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Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

thebigtech.substack.com

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Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#211

Post by PoignardAzur »

ggggtez wrote: post #175
koalaman wrote: post #130

"Facebook _could_ still fingerprint users using BlueTooth" This article's title and narrative makes it sound like Facebook is using bluetooth fingerprinting to geolocate users against their wishes, and that Android's new permission will end that. However reading the text carefully it never actually claims Facebook is currently doing that. Are they or not? Is this article a hypothetical? That seems very disingenuous b…

My hunch is that the could language is couching since it can be hard to know for certain of Facebook is storing the data or just doing something else. But I think the implication is that they at least were looking at it when they weren't supposed to be

I think if Facebook did such a thing, a journalist could find out about it by now.

Facebook isn't open-source, so it's hard to analyze what the app does, but not impossible, and Facebook is under a lot of scrutiny.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#212

Post by IAmGraydon »

ggggtez wrote: post #174
Supermancho wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason is to hurt you I'm not sure how this reasoning works. Some company making money using your information isn't with intent to hurt an individual, generally speaking. It's rare that such an opportunity even exists.

My data is worth money, that's why they want it. If they take it from me without permission, how is that not stealing? And then isn't stealing obviously hurting me? Just because you don't know how much your data is worth, and may not even know the crime happened, doesn't make it not a crime or not harmful. Consider voyeurs who take upskirt photos. Even though the victim may never know that data was stolen, it's unden…

The number of leaps you made in this one short post is truly astounding.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#213

Post by gyvastis »

jliptzin wrote: post #151

Google should be in favor of privacy, their advertising model serves ads only when you want them about the subject you’re searching for. Facebook relies on knowing everything about you to show you ads when you don’t want them, hoping they’ll give you something you’re interested in clicking on.

I believe you're missing the fact that most people use a lot of Google services so it already has a pretty good model of who you are and what you're interested in without even the need of any shady tracking methods.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#214

Post by amusedcyclist »

riversflow wrote: post #185
amusedcyclist wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hyperbole against adtech on hackernews is insane. I swear most people here think its the biggest problem that the world faces.

I mean, it arguably drives the out-of-control materialism that is currently devastating the environment. Not sure it’s hyperbole.

Yeah I'm no fan of it either, but i don't think its responsible for materialism in our society, thats been around much longer than adtech.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#215

Post by amusedcyclist »

zibzab wrote: post #208
amusedcyclist wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hyperbole against adtech on hackernews is insane. I swear most people here think its the biggest problem that the world faces.

Maybe we are among the few people who understands the issue?? I mean, grandma isn't going to figure this out on her own. She is happy to have a way to get in touch with her grandchildren and has no idea she is being exploited.

Or maybe our sense of whats important is warped because of the bubble we live in ?

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#216

Post by horsawlarway »

Supermancho wrote: post #178
ABCLAW wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the extent that the individual and the marketer's interests are not aligned, the harm is borne entirely by the individual. It doesn't matter if the intention is to harm the individual; a blatant disregard for their interests accomplishes the same thing at scale. Not caring about what occurs to the individual means that systemically decisions will be made at their detriment. Get put in a filter bubble? Have your go…

>> The reason is to hurt you and it's unfortunate that we're in denial about it. > To the extent that the individual and the marketer's interests are not aligned, the harm is borne entirely by the individual. It doesn't matter if the intention is to harm the individual Of course it does. That's the claim . Don't bring up tangential subjects and then try to associate them as if it's a rephrasing.

I agree that intent matters, but lack of intent is not a get out of jail free card.

There's a reason both murder and manslaughter are crimes.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#217

Post by nirvdrum »

toast0 wrote: post #196
nirvdrum wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just retired a Lumia 950 XL in my household. It's an all around better experience than Android in my experience, but there wasn't much point in continuing to push the boulder up the hill. And I liked the ability to pop in a micro SD card, which Apple doesn't support. From my vantage point, Google did everything it could to kill off Windows phone. There was the big spat over YouTube, where Google wouldn't write a n…

> We just retired a Lumia 950 XL in my household. Man, that's a lot of commitment! I gave up when an app I was using for work ended WP8 support and I updated my Lumia 640 to WM10 and wasn't happy with it (Mobile Edge is really terrible, but I already complained), I could give up that app and go back to WP8, but I wasn't willing to live with the notification center bugs in WP8 that were actually fixed in WM10. I still…

The Lumia 950 XL shipped with Windows 10 native and was Microsoft's flagship phone, so it got updates for longer. But, yeah, live tiles were great and the UI was just super smooth. The dedicated camera button was fantastic. Being able to access Office apps in Continuum was really neat. I'm sure I have the timetable wrong, but there were features in Windows 10 mobile that took years before they were available on other platforms.

For now I'm using Square Home with a Samsung Galaxy, mostly because I like the hardware options on Android better. But, with the whole industry shifting to locked down devices much like iPhones, I may very well switch back to iPhone for privacy reasons. I really liked having a viable third option. C'est la vie.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#218

Post by stevenicr »

mrweasel wrote: post #12
an_opabinia wrote: post #3

The value of the location based tracking is overrated. Anyway, if you post an image to Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, the EXIF data has your location, or it can be solved from the content of the image.

With the exception of people who travel a lot, I really don't see why location, beyond what users enter into Facebook themself, would be particular useful. That seems to be the theme with Facebook, they collect a ton of information that isn't obviously useful. So what do Facebook know that the rest of us don't? Because the engineers at Facebook aren't stupid, they must have a reason for collecting all this stuff. Per…

Not that it's a bulk of the business - but this would give google a legup for location targeted ads - I got a google ad for an autozone or similar once when I was one block from it - I am sure other data was also used to trigger that, but blinding fbook to this would mean that kind of ad dollar would be better spent with G if F didn't have that location data.

I also think there was a big push by these folks to also try to determine when you visited places to show that ads worked.. by getting your location at place X on this day and they showed an ad with 24 hours before for example.

F and G are also into people's "purchase history" / (debit card transactions, loyalty card data) for the same reason aren't I think (?)

I doubt FB is selling location to repo men like other location brokers - but that could change.

Dunno if ICE and other letter agencies buy loca data from F and G.. but like the Verizon thing about people's info is the new oil - gotta remember oil is used to create many more things than just gas. Sprint made more than a few pennies being forced to give up data, and so do others.

Certainly makes marketing dollars well spent when you can prove effectiveness and vice versa.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#219

Post by burnished »

drusepth wrote: post #150
burnished wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an app for most sites, its called my browser. If the app isn't taking advantage of a feature on my phone then it doesn't make sense to package it as an app.. unless they are getting something out of it. Going to make a broad and sweeping generalization here: they are getting money from tracking.

Counterthought: I've been running a popular web-only site for about 5 years now and I get a little under a hundred requests per month for it to be made "into an app". A lot of users just want to be able "to install it" or to "get to it from my home screen" or "to get to it faster" (even after pointing out they can add bookmarks to home screens). It's also tempting from my POV to make an app just for discoverability r…

That is interesting!

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#220

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

qualudeheart wrote: post #159
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago, I questioned those sort of pre-installations on smartphones of Facebook and G-whatever on HN. I got some reply that this is what users wanted. Total nonsense. At that time, most people who bought these computers had zero familiarity with these things. Anyway, users were never asked. There is no opt-out. There is a long history of pre-installed crapware on computers. It predates "smartphones" and "apps…

Custumors need to be taught agency to avoid this stuff. How can we teach it to them?

Perhaps it is not customers that need to be taught something but developers that need to be taught something.
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