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Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

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Re: Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

#221

Post by hakfoo »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #209
SiebenHeaven wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't turning js off make you one of the few people in the world that do this and hence easier to fingerprint?

I have seen this type of reasoning before in HN comments but from a user's perspective it does not make sense. Imagine every user is sending a maximum amount of information, which we can see keeps increasing over time, via HTTP headers (including cookies), browser capabilities, hardware capabilities, etc. This "run with the herd" reasoning seems to suggest the best way to avoid fingerprinting is to send the maximum a…

I'd posit that the biggest risk for advertisers is "plausible bullshit". Their ability to say "look at our huge tracking profiles" is dependent on both quantity and quality of data. If ad networks can't accurately sanitize their data, advertisers are going to balk at spending $6 per click for misprofiled audiences, when they can spray-and-pray "good enough" contextual ads for 30 cents a click.

Give me a VPN that regularly geolocates me at a Starbucks 30km out of town. Give me plugins that stuff my search history with a fixation on the Cincinnati Bengals and replacement parts for a 2013 Hyundai Accent. Yeah, they might see my actual traffic patterns, but the goal is to make it expensive and hard to filter the real use from the elaborate story.

Re: Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

#222

Post by tyingq »

Seirdy wrote: post #220
tyingq wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That post is helpful, but adding a global header across a site is typically very little effort. And there's nothing in there that says it's harmful. And I'm unconvinced on this part: "If your website does not include JS that calls document.interestCohort(), it will not leverage Google’s FLoC. Explicitly opting out will not change this." I try to know everything running on my site. But especially with things like a de…

If your stack is so deep that you're worried about serving malware to users for them to execute, you might want to put a warning on your site so users understand the risk before executing scripts. The fact that the above sentence sounds unrealistic nowadays is extremely depressing. If malware distribution through web browsers wasn't already the norm, it'd look like common sense.

Aside from the stack, I also mentioned a marketing department doing something the tech department wasn't aware of. It happens.

Re: Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

#223

Post by danShumway »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #208
danShumway wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone can spend 10 or 20 times as much as another person after basic food and shelter then that difference trumps all other factors by a very wide margin. I'm not sure I follow? Google ads don't cost a percentage of the final product price. How much I spend on advertising might be entirely unrelated to the per-item cost of my product -- and how profitable my company is might not have anything to do with how lu…

My assumption is simply that marketing/advertising spending as a share of revenues isn't hugely greater for products that poor people buy compared to what rich people buy. If that is true, then per person contributions to ad funded services would be roughly propotional to personal spending. Someone spending 10 times as much as another person would also pay 10 times as much for using Google search or Youtube. If these…

> If that is true, then per person contributions to ad funded services would be roughly propotional to personal spending. Someone spending 10 times as much as another person would also pay 10 times as much for using Google search or Youtube.

> If these services were subscription based then both would pay the same price in absolute terms, which is very regressive in comparison.

This is the part where you kind of lose me, unless a rich person is also watching 10x as many videos on Youtube. It seems like you're saying a fixed percentage of a person's spending is going to the websites they visit, but why would that be the case?

You will see the same number of ads on a Youtube video regardless of whether you're rich or poor. And the cost of each of those ads -- the amount of money that gets paid out by the business -- is based on the competition for the ad slot, not the price of the product. I wouldn't take it as a given that products like Taco Bell and Pepsi spend less on online advertising than a luxury watch brand. If anything, I would expect products in crowded consumer markets (ie lower-cost, non-specialized, mass-market goods and services) to have more competitive ad slots that cost more money to target.

So I understand that rich people spend more money, I agree with you on that. But I don't see how you're connecting that fact to the idea of more money from those rich people going to the websites who are displaying ads. I don't see the thread of logic that says that a product costing $500 per unit is contributing more ad money to a website than a product that costs $5 per unit.

Re: Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

#224

Post by fauigerzigerk »

danShumway wrote: post #223
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption is simply that marketing/advertising spending as a share of revenues isn't hugely greater for products that poor people buy compared to what rich people buy. If that is true, then per person contributions to ad funded services would be roughly propotional to personal spending. Someone spending 10 times as much as another person would also pay 10 times as much for using Google search or Youtube. If these…

> If that is true, then per person contributions to ad funded services would be roughly propotional to personal spending. Someone spending 10 times as much as another person would also pay 10 times as much for using Google search or Youtube. > If these services were subscription based then both would pay the same price in absolute terms, which is very regressive in comparison. This is the part where you kind of lose…

>It seems like you're saying a fixed percentage of a person's spending is going to the websites they visit, but why would that be the case?

Very roughly yes. Some percentage of a typical company's revenues is spent on ads, and revenues from each customer are obviously proportional to that customer's spending. It's the same thing (leaving aside sales taxes).

Companies try to maximise the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. The effectiveness depends on how many people actually go ahead and buy the product relative to how much the ads cost. If running ads on Youtube is less effective, then ads prices on Youtube would have to fall and Youtube would earn less.

Let's say only extremely poor people were using Youtube. None of them would ever buy a high-end smartphone. How much would high-end smartphone makers pay to Youtube for the honor of running ads there? The answer is zero.

Now let's say there are two groups of Youtube users. One group never buys a high-end smartphone. The other group buys one every year. Now it makes sense for smartphone makers to fund Youtube through their ads, but only the group actually buying smartphones pays for it. So the rich group effectively subsidises the poor group's Youtube usage.

I have chosen an extreme and unrealistic example to explain the principle. In reality, there will be a mix of products. The cheapest ones will be bought by almost everybody in roughly the same quantities, and some luxury goods are never advertised on Youtube at all. But the relationship between per person spending and that person's contribution to ad funding for the sites they visit still roughly holds.

This is what I think. I'm not an economist though. There are certainly many open questions as to how strong this redistribution effect is and what the effect of ad targeting is. But the claim that there is no such redistribution effect at all seems extremely implausible to me.

Re: Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

#226

Post by Seirdy »

tyingq wrote: post #222
Seirdy wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your stack is so deep that you're worried about serving malware to users for them to execute, you might want to put a warning on your site so users understand the risk before executing scripts. The fact that the above sentence sounds unrealistic nowadays is extremely depressing. If malware distribution through web browsers wasn't already the norm, it'd look like common sense.

Aside from the stack, I also mentioned a marketing department doing something the tech department wasn't aware of. It happens.

If the tech department needs to protect users from the marketing department and can't approve or advise changes the marketing department does, then this is a good short-term solution. Fixing the organizational issues would be a good long-term solution.

I do admit that "a visible vote against FLoC" is a good reason to put this header; I've updated the article.

Diff: https://git.sr.ht/~seirdy/seirdy.one/commit/155d4f7b915f9f04...

I don't think these votes will sway Google but I do think they'll spread awareness. I still think that a better use of our time is getting users off Chrome.

Re: Ad tech firms test ways to connect Google’s FLoC to other data

#227

Post by hkai »

Spivak wrote: post #166
hkai wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to disable it? Isn't it nice to see ads that are interesting and useful to you rather than looking at some useless ads you're not interested in?

The issue is buried in the premise of the question. “ If you’re going to see an ad regardless , would you rather it be relevant to you or not?” The answer is and always has been “I don’t want to see an ad in the first place, I don’t want you collecting any information about me under any circumstances, and anything that makes ads spots worth less is a positive.” You know the cheeky “you won’t see fewer ads, they’ll ju…

Interesting point of view. Have you ever sold a product? I assume not, otherwise I can't imagine how you would conclude that ads don't contribute to sales and don't bring value to customers.
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