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Google’s GDPR Workaround

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Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#261

Post by [deleted] »

endorphone wrote: post #222
mumblemumble wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting thing to me about that McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit is how different the narrative is in popular circles vs. in legal circles. It's a little bit like in Rashomon . In popular circles, the story is framed in a way that does make the lawsuit look frivolous. But this is also a case that has made it into the legal textbooks as an example of corporate negligence that's clear-cut enough to use for d…

Are you a lawyer? Because this take is quite remarkable, especially given that the overwhelming public sentiment is that McDonalds was heinously negligent, coupled with a lot of supporting but not entirely factual claims to justify that position. I feel like the same people who were jeering at the victim just marched over to sainting her and demonizing McDonalds. The Internet extreme position machine. Everything has…

[deleted]

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#262

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

fmajid wrote: post #199
idlerig wrote: post #192

This is exactly what happened in the McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit. It wasn't some "Karen" who hit a bump while driving. It was an elderly woman (in her 70s, IIRC), sitting in the passenger seat. McDonalds already had complaints (and some lawsuits) over the (significantly higher than industry standard) temperature of their coffee, so this wasn't exactly out of the blue. She ended up with 3rd degree burns on her leg…

And the money went to Shriners' Hospital, not the burn victim (I saw the photos, they are beyond horrific). What's more, McDonalds had been advised their coffee temperature was dangerous, but decided to ignore this for marketing reasons, because people like the look of steaming coffee.

Not even that... if you put the coffee that high, people would be less likely to ask for a refill as the coffee took longer to cool off.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#263

Post by maest »

stonogo wrote: post #157
thekyle wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a total straw man.

I'm not sure it is. https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/116191039733676851...

Is that satire? I'm genuinely unsure if that's a real account, a shill, innocent satire or malicious satire.

I wonder what that says about the state of "truth" on the Internet.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#264

Post by Zarath »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #150
glogla wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about for creating and keeping up a global surveillance-capitalism system where billions of people are tracked, profiles, stripped of their privacy and manipulated, thus disrupting democracy and civic society?

[flagged]

"(funny how privacy advocates are more upset about Amazon knowing your secrets than the government, who have an actual incentive to use it against you)"

Actually going to disagree with this one. AFAIK, the government has not used their collected information against me at any point in my life as far as I can tell. However, these tech companies are using it literally every day to try and manipulate my decision making.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#265

Post by adossi »

ta0987 wrote: post #190
ahallock wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If somebody looks over my shoulder and sees the ads presented to me, they can infer things about me. You have to take some personal responsibility, though. If they saw your Youtube recommendations or your Spotify playlist, they'd probably make inferences as well. That porn link in your history you forgot to clear? Be aware of who's watching and browse anonymously if you're concerned.

I've had ads for sketchy shit I googled at home on my personal computer show up on my work computer at the office.

I've had ads for things that I only just spoke about, out loud, to someone near me like a friend or family member, show up on a computer in a different country.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#266

Post by rpastuszak »

la_barba wrote: post #244
rpastuszak wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Contextual Targeting (target based on what I am reading) could work, although the industry seems to be clinging to Behavioural Targeting (target based on who I am). This will become more important for Open Web due to the 3p cookie constraints, regulatory changes etc..., but Google/Amazon/FB are less likely to be impacted. In fact Contextual Targeting predates the current approaches, but it became less important…

Yes, we can do contextual targeting, but after that, what are the ways to improve upon the outcomes (from an advertisers standpoint) without violating privacy?

Depends on the outcomes/metrics they’re interested in. For instance, I genuinely believe that targeting based on content is less dangerous from brand safety/brand perception perspective.

How about conversions, sweet $$?

I think replacing audiences with a semantic targeting model (nlp) could perform almost as good (if not better). Behavioural Targeting performance is overrated (feel free to look it up, esp. CPM vs. conversions, it’s quite interesting, I’m on holiday and shouldn’t be sitting on HN anyway!).

Another, deeper point-how much advertising do we (or brands) really need? Do alternatives exist, are they expensive/hard? What problem does advertising solve? I know this sounds like a silly question, but I think it’s worth asking given the current technical landscape and the ethical impact.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#267

Post by aggie »

endorphone wrote: post #222
mumblemumble wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting thing to me about that McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit is how different the narrative is in popular circles vs. in legal circles. It's a little bit like in Rashomon . In popular circles, the story is framed in a way that does make the lawsuit look frivolous. But this is also a case that has made it into the legal textbooks as an example of corporate negligence that's clear-cut enough to use for d…

Are you a lawyer? Because this take is quite remarkable, especially given that the overwhelming public sentiment is that McDonalds was heinously negligent, coupled with a lot of supporting but not entirely factual claims to justify that position. I feel like the same people who were jeering at the victim just marched over to sainting her and demonizing McDonalds. The Internet extreme position machine. Everything has…

I don't know what makes you so certain that general sentiment is anti-McDonald's in this case. I have only ever heard the story given as an example of the frivolous lawsuits brought by overly-litigious Americans. It makes a good example of that ("they sued over hot coffee?"). The alternate framing, that McDonald's made coffee too hot, doesn't make for a very noteworthy or pithy story, so I'm skeptical of your take on the public opinion.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#268

Post by carstenhag »

edoceo wrote: post #223
mfer wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reference? Looking around I didn't see anything. I might have missed it though.

Maybe Carbon ads?

Yeah, carbon seems to be pretty good. I used to see it on codepen and some other design website. Always relevant, but carbon seems limited to developers and designers.

Some other ad thing which doesn't need tracking: Sponsored posts or targeting people who follow someone on Instagram.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#269

Post by ummonk »

hexadec wrote: post #7
kd5bjo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my (admittedly limited) understanding, this is not actually legal under the GDPR. Certainly the alleged (but not demonstrated) behind-the-scenes trading of personal info isn’t, but the shared id is also personally-identifying information, and directly regulated.

It is very not legal, but I think the parent was saying these regulations are more onerous to small dev shops rather than Google and the fine for this will be minuscule. Hopefully companies will find paths to revenue that do not require selling out there users to this level, maybe by just having ad auctions without any identifying information at all.

This has always been absurd. Large companies have way more code and features in general which need to be checked for compliance, whereas small shops with small sets of data and features will have a far easier time complying with GDPR.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#270

Post by tzs »

hexadec wrote: post #110
intopieces wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should ads rule the web at all? Surely the cleverest engineers to walk the planet can come up with a new way of making money that doesn’t involve psychological manipulation.

I agree with you in theory, but until we can figure out micro-transactional payments that work globally it seems ads are good stepping stone. People want to get paid for work, some users are willing to pay (cash) some with attention to ads. We should not give up our privacy or anonymity for this attention though.

Micro-transaction payments are probably a long way away, for non-tech reasons. Briefly, you might have to deal with collecting and remitting sales taxes or VAT in any jurisdiction in which you have paying readers.

Until there is some sort of agreement among the relevant jurisdictions to greatly reduce the pain of this, direct micro-transactions with your site's visitors are likely to be a bureaucratic nightmare.

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