When our daughter was born, and I sent an announcement via GMail, I started seeing ads for diapers.
After that, I assume anything I'm doing on the internet is being data mined for advertising or some other source of revenue.
After that, I assume anything I'm doing on the internet is being data mined for advertising or some other source of revenue.
Name one thing that people remember for more than 2 news cycles.
Here's a better game to prove my point: what happened 5 news cycles ago? Do you remember? What were the headlines in January/February this year?
As far what was happening in January/February:
Pretty sure the government shut down at some point, I think that was around then.
I also remember a lot of news about the stock market breaking records and some post analysis on the tax bill which I think had already passed by then. I could have that timeline wrong on that though.
I think the Alabama Senate election was around then. That might have been earlier though, but I think there were still headlines about it in January.
That's all I remember off the top of my head. I follow political news more closely than other news lately.
Your comment is making me feel really, really old. Have people forgotten Gmail's history?
Gmail is not that old. When it was new, what you are pointing out was in the news. It was all over the news. To the point of members of Congress commenting on it. It was heavily debated. Google was very open about the fact that they were doing it. Google was the first (major) email provider to offer 1 GB of mail (well over the usual paltry 50MB that was the norm). Everyone asked "How can they afford it?" And it was very much in the open that it was being paid for ads, and that Google will mine your emails and provide you with targeted ads.
I remember while reading an email on Gmail back in 2004/2005 there was a very obvious targeted ad based on the content of that email.
I honestly do not mean this as a criticism, but I am really, really surprised that a HN poster was surprised by this. That Gmail scans (or scanned) emails and uses them for ads is almost part of their identity. It's like being surprised that there are ads in a newspaper.
It's safe to assume that much of the data we all leak is being mined for revenue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
Given how Target shut that guy up, you have to figure they're doing even more along those lines nowadays.
I know the implication is negative in terms of privacy, but it has its benefits if it could actually solve problems and provide value to the majority.
The problem is, though, that any form of bargaining (and sales is bargaining) is an information game. The more they know about you, the worse a deal you will get. One recent real example was the advertisers targeting women on their periods. Taking it further, imagine a liquor company finding out that you've just lost a family member and flooding you with ads for alcohol. The more they know about you, the worse you get screwed.
The reason for this question is that even though you don't have a cat lots of people do! It's absolutely not a false dichotomy. Either people who have no cats must see cat food advertisements (bad choice), or cat food advertisements must be shown to people who probably have a cat (better choice). There's really nothing in between.
This is the world we live in, and you should prefer to see baby diaper ads vs cat food ads, when you do have a baby but don't have a cat. The statistical number of cats or babies is irrelevant. As you may know, Google is pretty good (not perfect) about not allowing keyword targeting that gets down to individual people so the privacy implications really are pretty limited.
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That said, I have a funny story to share. (About adapting to this world.) I am learning a foreign language and I decided to watch baby cartoons in that language. But before I did, I thought to myself, "Okay if I start searching YouTube for cartoons for 1 year olds, pretty soon Google is going to decide that I'm a new mother and I'll see nothing but baby cartoons in my feed for the next 5 years."
I was sure enough in my reasoning that I went ahead and created a brand new Google account for the express purpose of being able to pollute its YouTube feed. I only watch stuff related to that language learning on that account.
This had the exact effect that I wanted. That youtube became absolutely awesome for spending focused time on my language learning, using all sorts of related videos. It includes people documenting what life in that country is like for tourists and foreigners, it includes foreign-language teachers' channels, it includes related cartoons and films at a good level for me, it includes political speeches from that country subtitled in English. I couldn't be happier with the result.
You know those acknowledgments we've been clicking through for the past few years by Google saying "Hey!! We're doing this. READ THIS"? I think it makes what they do pretty above-board.
As a consumer we're able to adapt to this, but it's not something I have any problem with.
(Disclaimer: I indirectly contributed to Google in the past but not now, I would definitely list it as a disclaimer if it were happening now but I remember that it changed how I wrote about Google especially when I was the most critical of them, so I think it's worth mentioning still. I am a bit nicer when I'm really pissed off at them as a consumer - but this is not the case in this instance.)
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EDIT: I carefully edited this as it is falling to -1. I stand by the sentiments in this comment: they are correct. Downvoters are wrong.
>You’re ok with someone reading your mail then spamming you after learning something from it?
Does not match this (OP):
>When our daughter was born, and I sent an announcement via GMail, I started seeing ads for diapers.
I can see how the language "I started seeing ads" might sound like it applies to spam (unsolicited mail or messages) but to me it's clear that the poster just meant that the types of textual gmail ads they see changed to include baby ads. They're talking about this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+text+ads&source=lnms&t...
Now there's something actually interesting here. We don't have enough information to decide, but I bet this is the reason that poster paid so much attention to those text ads: they used to be highly relevant for them!
