t seem like it. Half the time I see a super-targeted ad, it’s for a product I already purchased. Also, what ever happened to showing ads to people who aren’t already interested in your product to expand your brand and maybe bring in new customers? The current ad model f…

Yes, yes they do work. That's why it's a billion dollar industry. It allows industries to micro-target specific ads for communities and speak to them directly. It gives you more ability to expand your brand to new customers, not less, as it allows to you to specifically target niche groups who previously had no interest in you. It's important to get a sense of the extreme level of refinement that firms have access to…

Maybe for the consumer showing them more dishwasher information is helpful, but how could it be better for the company paying for the ad? The chances of somebody going through all the work of buying and installing another new dishwasher seems nonexistent at that point.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#203

Post by tomjen3 »

Barraketh wrote: post #42

Honestly, I'm kind of sick of how bad a rap advertising gets. Now sure, companies knowing a lot about your personal life is creepy on an intuitive level, but the fact of the matter is that cookie tracking data has NEVER been associated with any leak or data breach that resulted in personal harm. The thing people SHOULD be worried about is stuff like the Experian leak, where credit companies collect your non-anonymize…

The only data that can't be leaked is the data people don't have. When the OPM could be hacked, everything can be hacked.

Based on this, the only solution is to make sure nobody has any information that may possible be leaked and, at the time or later, be connected to me.

In addition to that nobody targets ads with value, because valuable products are super rare and don't need advertising because those show up in magazines, on blogs etc created by people interested in the field, because sharing those products give value to their readers.

I tested it recently on youtube, both by my locked in account (15? year old google account with a ton of info) and in a firefox container. The first ad was for some casual mobile game/scam and the second was for something I can't remember anymore. I also don't remember the first ad I got on the account that wasn't logged in, but the second one was for a website that sold used iPhones, something that I am very much interested in.

So, despite knowing a ton of me, Google couldn't show me a related ad that was better than the ad it showed when it had no data.

For a very long time the ads in gmail were all about getting loans no matter how poor my credit was, when my issue was that I need a good place to invest my money, not take on expensive loans.

Currently they were trying to sell me extra chargers for electric cars, of which I don't own any.

Facebook showed me a generic ad for cancer awareness aimed at somebody 15 years older than me (they know my real date of birth).

Previous to that they showed me a ton of ads for extra comfy travel trousers.

Twitter got the closest by showing me ads for places to buy crypto (yes I am interested in that space, no I won't by stuff from ads that scream scam to me).

I don't know what will replace ads, and it is possible that ads might bring some value in specific cases but in general they are a waste of money. I suspect Google etc knows this, but can't say it for obvious reasons.

Brand awareness ads might make sense, but it doesn't really make sense to target those much.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#204

Post by khawkins »

awillen wrote: post #118
Judgmentality wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard "hey this isn't working, let's start over from scratch!" be called laziness before.

It's lazy when it doesn't come with a proposal to replace the stuff that you want to burn down. It's like the US tax code... it is insanely complicated and in a lot of ways doesn't serve the public well (because rich folks can use the complexity of it to escape taxation), so it's easy and popular to say let's just get rid of it and start with a new, simple tax code. The problem is it got to be the way it is for a rea…

>We want to incentivize people to own homes and buy electric cars and a thousand other things, and we use the tax code to do that.

[If we want] to incentivize...

While it's true that incentivization necessitates tax code complexity, we don't all agree on the necessity of incentivization in the first place.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#205

Post by starchild_3001 »

joadha wrote: post #154

The so-called "data economy" has improved our lives in immeasurable ways. I can more easily discover products that are relevant to me. Deserving innovations are granted a platform for quicker adoption. The world at large is more efficient, because relevant products and services are being delivered more quickly and efficiently than ever before. The author is extremely paranoid. She uses the word "should" a whole lot,…

There has to be limitations to the use and distribution of data. E.g. sensitive topics should be disallowed to be tracked. Otherwise, personalized ads are great. They make our lives immeasurably richer by enabling a free internet. They make small businesses grow and thrive. They allow users to find products they need w/o looking for them endlessly.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#206

Post by ben0x539 »

Barraketh wrote: post #42

Honestly, I'm kind of sick of how bad a rap advertising gets. Now sure, companies knowing a lot about your personal life is creepy on an intuitive level, but the fact of the matter is that cookie tracking data has NEVER been associated with any leak or data breach that resulted in personal harm. The thing people SHOULD be worried about is stuff like the Experian leak, where credit companies collect your non-anonymize…

> Also, fact is that matching consumers with products that they like doesn't just have enormous business value, but is actually socially positive!

What is the math here? How do you account for society-wide lost productivity from spending time consuming advertising? Or for people making sub-optimal purchasing decisions when products that are worse for their needs happen to have bigger advertising budgets?

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#207

Post by anticristi »

> Ending the data economy may seem like a radical proposition,

Not in 2021. In 2018, GDPR went into force in the EU. In 2018, CCPA went into force in California, US. In 2021, VCDPA went into force in Virginia, US. At least with GDPR serious fines were passed.

The right to data privacy is no longer a John-Lennon-like hippie idea. It is law. Now go and fix you business model.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#208

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #146
donatj wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one sane would ever want all their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors I'd happily share basically all of that information with that specific group of people - except maybe my neighbor that keeps reporting me to the city, they don't need to know my life, but if in turn I could know who was googling city ordinances in the middle of the night it might make up for it. At worst I get a funny look for…

> They've got legal and lethal authority to do far worse than a weird look. Society scares me more. The government has the authority, but society has the power and the inclination to weaponise it. The government would never bother reacting to anything that RMS said but people did.

You realize the government is made of people, right?

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#209

Post by julienb_sea »

We derive great benefit from the "data economy" in the form of services which are NOT free to develop or operate but have no cost associated with their usage. We also enjoy the benefits when it comes to social connections, disaster recovery, and tracking our lost valuables. It is not going away.

The potential pitfalls of the data economy are about overbearing or violent governments, or about poorly managed data protection. This has much more to do with the bad actors than the tools they are using. It's sort of like saying we should ban information distribution because bad actors can spread misinformation.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#210

Post by saddlerustle »

rootusrootus wrote: post #201
xibalba wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

If you think the problem is merely Facebook, Google, or Apple, then I think you are underestimating the amount of data and who is processing it. There is an entire industry of companies you have never heard of that are thinking up ever more creative ways to put data together from various sources, identify it, correlate it, and then sell the 'insights' to whoever wants to pay. At the very least, at a bare minimum, I t…

Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.
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