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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

#371

Post by xigoi »

tzs wrote: post #211
Semaphor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I’m completely misunderstanding things, they’ll do what many news sites in Germany already do: Option A: Continue for free with ads (and tracking and profiling etc.) Option B: Pay for a subscription without ads or tracking (most seem to use a service called "Pur" (pure)) This does not mesh with some people’s understanding of the GDPR, but at least several German courts said it’s okay.

My recollection is that at least some country's regulators have said that if you offer option A you must also offer option A': continue for free without tracking and profiling. Their reasoning was that GDPR says that consent must be freely given. If the site provides more service if you consent than the consent is not freely given according to those regulators. (It seemed kind of goofy to me. In every other context I…

If what you're describing is free consent, then what does non-free consent look like?

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

#372

Post by badwolf »

pembrook wrote: post #75

Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger a…

Every time this type of discussion comes up, I'm amazed at the cognitive dissonance of the EU. They restrict data transfer to the US because "The US government might spy on your data" while simultaneously pushing to break encryption for everyone so ... the government can spy on all your data.

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

#373

Post by arrowsmith »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #35
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…

Try https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica Personal data used to create highly personalised and targeted political ads. It's not just about whether you get a nice notebook.

Total horseshit: https://truthonthemarket.com/2019/08/27/7-things-netflixs-th...

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

#374

Post by wussboy »

Brystephor wrote: post #324
xlii wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario from today, context: I don't have Meta/Facebook/Instagram account, my spouse has. We were discussing haircuts in the morning and I showed her some photos online. 15 minutes later she opened Facebook and saw hairdresser commercial with THOSE EXACT haircuts we were discussing. I was using iOS with no-track and adblocker on top of that. My guess is that link was made using IP address. Meta/Facebook was proces…

> We were discussing haircuts in the morning and I showed her some photos online. 15 minutes later she opened Facebook and saw hairdresser commercial with THOSE EXACT haircuts we were discussing. Genuine question but what's the harm here? Or what's the negative consequence? I understand that this is creepy, people find it uncomfortable or odd, but what about it is harmful or so negative?

Replace "haircut" with "cancer" and then go apply for health insurance.

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

#375

Post by jqpabc123 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #189
jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

Personalized advertising should never have been allowed without a specific opt-in. I know lots of advertisers think they can't live without it --- because promoters have told them so.

> because promoters have told them so. No, it's because they want to make as much money as possible. If promoters told them to turn off all ads, they wouldn't. They don't care about promoters. They care about money.

They don't care about promoters. They care about money.

The promoters of personalized advertising care about money too.

The auction systems they promote can be easily manipulated to maximize profits. And since these systems are "black boxes", advertisers themselves really have no way to know if they are being manipulated or not. The only insight they have is what the promoters tell them.

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

#376

Post by mafuy »

cm2012 wrote: post #360
manuelabeledo wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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…

I don't get it. I don't mind the ads if they are not manipulative and attempt to actually inform about something I might enjoy. But this is already rare, and many (most?) online ads are for crap.

And beyond that, of course there is potential for harm if data is collected for targeted ads. It might be increasing the price of your flight because you've been looking at the target country several times in the past weeks. It might be canceling your insurance because you googled for headache medicine. Or it might be marking you as a person to be deported into a "reeducation camp" because of your heritage or religion thanks to data that was involuntarily collection about you (originally without evil intent, even). Most of these already happened in reality.

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

#377

Post by JAlexoid »

MereInterest wrote: post #151
pembrook wrote: post #75

Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger a…

> 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…

I understand that your culture may not be context heavy, but please remember that this is probably related to the context of advertising companies.

I doubt that this relates to the online advertising space.

Disregarding the personal data and other tracking, banning all targeted advertising is... not ideal. I genuinely would prefer to have ads that are relevant, than ads for table casters.

One thing that we should also be aware, is that ads aren't going away. They're going to be more obnoxious as a result of this decision.

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

#378

Post by gardenhedge »

sidlls wrote: post #244
gardenhedge wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am all for privacy, which companies enable the microphone next to your bed and collect personal data with it?

At least TikTok definitely uses data somehow from microphones, without any (explicit) consent.

So they've hacked the permissions on the phone?

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

#379

Post by DrScientist »

The issues isn't just about the information that is captured and traded about you.

The issue is how is that data put to use - how that affects your life and whether those decisions were made with flawed algorithms or indeed flawed data.

And quite possibly, the whole process being so opaque that nobody understands how it works, or why certain things happened.

And, in my view, a lot of it comes back to a lot of these internet businesses scale only if they leave an element of fairness behind.

For example, if you are randomly banned from youtube by an algorithm, it's not economically worth it for Google to fund a process of proper appeal - because proper appeal process needs people.

You then have a choice - dispense with fairness and justice or dispense with a business model that doesn't scale in a fair and just way.

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

#380

Post by Auracle »

wussboy wrote: post #374
Brystephor wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We were discussing haircuts in the morning and I showed her some photos online. 15 minutes later she opened Facebook and saw hairdresser commercial with THOSE EXACT haircuts we were discussing. Genuine question but what's the harm here? Or what's the negative consequence? I understand that this is creepy, people find it uncomfortable or odd, but what about it is harmful or so negative?

Replace "haircut" with "cancer" and then go apply for health insurance.

Except that doesn't happen, and is against the law.
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