I bet they used to be filled only with stuff like industry conferences, IoT dev kids they were really interested in, security whitepapers, all sorts of stuff. (An indication of this is that they did not learn to mentally filter those parts of their inbox out as irrelevant.)
On one of my computers I have a hosts file that blocks Google's ads - so I often have to copy the ad URL and open it myself: because I clicked on it, and still want to see it after it doesn't open, and after knowing very clearly that it's an advertisement. Advertising doesn't get much better than this.
Yes. I do not own a cat but would prefer to see cat food ads.
I would suggest however, that cat food brands should advertise on pet channels on Youtube, or on pet related blogs perhaps. This allows targeting, but without collecting data about the users, many of whom do not know enough about online advertising to provide informed consent.
The best adverts I've seen were from Carbon[1] and Fusion (which seem to have merged now?). They were well targeted, unobtrusive, respected my privacy, and generally fit well with the content I was reading around the web.
Unfortunately keybase.io and keybase as search terms don't show me any ads. Let me try "public key". Still no ad. (On Google's homepage.)
Let me try keybase public key. Still no ad.
Let me try public key server. No ad. I clicked around on some related queries, until I finally saw an ad. (The query I ended up under was: sks keyserver setup).
Now here is the ad that I saw:
OpenPGP Library for .NET
Adwww.didisoft.com/
Pure .NET OpenPGP Library Easy API
Online examplesPurchaseProduct page
Now let me ask you. If you are a .NET developer and you're trying to work with PGP, would you rather see what I just showed you - or would you rather see an ad for cat food (even though you don't own a cat)?
Please be honest here.
Yes.
My issues with Adwords are the following:
1) they're abused by spam and garbage, so seeing a (potentially good) software product in there immediately turns me off and is actually a red flag.
2) it shows that the developer has no idea of the target market for their product - anyone that has the brains to use a software library would be blocking the Adwords anyway.
3) the above could mean they're instead targeting managers/CTOs as opposed to the actual people who will be using the library (developers), which is also a huge red flag.
In fact we're arguing/discussing better targeting now! As a developer you don't want to see an open source product advertised.
On the other hand, if you're a manager who can't deliver a feature that your customer is begging for because there is no out of the box solution/library for it, and you don't have the personpower - but lo, you can license one for $100/month that's worth tens of thousands to your customer, you'll be thrilled if you can learn about the existence of it. (Just a hypothetical, use a different one if you want: again, we're talking about better targeting.)
You didn't answer my question about if you want to see ads for a conference (I took two long sentences to ask you super explicitly) - is it because that's a resounding yes? I get that you don't want to answer the question because it's counter to your philosophy that targeted ads are bad. That philosophy, as we're seeing, is wrong.
I'm happy to see computer-related ads on Read The Docs, but on standard Google I'd rather have cat food advertised (or other generic product).
Oh sorry, I totally missed that you were talking about ads for conferences as opposed to conferences themselves - but again the above still applies; more than happy to see conference ads on developer related websites. On Google, especially when I search for a generic keyword? No, give me cat food any day.
I've never been bothered by ads I see in gmail.
they're also super explicit about the way in which they collect and collate data and I understand that maybe I will have to make different Google accounts to be targeted to different things.
I guess your and my perspective is just very different. but enjoy your cat food or Amazing skin lightening! (for darker skinned people) ads - they're both very popular products. (the latter is a scam product category.)
One of my issues with advertising on the web is the tracking/stalking. I am okay with ads that are targeted based on the content of the current page as this does not require stalking me everywhere.
My other issue is that highly targeted ads (to the individual) create an echo chamber. The thing is, after a day of work, I no longer want to see development-related ads. Give me cat food (or other generic products) instead. This is what I actually like about print & billboard ads in the real world - they're generic and actually make me discover new brands & products I haven't heard of before.
Finally the problem with Adwords and similar online advertising is that there just isn't enough vetting nor review for them - there is a lot of spam, garbage products, etc. Print ads are much better as the publisher more or less takes responsibility for them, so they're doing their due diligence when choosing which ads to run. You don't have that on the web.
Maybe we have a difference in preferences but I just never felt stalked or the like. I suppose it might change in the future. Thanks for your thoughts.
Ads where? Do you just mean display ads on the web? If so, your browser likely ended up on a list for diaper ads by some other means. Top of mind: - Did ever add a baby-related product to a shopping cart on a retail site? - Did you visit baby-related websites?
Less likely, but possible,if your browser cookie was linked to other personal information by 3rd party data brokers: - Do you use a loyalty card at a physical store? Did you suddenly buy baby stuff for the first time? - Did you return a product registration card for a carseat or something like that? The company my resell their customer lists.
http://adage.com/article/digital/google-stop-reading-emails-...