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EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

reuters.com

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

#251

Post by alkonaut »

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…

I think in the context of privacy "personalised" always means "personalised by using information the publisher shouldn't have".

Facebook has my age and home town, knows what many of my interests are via groups I'm in. I don't think it's wrong to say I have given them that information voluntarily and so long as they keep it on their servers only, I'm ok with them showing me a mountainbike ad because I'm a 40yo male who is in a mountainbiking facebook group.

I don't consent to them showing me an ad for a specific mountainbike that I placed in the shoppingbasket at cheap-mountanibikes dot com last week, and then abandoned there, and the reason they know is because the store has some kind of arrangement of any kind with facebook. That's the kind of thing I don't think I should even be allowed to consent to.

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

#252

Post by lm28469 »

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…

> The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs.

May I introduce you to my good friend "lobbyism" ? He's very good at connecting people with money and people with political power.

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

#253

Post by alkonaut »

prmoustache wrote: post #161

At the same time EU wants to break SSL and facilitate man of the middle attacks. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/fr/policies/discover-e... https://nce.mpi-sp.org/index.php/s/cG88cptFdaDNyRr

I think that's the work of a campaign within the EU (and from lobbyists). I don't think it represents a majority opinion neither by elected people or bureaucrats. If a proposal like this ever passes it will be because them and us didn't care enough to stop it.

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

#254

Post by devoutsalsa »

lapphi wrote: post #236
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…

Upon logging into okcupid today I received a pop up inviting me to join The League (another dating app), with my phone number already pre-propagated. After accepting, they sent me this email. > We use the combination of your Facebook and LinkedIn data plus your About Me and Photos to ensure we are building a balanced, high-achieving and diverse community. Our screening algorithm looks at indicators like social influe…

Reminds of the days when your name, address, and phone number were automatically listed in the phone book. You had to pay the phone company to not list your information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory

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

#255

Post by mcv »

kwanbix wrote: post #247
thfuran wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Banning personalised ads does not mean banning all ads. Although personally, I'm no fan of any kind of ads, and I wouldn't mind if the entire ad industry disappeared.

And if that means ad-driven websites disappear too, I don't see that as a big loss. The best websites are not ad-driven.

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

#256

Post by red_admiral »

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…

Indeed. Targeted ads far predate the internet: someone who advertises in the Podunk Catholic church magazine is targeting a different audience to someone advertising in the same town's Baptist church newsletter. All ads are somewhat personalised to their intended audience.

It's the tracking thing that has to go.

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

#257

Post by Eridrus »

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…

Do you have any evidence of an actual harm being inflicted on a meaningful amount of people that would be sufficient to shutdown such a large amount of economic activity?

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

#258

Post by alkonaut »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #84
thfuran wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, it is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads Good. A well-functioning market might emerge instead.

Somehow, by excluding poorer folks, you get a well-functioning market? I doubt it. Regulation is the best chance for well-functioning markets. I highly doubt we are going to be without advertisements.

Forcing poor people to be without their privacy whereas everyone who can spend pennies for digital services get to keep theirs also doesn't sound perfect.

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

#259

Post by Bad_CRC »

LightHugger wrote: post #100
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…

When you realize that large enough corporations are a form of government, your way of thinking really starts falling to bits... But, the government is the solution to when business gets too much power. You can't convince a profit motivated corporation to stop doing something evil as long as it's profitable, so it's the government's job to protect people from corporate governance.

people talk about qanon a governments in the shadows while they are in the open in the form of mega corporations...

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

#260

Post by mrtksn »

pb7 wrote: post #249
mrtksn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>What good did all those French riots do this year

Riots don't necessarily need to achieve an objective. It creates a political and economical cost to politicians. It means that you can't simply ignore the minority only because you currently have a majority, so it forces them to consider a compromise good enough. That's not always possible but it's essentially what separates France from Turkey. In Turkey, Erdogan wins the elections by %51 and completely ignores the %49 because they can't win an election and can't disrupt the public anymore.

>You are naive if you think Europeans have any semblance of control

Who do you think has control?

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