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Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

fundingchoices.google.com

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Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#41

Post by cirenehc »

gaius wrote: post #34
skj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it does cost them money to serve you the site.

Their bandwidth bills would be a lot cheaper if they weren’t sending megabytes of JS for every kb of actual content

You have no idea what you are talking about. JS doesn't nearly cost as much as images, and most ad-related JS are minified. For many websites ad serving is the only profitable model. You won't make money off subscriptions unless you are one of the big players and don't have to worry about growing your user base.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#42

Post by Kalium »

alkonaut wrote: post #38
Kalium wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an intriguing idea! Thank you for bringing it forth. Out of curiosity, how familiar are you with how ad systems work? Generally there's a huge inventory of ads, each with different criteria attached to them and metadata about bids. When a request comes in, ads whose criteria are met are selected out and an instant auction takes place. The resulting ads are then shown. I cannot think of a way that allows for b…

> Generally there's a huge inventory of ads, each with different criteria attached to them I think what he is describing is a future where the ONLY criteria ads are selected on is the standard user data set. Basically I open my browser settings, go to its "relevant ads"-section, enter some basic ad targeting info such as my age group, gender, and 2 hobbies. Then because I entered "fishing" as an interest, I'll see a…

Ah.

In that case, it's going to fail the test of being just as good pretty hard. Being able to target flexibly and based on user actions (or location, or other salient data) is really valuable to advertisers, in a measured-in-units-of-currency sense, and thus to publishers. It means better results from more narrowly targeted ads, and it also means more valuable ads to publishers.

It's perhaps not impossible, but it strikes me as a difficult thing to convince advertisers and publishers alike to take on.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#43

Post by antpls »

Rjevski wrote: post #2

I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted is one that does send any network requests to the stalking company until consent is given. That's the same reason why you wouldn't want to ask an alcoholic to guard a warehouse full of vodka at night, as you'd probably find a few empty bottles the next day. Sam…

Google is a corporation responsible for thousands people job (so your analogy is irrelevant) that complies with the European Union laws. If Google does things under the hood, it will be noticed, and it will be exposed to a potential 4% fine of global revenue.

By the law, opt-out is the default.

They are proposing an industrialized solution for new and old businesses to transition to EU regulations more easily. Trust Google or not, but in the meantime, they are proposing new services to answer businesses and legals needs.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#44

Post by tinco »

Rjevski wrote: post #2

I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted is one that does send any network requests to the stalking company until consent is given. That's the same reason why you wouldn't want to ask an alcoholic to guard a warehouse full of vodka at night, as you'd probably find a few empty bottles the next day. Sam…

And who is going to build that illegal feature into Google's services? And how much are that person, and the other persons that know about it, going to be paid for them to not be a liability?

Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do. I have no doubt individuals within corporations break laws whenever they feel like they can get away with it, but leaving trails like checked-in source code, and operating services that other services depend on, that just sounds like too much of a liability to me..

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#45

Post by freeone3000 »

Y_Y wrote: post #37
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I specifically seek them out, I have no interest in learning about new products or services ever. Thus, an ad would never be relevant enough to be content for me.

But you read HN don't you? Can you tell articles from ads here? What about Paul Graham's submarines?

Being tricked by false headlines and articles published as news when secretly advertisement doesn't lead me to opt in to more ads.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#46

Post by dmortin »

cirenehc wrote: post #40
dx87 wrote: post #27

Gotta love their choice of wording, "recover lost revenue from ad blocking users", like blocking ads is equivalent to stealing money from the site owner.

But that's true isn't it? What's with this entitlement that sites should be ad-free while still providing value? I own a blog, there is no way I could have a profitable subscription based model (believe me, I tried).

Exactly. People don't get that getting rid of ads helps only the big players (because they can require subscriptions), while hurting the little guys.

People may subscribe for big newspapers and such, but they won't subscribe to a lot of smaller blogs, for example, on various blogging platforms, which do provide value, but they are not big enough to warrant a subscription.

