Mozilla becoming active in online advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#31

Post by mossTechnician » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:33 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #30

mossTechnician wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally don't buy into the notion that advertisement is inherently good or necessary. Especially when the "best" ads effectively manipulate emotions and remain in people's subconscious. A corner store cashier does not have the raw processing power and money of an ad network. If they tracked one customer with as much of vigilance as the average ad network, they should probably get slapped with a restraining order…

The article you linked to, regarding Target, is exactly what your corner store cashier is doing. There is literally no difference. You are conflating two different things - stores retargeting existing customers and recommending products they think are relevant vs. ad networks like Google that track you across channels so that they may serve the most relevant ads to you based on your interests. Neither are bad, and bo…

> Neither are bad, and both are necessary.

Ad networks that track you are necessary?

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#32

Post by crtasm » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:33 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #25

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use context from the site, just not from stalking the user. Showing diaper ads on a site about babies is fine. Showing ads for AWS on a tech site is fine. Showing diaper ads on a tech site because you've been spying on the user and decided that they might have a baby is a problem even if it does happen to be true.

Why is it a problem if the user searches/shops for diapers, and then advertisers show diaper ads? The person is interested in diapers after all, and you don't just buy diapers once.

Because it's none of their business what websites I'm looking at, especially completely unrelated websites. Remove the re-targeting and tracking then they don't need to know who's looking at the page.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#33

Post by Alupis » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

mossTechnician wrote: post #31

Alupis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you linked to, regarding Target, is exactly what your corner store cashier is doing. There is literally no difference. You are conflating two different things - stores retargeting existing customers and recommending products they think are relevant vs. ad networks like Google that track you across channels so that they may serve the most relevant ads to you based on your interests. Neither are bad, and bo…

> Neither are bad, and both are necessary. Ad networks that track you are necessary ?

Define track please. You seem to assume they're doing something nefarious or that they couldn't observe if you walked into a store.

To answer your question - yes. If you want relevant ads for items you might be interested in, then advertisers need to know what you are interested in. It's that simple.

Your own cited article about Target is evidence of why this is a good thing.

Your position that advertising is manipulative and unnecessary is disconnected with reality as well.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#34

Post by Alupis » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:41 PM UTC

crtasm wrote: post #32

Alupis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a problem if the user searches/shops for diapers, and then advertisers show diaper ads? The person is interested in diapers after all, and you don't just buy diapers once.

Because it's none of their business what websites I'm looking at, especially completely unrelated websites. Remove the re-targeting and tracking then they don't need to know who's looking at the page.

You probably use a debit or credit card for a lot of your purchases - don't you?

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#35

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:45 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #25

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use context from the site, just not from stalking the user. Showing diaper ads on a site about babies is fine. Showing ads for AWS on a tech site is fine. Showing diaper ads on a tech site because you've been spying on the user and decided that they might have a baby is a problem even if it does happen to be true.

Why is it a problem if the user searches/shops for diapers, and then advertisers show diaper ads? The person is interested in diapers after all, and you don't just buy diapers once.

Couple reasons, depending on where those ads are:

1. If I search for diapers, and get ads for diapers, the usual pattern is to show the ads above the real search results, which tricks people into buying more expensive and/or lower quality products (after all, why else would the company need to pay to show up at the top of the search results?).

2. If I search for diapers on one site and get shown ads on a different site, then it follows that companies are trading information about me behind my back, which is not okay from a privacy perspective.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#36

Post by tzs » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:05 PM UTC

wmwragg wrote: post #16

lovethevoid wrote: post #11

Interesting the Mozilla board interpreted "ease off the Google reliance money" to mean "become Google" The core of the problem is really in this very paragraph: > Right now, the tradeoffs people are asked to make online are too significant. Yes, advertising enables free access to most of what the internet provides, but the lack of practical control we all have over how our data is collected and shared is unacceptable…

It used to be completely normal, and profitable, to effectively advertise without personal information. The idea that this is now required for advertising is just wrong, and shouldn't be accepted as such

> It used to be completely normal, and profitable, to effectively advertise without personal information.

It used to be completely normal to get all of our news and entertainment through a small number of curated channels. What works for advertising in that environment won't necessarily work in the massively different news and entertainment environment we now have.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#37

Post by krunck » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:39 PM UTC

lovethevoid wrote: post #11

Interesting the Mozilla board interpreted "ease off the Google reliance money" to mean "become Google" The core of the problem is really in this very paragraph: > Right now, the tradeoffs people are asked to make online are too significant. Yes, advertising enables free access to most of what the internet provides, but the lack of practical control we all have over how our data is collected and shared is unacceptable…

> advertising enables free access

The solution is to pay for the tools you use.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#38

Post by Alupis » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:42 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #35

Alupis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a problem if the user searches/shops for diapers, and then advertisers show diaper ads? The person is interested in diapers after all, and you don't just buy diapers once.

Couple reasons, depending on where those ads are: 1. If I search for diapers, and get ads for diapers, the usual pattern is to show the ads above the real search results, which tricks people into buying more expensive and/or lower quality products (after all, why else would the company need to pay to show up at the top of the search results?). 2. If I search for diapers on one site and get shown ads on a different si…

> which tricks people into buying more expensive and/or lower quality products

> why else would the company need to pay to show up at the top of the search results?

I dare say you do not understand how search results have worked for the past two decades.

> then it follows that companies are trading information about me behind my back

That is not how it works.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#39

Post by deafpolygon » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 9:01 PM UTC

The milk has run dry at the Mozilla teat, so now they need to wring blood from stone.

Re: Mozilla becoming active in online advertising

#40

Post by WCSTombs » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 9:05 PM UTC

lovethevoid wrote: post #11

Interesting the Mozilla board interpreted "ease off the Google reliance money" to mean "become Google" The core of the problem is really in this very paragraph: > Right now, the tradeoffs people are asked to make online are too significant. Yes, advertising enables free access to most of what the internet provides, but the lack of practical control we all have over how our data is collected and shared is unacceptable…

> You can't advertise effectively and profitably without personal information.

There are plenty of successful creators (e.g., on YouTube) that do exactly that, by getting advertisers to sponsor them. From what I understand, it seems to work pretty well. Those advertisements obviously can't use personal information, since they're part of the video.