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We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#521

Post by mylasttour »

stingraycharles wrote: post #498
yuliyp wrote: post #476

> Now, if someone searches for an espresso machine, Gemini will pull up your most relevant products and instantly write a custom explainer highlighting why your product may be the right choice for them. This is like the essence of the evil of AI ads distilled down to one sentence. For an advertiser this is a dream. For a user this reads like getting bombarded with ads tailor made just for you based on the context of…

“For a user this reads like getting bombarded with ads tailor made just for you based on the context of what would be most effective.” Isn’t this what the current search experience already is?

Before it was: "Shop for balding pills", Now it's going to be: "Your calendar indicates your mother's birthday is tomorrow, your album photos of her living room seem to indicate she likes elephants. In a past LLM conversation you mentioned she has trouble with technology. A good gift idea is the new Google Geminibook with this animal laptop skin. Add to cart?"

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#523

Post by _heimdall »

twobitshifter wrote: post #391
_heimdall wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unenforced crimes are still crimes, you have to rewrite laws to change that.

or get a blanket pardon

Legally I don't think a pardon makes the act not a crime, it just makes it unpunished. I could be wrong there though, that gets deep into legal pedantry.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#524

Post by ai_fry_ur_brain »

nialv7 wrote: post #451
venusenvy47 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which search engines does it use? I couldn't find info, and I'm just curious.

Can't find full list either, but it at least includes Bing and Google: https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/452243553384...

How do they send the query on your behalf privately, without incurring insane search api costs?

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#525

Post by hightrix »

thrance wrote: post #491
svieira wrote: post #386

The particularly worrying thing here is that they're now going to be gathering training data for a conversational model on _how to influence people effectively even when they already know they are being influenced_. Even more than RLFH already does. "We had to build the Torment Nexus so our children could eat" is not a good reason to build the Torment Nexus. The fact that they are not committing to not doing this tel…

I'm really worried about political ads. Google had no problem algorithmically bubbling up disinformation in the past, will Gemini now peddle straight lies for anyone willing to pay enough for them?

"You're absolutely right. The trump administration has caused the lowest gas prices in US history and lowered drug costs by 1300%. Click here to donate to your nearest MAGA politician."

2026 may not see it too bad, but 2028 will be an absolutely nasty election cycle.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#526

Post by lobocinza »

gomox wrote: post #233
akoboldfrying wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. This is the only part that I find surprising/confusing. Surely whoever blinks first incurs a massive reputational hit with the public (who don't think about this deeply enough to see that it was always inevitable), so why do that if you don't have to? Perhaps the bright side from Google's POV is that it means that they can be the first to start wooing advertisers to their platform. First-mover advantage there m…

OpenAI starts from excellent UX and needs to prove that they can monetize all those empty pixels. They will no doubt succeed. Google starts from horrid UX where every advertiseable pixel has been squeezed dry. Only way to go is down.

You're confounding your subjective personal experience with the whole. Google can eat the cake and have it. They already are profitable, they already have scale, they already have market penetration, Google is already installed in 72% of mobile devices, they have cost efficiency due to TPUs, they probably have the best data, at least for serving ads. OpenAI has no chance in outcompeting Google, not in ad-based revenue.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#527

Post by rchaud »

MattRix wrote: post #356
FinnKuhn wrote: post #7

I would have expected them to wait with ads until OpenAI starts first and users switch to Gemini. Google is probably the player that could afford to wait the longest with this and increase their market share that way.

The idea that users will switch because a platform has ads has never played out in the past. The average user just doesn’t care.

Plenty of iPhone users are on Brave Browser because it blocks ads on Youtube. When you type in a search query in the address bar, it defaults to Brave Search. Don't underestimate the power of defaults.

There is a boiling point for user tolerance when it comes to ads. Google has been pushing that needle deep into the red for years now.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#528

Post by lmm »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #463
MattRix wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that users will switch because a platform has ads has never played out in the past. The average user just doesn’t care.

The average user appears to care enough to go out of their way to use browsers and extensions and such that block ads, to the point that Google has spent enormous amount of time and money breaking those tools. I think that’s definitely something to consider. Anecdotally, the number of people who have asked me about VPNs over the last 12 to 18 months has skyrocketed. I probably get a message a month from people of all…

> Anecdotally, the number of people who have asked me about VPNs over the last 12 to 18 months has skyrocketed. I probably get a message a month from people of all backgrounds.

That's probably more to do with the increasing popularity of China-style national firewalls/tracking (sorry, "age verification") than ads.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#529

Post by rchaud »

wunderlotus wrote: post #468
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be shocked at how many people who work on ads really do delude themselves into thinking people find ads "useful". Their usual justification is in the end somewhere tied to "people click on ads so they must find them useful". And yet somehow always ignores the fact that their platform often does all it can to hide that ads are ads and makes them look as much like content as possible.

Ads can be useful when they are optimized for users and not for advertiser/ad platform. I do agree with you about the deluding part though. I was (as a user) all for hyper-personalization of ads on all platforms when I worked in ads. Since I’m not longer working in ads, I’m more skeptical and value privacy a lot more. Honestly, the core problem is that we can’t trust the platforms selling the ads.

Yeah and private health insurance can be useful if it is designed to pool risk across a population, help make healthcare costs transparent and pay for treatments that people need. But that's not where the money is.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#530

Post by bigstrat2003 »

prepend wrote: post #141
reaperducer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen a helpful ad in google search That's a good thing. I don't mind ads, as I understand that without money, web sites go away. But I'm very careful about being tracked. That, I don't think is cool. It's not unusual for me to see ads for companies hundreds or even thousands of miles away, and often selling things for which I do not possess the correct body parts. I consider that affirmation that I am mo…

I mind ads and don’t think sites would go away. They’d just be less profitable. I mind ads because they crowd out less profitable margins and result in worse products. Imagine how nice and useful Google could be if they optimized for search instead of ads.

And even if you pay for the product - a business model where the incentive should be for them to make the product better for you - you still get greedy executives who decide to try to juice their revenue with ads (cable TV, streaming services, etc)! I don't know what can be done, but honestly ads have gotten to be an intolerable business practice.
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