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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

#351

Post by fsflover »

Thorrez wrote: post #200
fsflover wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But are personalized Facebook ads really an example of this? Yes: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health (tau.ac.il) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938622 Facebook collecting people's data even when accounts are deactivated (digiday.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29817297 Facebook test asks users if they're worried a friend is 'becoming an extremist' (cnn.com) https://news.ycombinator…

The 1st and 3rd link don't seem related to ads. The 4th link isn't loading for me, so I can't tell if it's related to ads. It's not clear to me that the 2nd link will be impacted by this new EU regulation.

Personalized ads means personalized tracking. The consequences are my links.

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

#352

Post by mportela »

chroma wrote: post #321
vharuck wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And what's the solution when the government gets too much power? Elections and courts. Compared to private entities, the government is very restricted in what it can do. When a company says, "We won't share your data with anyone," there's nothing you can do when they change their mind. But you can sue the government for damages.

> Compared to private entities, the government is very restricted in what it can do. Companies can’t point guns at me and put me in a cage. They can’t go into my home without my permission and search my stuff. And if I don’t want to deal with a company, I can simply stop interacting with them. If I don’t want to deal with a government, I have to emigrate and renounce my citizenship.

> Companies can’t point guns at me and put me in a cage.

But they used to, once upon a time, until they were limited from doing so.

> And if I don’t want to deal with a company, I can simply stop interacting with them.

Except when you can't. There's no "stop interacting" for a bunch of things in today's society. Google/Facebook tracks you even when you're not using their products. If you want a non-tech example, try stop interacting with Experian, for instance.

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

#353

Post by mcv »

chroma wrote: post #343
xigoi wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many websites don't have ads, and I'd be happy if all others disappeared.

Ok but you’re not the only person on the internet. Other people have different preferences, and in fact some even enjoy personalized ads. Nobody is forcing you to look at ads on the internet, so why is it fair to force others to not look at ads on the internet?

The solution is obvious: make personalised ads and ad profiles opt-in. Those who want them can choose to give up their privacy and eye-ball capacity, while the rest of can be free from those intrusions.

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

#354

Post by wilsonnb3 »

lm28469 wrote: post #262
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…

Why do people think that this hypothetical future evil government is going to care whether the people they persecute are actually guilty of “crimes”?

Despotic regimes have never had a problem finding plenty of people to kill. They aren’t going to be thwarted in their pursuit of LGBTQ people because they can’t get a list of people who used Grindr.

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

#355

Post by xigoi »

kelipso wrote: post #125
squigz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this comment. I am getting sick of this implication that it's one way or another - we either accept the gross invasion of the privacy of billions of people and let companies do whatever they want with that data... or we're freeloading assholes who just want everything for free and clearly we don't understand how business and the world works. Unfortunately many people seem to ignore the fact that it isn't o…

Ya it's not like there's a real need for these companies to exist anyway. Most people will happily go back to sms messages and calls if they shut down. Not a big deal.

Ah yes, because SMS and calls are the only ways to contact people without giving your data to megacorporations. Services like Matrix and Jitsi don't exist.

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

#357

Post by lock-the-spock »

germandiago wrote: post #346

I am an european and I am pretty sure that some day in the EU they will regulate even the position to go to po... Also, we are pretty broke now so get ready for looking for gold even underground... In the meantime... these people do not do more important homework...

Personally I find this quite an important issue. Whether you don't care is your own choice, but not all us are happy to live in a panopticon.

And the EU is in fact mainly a trade body, setting standards and categorisations, so there are likely some rules on toilets already in EU acquis on health and safety at the workplace, etc. I doubt they oblige a specific position though, you can rest in peace on the piece

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

#358

Post by kwanbix »

mcv wrote: post #255
kwanbix wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you think a generic ad has the same value as a personalzied ad?

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

#359

Post by bcrosby95 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #302
elzbardico wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^this. I don't have anything against personalized ads based on information that I willingly share. If I am following a bunch of groups of kite-surfers, I actually welcome ads for kite-surfing gears and services while browsing those groups. If I explicitly decide to share my address on my social network profile AND, explicitly authorize the use of this information for targeting, I don't mind, and actually welcome seei…

I am curious what widespread legislation on this front is going to cause. Not meaning to defend surveillance capitalism in the slightest, it belongs in the dustbin of history for reasons too numerous to articulate, but merely from the perspective that personalized ads that creep on you were essentially made a load-bearing column of the Internet before anyone knew how creepy they were going to get with it, and now jus…

Maybe FAANG salaries will fall and teams of phds will have to spend their time on something other than raising ad targeting effectiveness by a fraction of a percent.

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

#360

Post by cm2012 »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #292
cm2012 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

> ... but are unable to produce specific harms Google and Meta ad tracking creates. One of the first results of a Google search: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3555102 > Also all the data is out there and me and my family in a million databases. Just like in the 80s with the yellow books. Did you know you can buy a list of almost every American with an estimate credit score and income and other details? This is 5…

My argument is - this data doesn't hurt anyone, is not likely to hurt anyone, and it is valuable enough that banning ad targeting is a mistake.

Per your specific harm:

Thank you for actually responding with a real potential harm, the first time ever in 10 years of posting similar comments on HN!

Weight loss ads (along with teeth whitening ads) are much more common with non-targeted ads, by the way. When ad targeting is bad, the only profitable ads are low hanging fruit that applies to as many people as possible.

That said, I would totally support regulating weight loss ads to only things that are proven to work though. I think other categories like gambling are also under regulated.

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