301–310 of 398 posts
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Do you believe that people providing a service should not be able to choose how to charge for it in any other context outside of websites?
Do you believe the person who owns the computer has a right to how that webpage is displayed?
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I mostly agree with you on sites with no ToS or sites where you're not a registered user. I think that the concept that a ToS is considered by you to be malicious, yet you agree with it anyway in order to receive services is where the problem lies. That seems intentionally deceptive to me. If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site?
> If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site? Because I still need to buy stuff? eBay is a monopoly in online auctions and secondhand goods from non-local locations. I don't have a choice. This isn't 1980 where you probably had a lot of options for auctions that didn't track your user data. Those auctions are largely gone. Amazon is a near monopoly in e-commerce in that there are lots of things I buy that ar…
Sure, but presumably that should be their decision as the service provider, not yours.
I find it so weird idea that people really click on ads. I don't know if I've ever done so (intentionally). As such I would have expected more like 90% of clicks to be fraudulent.
People do click them but unsurprisingly the rate is pretty low. Often times ~0.5% - 1% for a reasonably well targeted ad. So 1 in 100-200.
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> If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site? Because I still need to buy stuff? eBay is a monopoly in online auctions and secondhand goods from non-local locations. I don't have a choice. This isn't 1980 where you probably had a lot of options for auctions that didn't track your user data. Those auctions are largely gone. Amazon is a near monopoly in e-commerce in that there are lots of things I buy that ar…
> It makes zero sense for them to kick me off for thwarting their user tracking and data sharing attempts. It would be a lose-lose for them to do that Sure, but presumably that should be their decision as the service provider, not yours.
Also, note that a big part of this is also that the ToS was not bilaterally negotiated. They, as a near-monopoly, presented a ToS that they were not willing to negotiate with, and required agreeing to it to provide service.
In much of the contract world, both parties negotiate terms before signing -- for example, investor term sheets, contractor work, business partnerships. In situations like that where I have a voice, and have a fair share of negotiating space with an agreement before signing, I am normally very respectful of what I agreed to, but if I was not offered that opportunity, to hell with it, I will go by my idea of what I think is right, and they can kick me off if they want to and lose their $10K/year in revenue. Most of the time, they'd probably rather take the $10K than pick a fight over ad blockers.
Every newspaper in America has obvious scam ads on its homepage. The whole online ad market is diseased and needs to be uprooted. Common sense fixes: - Never allow dynamic ad content! Ads should be individually approved by publishers and not subject to change after approval. - Ban user tracking and targeting. It's a red queen's race and no one benefits. Everyone is better off once it's illegal. - Pay for ad time slot…
>Pay for ad time slots, not user impressions. This is probably the worst thing you can do to online advertising. It's probably one of the only good things about the online ad industry. If you book time slots, only the biggest players will be able to compete for that slot. Essentially killing the entire selling point of online ads, which is giving a chance to smaller players a chance at the game. I don't want to, ever…
They shouldn't know any ID, not even one that gets sent only to that one advertiser and is reset after 30 days.[0] Even that much data shouldn't be stored, because it's not needed unless you want to do shady tracking-related stuff (e.g. run statistics that determine who gets a special offer with a lower price).
The way it's ‘done properly’ right now is that advertisers can subscribe to a segment of consumers who recently looked at X-type products from stores A, B, or C, in region Y. Then they make bids on how much an ad impression is worth to them when a match shows up. Kind of like auto-bidding on eBay, except more meta. The problem with this is that there still needs to be some ad platform that tracks user IDs. The better ones have a reputation to uphold, so they'll make some effort to protect consumers … from finding out what's really being tracked and when there was a leak.
I like the idea of giving smaller players a chance, but:
You don't need any tracking for targeted ads.
A lot of the most relevant ads I see are on Youtube, where I have personalisation turned off. Composer explains music theory? Music store. Chef explains recipe? Cooking classes from lecture video site. Formula 1? Expensive car brand. And energy drinks. E-sports? Gaming peripherals. And different energy drinks. Half the time, no meaningful match could be made and I get something generic. Neighbouring Swamponia is beautiful in toad season. These douche-bros will give me totally legit financial advice for free. The insurance I already use has a great product for people twice my age. Founder of local thimble manufactory rambles incoherently for five minutes.
In aggregate, that's way more relevant to me than ”you recently bought that power bank you needed, so here's another power bank”. I skipped 9/10 ads after 5 seconds, but now I know which brand makes a 6-string bass that's affordable for a guitarist who'd just like to give it a go for a bit. And I did see offerings from smaller players. So I also learned that the local neo-nazi party is pretty good at folk dancing. Homeland, sweet auto-tuned homeland.
I don't blindly assume that Google aren't tracking anything I don't want them to store. But they show me a lot of targeted ads and there's never any indication that they know what I did last summer.
[0] Oh, and obviously even that kind of ID shouldn't identify an entire device. When your offspring borrows your tablet to play Candycraft, do you want them to see ads meant for you? Do they want to see those ads?
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It's a fundamentally selfish viewpoint that you instead of the site you're using should decide how you consume what the site offers, a point of view that would be considered patently outrageous in many other contexts. Many people here confuse such a thing being possible with such a thing being morally justifiable.
> It's a fundamentally selfish viewpoint that you instead of the site you're using should decide how you consume what the site offers, a point of view that would be considered patently outrageous in many other contexts. I'd argue the opposite. It's fundamentally selfish for a site to assume that _it_ gets to decide, without my agreement or consent, how I must consume the content it has freely and unconditionally sent…
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The problem with any model where ad performance is based on how much cash you can throw down is that scams are much more profitable typically than legitimate services. A scam page can afford $5/click if it's scamming 1% of its clicks for $5000. Bidding on clicks is just a race to the bottom in terms of quality. We should instead be using user metrics to evaluate and punish ads that lead to pages users regret navigati…
The solution to that is right at the start of this thread: > "Never allow dynamic ad content! Ads should be individually approved by publishers and not subject to change after approval."
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>Pay for ad time slots, not user impressions. This is probably the worst thing you can do to online advertising. It's probably one of the only good things about the online ad industry. If you book time slots, only the biggest players will be able to compete for that slot. Essentially killing the entire selling point of online ads, which is giving a chance to smaller players a chance at the game. I don't want to, ever…
> they should only know that a certain device with a certain ID likes X,Y topics They shouldn't know any ID, not even one that gets sent only to that one advertiser and is reset after 30 days.[0] Even that much data shouldn't be stored, because it's not needed unless you want to do shady tracking-related stuff (e.g. run statistics that determine who gets a special offer with a lower price). The way it's ‘done properl…
(Wait, what? You just said I'm completely new here.)
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Alright, Black Mirror, I'll grant you that. But apart from How TV Ruined Your Life, Newswipe, Black Mirror, and Weekly Wipe … what has Charlie Brooker ever done for us?
Fair enough, Antiviral Wipe. But apart from How TV Ruined Your Life, Newswipe, Black Mirror, Black Mirror, Black Mirror, Black Mirror, Black Mirror …