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comment by mk
mk  ·  1302 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy

I’m not sure what these companies could do instead if tracking were illegal, and punishment severe enough to stop it. Any ideas? I know they have tried tracking users based on fonts installed etc, but any means could be included in a broad anti-tracking law.

If the new techniques were worse, then they should be dealt with. I don’t find the possibility reason enough not to stop this current practice.





wasoxygen  ·  1302 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Targeted advertising is big business. Search terms alone don’t work if you want to target a location or demographic.

If buying and selling user data becomes illegal, the value of illegally-obtained user data will rise. There will be more incentive to geolocate IP addresses and parse user agent strings.

The vendor is going to say, we’re just trying to sell diapers and most people don’t want diapers. Why should we advertise indiscriminately when we have data showing targeted campaigns are welcomed by new parents? People posting baby photos on Facebook should expect the world to notice that they have a baby.

kleinbl00  ·  1301 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Targeted advertising is big business.

This is not factually correct. Targeted advertising is 4% more profitable than non-targeted advertising. Worse, the number has dropped precipitously: ten years ago they made publishers twice as much money as non-targeted advertising.

    The vendor is going to say, we’re just trying to sell diapers and most people don’t want diapers.

If the vendor sells diapers, the vendor knows that people get creeped out when they don't understand where their advertising comes from. This is why every "major life change" gate point is inundated in flyers. Move house? Get diaper coupons. Visit an obstetrician? They'll give you a little bag full of coupons. Attend a parentmap function? have some diaper coupons. And why all the junk mail you get addressed to "occupant" is full of stuff that people would rather not be targeted for.

People don't like to be targeted.

        91% of people say ads are more intrusive today than 2-3 years ago

    87% say there are more ads in general than 2-3 years ago

    79% feel like they're being tracked by retargeted ads

The drop in targeted ad revenue is likely a reflection of the awareness and distaste people have for targeted ads. Advertisers have long since learned that alienating your customers is bad business; outfits like Google and Facebook have not.