Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 765 posts

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#241

Post by konschubert »

mrtksn wrote: post #199
konschubert wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, this is so embarrassing to read. The US is one of the oldest democracies on earth. "You can give the government infinite power, we will do a revolution, no big deal." Do you have any idea with how much suffering each revolution has been paid for? And remind me again how the revolutionaries overthrew Nazi Germany? The sowjet bloc created decades of suffering and blood but according to you that's fine be…

Who said anything about giving government infinite power? It's just difference of attitudes. Europeans tend to trust the government more than the corporations. No need for ridiculous examples, for every bad politician example there exist a bad corporation example. You say nazis, I say Bhopal disaster. No need for that, at least the Nazis payed dearly for it. Corporations are unaccountable. >And remind me again how th…

Okay I think we’re done here.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#242

Post by equalsione »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #122
mjburgess wrote: post #90

Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data. Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking. It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., go…

Why should it be illegal? I don’t understand the moral threat. Personally I feel that privacy gets too much airtime as a value — I see lots of other more direct issues (like political manipulation) that will remain an issue even with “strong privacy.”

The moral threat is that your private data is processed and transformed into influence. And it's been the case over an over again that that influence is wielded without accountability or care for those being targeted. The methods of applying that influence are sometimes sophisticated, sometimes crude but almost always effective. The only protections against this an individual has is privacy. Yes there are other forms of influence, but targeted campaigns feed from data that _should_ be private is vastly more toxic.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#243

Post by mrtksn »

konschubert wrote: post #241
mrtksn wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about giving government infinite power? It's just difference of attitudes. Europeans tend to trust the government more than the corporations. No need for ridiculous examples, for every bad politician example there exist a bad corporation example. You say nazis, I say Bhopal disaster. No need for that, at least the Nazis payed dearly for it. Corporations are unaccountable. >And remind me again how th…

Okay I think we’re done here.

I hope so, I'm not in mood to deal with angry people online.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#244

Post by sidlls »

gardenhedge wrote: post #233
renegat0x0 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit company does not have microphone near your bed, they do not know which posts you like, or not, they do not have all your mails, and not necessarily know where you drive and how often. Keeping all of the data under one company umbrella is vulnerable, target for hackers, and easy target for governments. Your post is not correct.

While I am all for privacy, which companies enable the microphone next to your bed and collect personal data with it?

At least TikTok definitely uses data somehow from microphones, without any (explicit) consent.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#245

Post by ygjb »

pb7 wrote: post #229
staunton wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in an age where the idea of large corporations is still fairly young (much younger than governments) and where governments are much stronger than corporations. However, if Google could get away with running a police, I think it's pretty obvious they would. This judicial system would benefit their commercial interests and ignore any semblance of "right" you might think you deserve. A shadow of that situation i…

> However, if Google could get away with running a police, I think it's pretty obvious they would. Absurd premise. It might be obvious only to those deluded into thinking that being shown relevant ads in order to use products for free is some sort of tyranny.

Are you kidding? Have you seen the way that big tech companies use and abuse the legal system to target people, for example, who come into possession of leaked hardware prototypes?

Where they could manage private licenses to enforce state powers over matters material to their business interests, you can bet they would in a heart beat.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#246

Post by falsaberN1 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #192
falsaberN1 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that they show you the notebook after you have purchased one. The car after you bought one. Medical services after you get back from the hospital. Your ability to discover relevant products from targeted advertisement is flawed to begin with.

Having non-personalized ads won't really change this though. I would still have poorly targeted personal ads instead of entirely random ads.

I'd rather have random ads have a chance to show me something I want that targeted ads showing me something I already stopped wanting. EDIT: I'd add, I never get ads for stuff like food, which are the ads that work for me on TV ("That looks good, I might try that") but online I only get ads for tech products, usually ones I don't need (because I do my homework and found something better) or I already use. Let's not get into products not available for purchase in my country...

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#247

Post by kwanbix »

thfuran wrote: post #193
kwanbix wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you need to do is regulate what they can do with the data, not forbid personalized ads. By the way, here in Europe we have universal healthcare, maybe is something the US should consider?

Is there any good reason not to both legally protect privacy and ban the largest part of the market for the invasively collected data (which seems to me to fall nearly under regulating what can be done with the data)?

Are you willing to pay for all internet websites then?

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#248

Post by kwanbix »

drcongo wrote: post #213
kwanbix wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you need to do is regulate what they can do with the data, not forbid personalized ads. By the way, here in Europe we have universal healthcare, maybe is something the US should consider?

We don't have universal life insurance in Europe though, maybe think things through a bit. Your arguments are so thin and bad faith that I'm convinced you're just trolling now.

What do you mean? Of course we have universal healthcare, at least in Germany we have, and in Spain also, same for Switzerland, and Netherlands.

But is funny, people want all (most?) things free, nobody wants to pay for news for example, but they don't want ads at the same time.

Makes no sense at all.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#249

Post by pb7 »

mrtksn wrote: post #164
pembrook wrote: post #75

Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger a…

This very American point of view, for some reason the Americans believe that politicians are some other kind of breed of people coming from somewhere else and they don't have control over them. The more European point of view is that companies are run by greedy people on who we have no control and we need the government to keep those in check. We have control over the governments and it's O.K. to take them down by fo…

You are naive if you think Europeans have any semblance of control. What good did all those French riots do this year? Last I checked, the retirement age change got signed into law anyway. All they did was cause damage to their cities the cost of which is levied back onto them.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#250

Post by lm28469 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #122
mjburgess wrote: post #90

Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data. Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking. It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., go…

Why should it be illegal? I don’t understand the moral threat. Personally I feel that privacy gets too much airtime as a value — I see lots of other more direct issues (like political manipulation) that will remain an issue even with “strong privacy.”

> like political manipulation

Take 5 minutes to imagine how political troll campaigns are targeting their audience...

Post reply on HN