Is there a reason as to why this is "on Facebook and Instagram" and not just a general ban on personalised advertising? Is there something specific that Meta does that others don't?
EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
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Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#72Personalized 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.
> Personalized advertising should never have been allowed without a specific opt-in. As a thought experiment, let's go back to the time when the internet existed, adds existed, but targeted adds were in their infancy. Now let's imagine they were launched as some sort of op-in Google BETA this in early 0s fashion. Assuming, for a moment that the targeting quality was on part — would that have been a success? Ie. would…
Early 0s? Presumably not since at the time, doubleclick (now Google) had the same reputation Google has now. At the time, adware and spyware were malware, and there was an industry around anti-malware tools like adaware and spybot: search and destroy. Among other things, IIRC those tools would delete your doubleclick cookies. The distrust was immediate, and if anything people have given up and grown used to malware being part of the OS now.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#73Oh, yeah! Can’t come soon enough. Kneecap the need to datamine users. I totally want to see this happen even if that means they will have to charge money for their heretofore “free” services. This would be a big win for society, in my view.
This isn't data mining users. It's just tracking an ID against likely preferences detected automatically. I think this topic becomes emotive because there are obviously ways to misuse data, but I struggle to see the actual harm in personalised advertising. If there's a data acquisition route that we all agree is bad, then we should ban that.
Eliminate any and all potential avenues of abuse. It’s the only way these gals and guys will stop.
This just furthers unbridled consumerism.
I’m okay when people need something because it’s physically necessary for them. But there is something wrong when people impulse buy online just because they got some targeted ads playing with their psychological profile.
I’m convinced these operators cannot be trusted and kneecapping them is the only way out.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#74I 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…
There are parts of my life that are fine for ad companies to know. What clothes I like, what music I like, what sports I like etc. These are all benign, and even useful to me if ad companies know about them. The sentiment of your comment makes sense when applied to these topics. But then there are things that I don't want ad companies to know about. My medical history, my likely voting patterns, my political affiliat…
You also don't know if in 10 years time the country gets a radical, religiously fanatical government, that will then order these companies to list users who are non-believers, have "wrong" sexuality or supported the opposition.
When Nazis invaded a city, first thing they'd have done was getting to people register and getting names and addresses of "undesirables".
People have not learned their lesson.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#75Ok, 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 at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat.
I could point to many instances of this but the easiest one is the EU commission currently pushing a ban on encryption.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#76I have mixed feelings about this. I hate that Europe leads in regulation and lags so much in innovation. At the same time, this is a step in the right direction. True, people don't care about privacy, but it's mostly because they don't understand the extent and implications of letting companies control your data.
If we had been smart, we would have banned Google, Facebook and Amazon on our continent and made our own like the Chinese did. It's telling how ridiculed they still are for this obvious move.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#77Ok, 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…
Corporations can ruin your life just fine.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#78Personalized 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.
Best one I heard was people claiming products will be more expensive if personalized advertising is banned. Because then it’ll cost more to promote them.
Marketing is a major cost factor for many products. You can't sustainably sell anything for less than customer acquisition cost. This is familiar to SaaS people but also high margin products like perfume and professional services.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#79So stupid. Will be regretted.
Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
#80Why do people hate personalized ads so much? I understand hating ads in general, but why something personalized is worse than just random spam? EDIT --- Ok, I get it now. Personalized ads = surveillance. Fair enough. Doesn't the whole GDPR already cover it though? You can opt out of the surveillance.
I don't like being tracked so that I can be offered personalized ads. I don't like _any_ ads, but at least context ads make sense. Show me ads for waterproof shoes if I'm on a website about what to do with a dog on a rainy day, or for computer parts if I'm looking for instructions on building a computer (I'll still block most of them anyway).
The categories are much to broad to be useful. I've been vegan for about 7 years. The internet thinks I like "food" and shows me ads for meat products all the time. Good to know I'm wasting the ad dollars of companies I think are bad, but I think it's gross and I don't want to see it.
And yet, I still think they can be harmful. Think of someone with alcohol use disorder who recently stopped drinking, or someone with BED who's decided not to keep junk food in the house. You don't think constantly seeing ads for alcohol/junk food would make such a person feel bad or even impede their progress? Why would that be the cost of them opening any website at all?