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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

#261

Post by cm2012 »

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…

Data privacy is one of the least important issues of our day. People (especially on HN) get very passionate about it but are unable to produce specific harms Google and Meta ad tracking creates.

Could there be an issue in the future? Possibly. Are privacy laws like GDPR worth the economic and other harms? Probably not. The amount of wasted programmer hours alone has far overcome the negative impacts of big tech ad tracking.

Neither real life or the internet are anonymous. We live with other people. But Google and Meta in particular have an amazing 15 year track record of basically never leaking user data. Various national governments have been much worse in this regard.

Government risk from Meta and Google is meaningless in any case. The ISPs have all the same data and regularly share it with the government in response to warrants.

Also all the data is out there on me and you in a million databases. Just like in the 80s with the yellow books. Did you know you can buy a list of most Americans with an estimated credit score and income and other details? This is 50 year old tech.

On the other side, digital ads have a huge impact on the economy (Google and FB being some of the biggest companies in the world) because they provide a service of matching businesses with consumers interested in products. Targeted ads means they are much more enjoyable and effective at matching consumers to products they like. I've worked with dozens of small businesses that used targeted ads to survive and thrive.

It's not a good trade-off for the EU to ban targeted ads, in short.

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

#262

Post by lm28469 »

kwanbix wrote: post #6

I know in HN there is a big "personalized advertising" is bad sentiment, but I don't get what the problem is. I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. It is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads. So on one side, people w…

Jews in 1920s didn't have much issue with the German government knowing about their faith, fast forward 1933...

God knows what they'll use it for in the future, they'll know everything about you, who you voted for 15 years ago, what joke you make 20 years ago against the now-in-charge cast, do you sympathise with communist ideas ? Did you like or hate Musk before he becomes a dictator of the now independent Republic of Texas ? Did you use grinder ? Well too bad, homosexuality is now punishable by death retroactively. Looks like you illegally contacted a doctor for an abortion in 2027, that'll be 6 months of jail and a 30k fine ;)

You don't see the problem because you live in an abnormally quiet and abnormally peaceful (for you) time. The thing is your data is forever, the state of peace not so much

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

#263

Post by belter »

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…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it"

  - Upton Sinclair

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

#264

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

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.”

How does political manipulation look in a world where the platforms can't tell two users apart? Without the ability to tell a different story to each user, you're left trying to sway the masses all together. That's not manipulation, that's democracy.

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

#265

Post by gpvos »

Eridrus wrote: post #257
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?

Cambridge Analytica.

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

#266

Post by noqc »

Eridrus wrote: post #257
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?

In chess, you must learn that sometimes positions cannot be evaluated on material alone.

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

#267

Post by justinclift »

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?

Google Nest? Amazon Alexa? Apple Siri?

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

#268

Post by bluelu »

I don't understand why this only applies for Facebook then.

2 1/2 years, ago they opened up a loop hole for newspapers that they are explicitly allowed to do it (Either you pay, or when you use their free version, you must accept to be tracked for behavioural advertising).

Are they any better than facebook?

Some example news sites: www.zeit.de, www.spiegel.de

More information on this:

https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V... (german)

And https://www.consilium.europa.eu/de/press/press-releases/2021...

Look here (referenced pdf in the above url): https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6087-2021-I...

(21aa) In some cases the use of processing and storage capabilities of terminal equipment and the collection of information from end-users' terminal equipment may also be necessary for providing a service, requested by the enduser, such as services provided in accordance with the freedom of expression and information including for journalistic purposes, e.g. online newspaper or other press publications as defined in Article 2 (4) of Directive (EU) 2019/790, that is wholly or mainly financed by advertising provided that, in addition, the end-user has been provided with clear, precise and user-friendly information about the purposes of cookies or similar techniques and has accepted such use.

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

#269

Post by beejiu »

startages wrote: post #16
leksak wrote: post #5

> Meta has stated that it had already announced plans to provide users in the EU and EEA with an opportunity to provide consent and will introduce a subscription model in November to comply with regulatory requirements This effectively means then that if you are in the EU and you'd want to use either Facebook or Instagram you'd have to pay for a subscription then because they presumably won't offer the free-service w…

Exactly, and I personally don't see anything wrong with this approach. You can't offer a free service if you can't make money from it somehow.

The problem is the network effect dissolves. There's no point being on Facebook if 80% of your friends leave because they don't want to pay for it.

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

#270

Post by data_monkey »

josephg wrote: post #165
MereInterest wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. A company can bar the exits, letting you burn to death [0]. A company can send private militias to force you to work [1] (or because you were sent the wrong set of MtG cards [2]). A company can improperly store pesticide, until the resulting explosion kills thousands [3]. A company can own every house and store in a town, managing your expenses to ensur…

Yep. And when I’m unhappy with my government, I can vote them out or, if I want to, get politically active. I can’t vote out Google. Their customers are advertisers, not me. And I don’t know which apps on my phone send my information to Facebook or what they do with it.

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