Ads solve this case and I haven't heard any viable alternative for them for small players.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#47

Post by badestrand »

tinco wrote: post #44
Rjevski wrote: post #2

I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted is one that does send any network requests to the stalking company until consent is given. That's the same reason why you wouldn't want to ask an alcoholic to guard a warehouse full of vodka at night, as you'd probably find a few empty bottles the next day. Sam…

And who is going to build that illegal feature into Google's services? And how much are that person, and the other persons that know about it, going to be paid for them to not be a liability? Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do. I have no doubt individuals within corporations break laws whenever they feel like they can get away with it, but leaving tra…

> Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do

Did you already forget the VW diesel scandal? That was exactly that - a huge corporation systematically breaking the law with lots of people even in the highest ranks aware of and supporting it.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#48

Post by alkonaut »

Kalium wrote: post #42
alkonaut wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally there's a huge inventory of ads, each with different criteria attached to them I think what he is describing is a future where the ONLY criteria ads are selected on is the standard user data set. Basically I open my browser settings, go to its "relevant ads"-section, enter some basic ad targeting info such as my age group, gender, and 2 hobbies. Then because I entered "fishing" as an interest, I'll see a…

Ah. In that case, it's going to fail the test of being just as good pretty hard. Being able to target flexibly and based on user actions (or location, or other salient data) is really valuable to advertisers, in a measured-in-units-of-currency sense, and thus to publishers. It means better results from more narrowly targeted ads, and it also means more valuable ads to publishers. It's perhaps not impossible, but it s…

> fail the test of being just as good pretty hard

Yeah I don't see the online ad business ever adopting something else because it's "as good", I think that browsers should drive this and ensure sites simply don't get this type of information, so the adoption to something better (for consumers) is driven by necessity.

The adoption of a system like the one I'm describing rests solely on the fact that the current information ads are based on, would dry up for one reason or another. Either because they don't dare use it (regulatory) or because they simply never get the information (technical).

I was under the impression that the past years of rapidly evolving DNT, third party cookie blocking, widespread use of adblockers (even in phones) etc was already rapidly drying up the amount of information available to track users? Perhaps I'm overly optimistic?

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#49

Post by throwaway6789 »

tinco wrote: post #44
Rjevski wrote: post #2

I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted is one that does send any network requests to the stalking company until consent is given. That's the same reason why you wouldn't want to ask an alcoholic to guard a warehouse full of vodka at night, as you'd probably find a few empty bottles the next day. Sam…

And who is going to build that illegal feature into Google's services? And how much are that person, and the other persons that know about it, going to be paid for them to not be a liability? Maybe I'm naieve, but I feel building automated law breaking systems is not something corporations do. I have no doubt individuals within corporations break laws whenever they feel like they can get away with it, but leaving tra…

I take great care to separate my browsing sessions. Still I find YouTube recommendations on my main account on topics that I watched on another machine in my home network. My typical setup involves:

1. Virtualbox VM restored to a snapshot after each usage (browser completely clean, never uses my main Google accounts here)

2. Firefox on main machine with clear all cookies set, ublock origin. Rarely logs into my main Google account, if I do, always in incognito.

3. pfsense with block lists for Google & Microsoft

4. Mobile with Disconnect tracking blocker (mobile wide) plus Firefox focus & Firefox set to clear all history on exit.

Still Google manages to track me. Whenever I see those recommendations in YouTube, I feel like Google is mocking me - "ha ha do whatever you want, you can never hide from us".

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#50

Post by Kalium »

alkonaut wrote: post #48
Kalium wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah. In that case, it's going to fail the test of being just as good pretty hard. Being able to target flexibly and based on user actions (or location, or other salient data) is really valuable to advertisers, in a measured-in-units-of-currency sense, and thus to publishers. It means better results from more narrowly targeted ads, and it also means more valuable ads to publishers. It's perhaps not impossible, but it s…

> fail the test of being just as good pretty hard Yeah I don't see the online ad business ever adopting something else because it's "as good", I think that browsers should drive this and ensure sites simply don't get this type of information, so the adoption to something better (for consumers) is driven by necessity . The adoption of a system like the one I'm describing rests solely on the fact that the current infor…

The ad industry has proven very good at finding new ways to track people, defeating each new approach to block tracking. They've proven similarly good at learning to infer things they haven't actually been directly told, which is very helpful for getting around regulatory barriers.

In practice, not everyone keeps up on their patches, meaning they tend to be vulnerable to known tracking methods. Total ad blocking prevalence is not as high as one might guess: https://digiday.com/media/ad-blocking-charts/

Additionally, neither Apple nor Google is incentivized to make it easy to block ads on their devices. The only people I know who have done so are ones who have gone to non-trivial lengths to accomplish this.

Sadly, I think you may be excessively optimistic.

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