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Comment by tialaramex | Hacker News Reader

In principle advertising is fine. Telling people that a product exists is useful. "Do you need a hat shaped exactly like a golf ball? At Dave's Golf Ball Hats we sell six sizes!". Targeting this advert to most likely be seen by people who actually had been thinking of buying a hat shaped like sporting equipment is still a good idea too.

But an advert that steals from you, or harms you is neither of those things. Google Ads doesn't need those to be profitable. It would suit them if those went away.

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> Targeting this advert to most likely be seen by people who actually had been thinking of buying a hat shaped like sporting equipment is still a good idea too.

Not if that targeting is done using data gathered about me without my consent -- as it almost universally is.

Targeting based on context (what sort of website the ad is on, for instance), is fine.

Google’s primary revenue source is AdWords, meaning ads served on their own properties, the bulk of it being in Google Search and most if that is contextual, most ads being served based on the search you’re making.

Google doesn’t actually have a problem in serving contextual ads on their own properties, since they have plenty of context. The problem is with AdSense since there advertisers need some sort of user profile, plus in the EU bidding exchanges are in jeopardy due to the GDPR.

I don't understand this new position (that GDPR follows) that consent is required for information to be gathered on someone. If someone sees me wearing a blue shirt and writes in their notebook that I wore a blue shirt then I don't feel like I have some inherent right to coerce them to erase it or prevent them from selling that information to Blue Shirt Emporium.

sometimes it is right to treat scenarios that are fundamentally similar as different beasts in practice when those scenarios are actually happening at very different scales.

i (and many others) believe that surveillance is like this. the effort that it takes to do what your describing does not scale, and cannot be used to implement dragnet surveillance and data collection (unless it's a police state and you have a lot of notetakers). lots of people (myself and many others) think dragnet surveillance (whether by private entities or governments) is a thing to be avoided (because it creates really bad power asymmetries, which i think are inherently a bad thing).

also, i don't think that large companies should be granted the same rights as individuals. just because a person can do a thing on their own doesn't mean that a large entity should be able to do something similar in spirit at thousands or millions of times the scale.

If they wrote 'person wearing blue shirt', fine. But if they followed you home, took note of the address, cross referenced that to find your name and other personal info, then stored all that data to a company that decides who gets loans based on shirt color - not fine. Etc.

Many laws and societal norms don’t require universal acceptance. So it’s totally reasonable for you to not care, while society in general feels the opposite. Or vice versa.

And in your case of the note taker, a better example would be somebody that frequently follows you, and takes notes about what you wear. In many places, that could be grounds for harassment claim. In other words, it’s not the act that matters to most people, but the frequency and scale at which the act takes place.

Data about you is not your data. Anyone can stand outside and watch what people do and take notes. That doesn't need your consent. It's the same thing here.

> It's the same thing here.

I disagree completely.

Why?

In this case the clue is the word fingerprinting. If someone outside your door was taking fingerprint impressions, your name, and then writing down your license plate and selling that info to anyone with money - would you just let that continue? Unlikely.

In the real world they can't physically touch you so let's replace that with passive facial recognition. In that case, yes they can do that all today. Someone can follow you all day from the moment you step out into public.

We might not like it but it is legal and they own their observations.

Wut. Stalking is literally a criminal offense.

You should look up the legal definition of stalking. Making public observations isn't it.

Stalking: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/stalking-and-harassmen...

> Whilst there is no strict legal definition of 'stalking', section 2A (3) of the PHA 1997 sets out examples of acts or omissions which, in particular circumstances, are ones associated with stalking. For example, following a person, watching or spying on them or forcing contact with the victim through any means, including social media.

--begin here--

Definition of stalking

Stalking is not legally defined but section 2A (3) of the PHA 1997 lists a number of examples of behaviours associated with stalking. The list is not an exhaustive one but gives an indication of the types of behaviour that may be displayed in a stalking offence. The listed behaviours are:

    (a) following a person,
    (b) contacting, or attempting to contact, a person by any means,
    (c) publishing any statement or other material relating or purporting to relate to a person, or purporting to originate from a person,
    (d) monitoring the use by a person of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication,
    (e) loitering in any place (whether public or private),
    (f) interfering with any property in the possession of a person,
    (g) watching or spying on a person.

--end here--

I mean, that's pretty clear.

For two reasons.

First, most of this sort of spying involves using my own equipment as a weapon against me -- and actively subvert my defenses in order to do it. This is, in my view, not much different than them breaking into my home and installing surveillance equipment.

Second, the data gathered about me (even if it doesn't involve subverting my own equipment) is not kept in isolation. It is combined with a lot of other data about me and then mined for further insights. Every little data gathering act may be insignificant in isolation, but the end result is a degree of surveillance that is deeply immoral if done without my consent.

Following someone around all day taking notes would be considered stalking.

I think the fundamental problem here is that people in the EU will choose privacy over the ability of companies to make money. Its a different outlook on life. When its my interests versus the interests of business I choose me.

>Data about you is not your data.

Stop thinking about data ownership. Ownership is irrelevant.

It's illegal to process any data about an identified or identifiable person unless you have a lawful basis to do so, and there are only a half dozen of those. "Because I own the data" is not one of them.

Metadata = Surveillance

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/metadata_surv...

Quote:

"An easy thought experiment demonstrates this. Imagine that you hired a private detective to eavesdrop on a subject. That detective would plant a bug in that subject's home, office, and car. He would eavesdrop on his computer. He would listen in on that subject's conversations, both face to face and remotely, and you would get a report on what was said in those conversations. Now imagine that you asked that same private detective to put a subject under constant surveillance. You would get a different report, one that included things like where he went, what he did, who he spoke to -- and for how long -- who he wrote to, what he read, and what he purchased. This is all metadata, data we know the NSA is collecting. So when the president says that it's only metadata, what you should really hear is that we're all under constant and ubiquitous surveillance."

I'm not sure of your point.

My point is that surveillance is not illegal and does not require any consent to accrue information through public observation.

I think whether or not it's legal is irrelevant. Things can be wrong -- even unconscionable -- and still be legal.

It is by Berne convention. Gathering doesn't need my consent, but I can disallow it. In an ideal world DoNotTrack request would be honored, but since nobody did it, denial had to become the default.

Berne convention is about copyright which has nothing to do with this topic.

> Targeting based on context (what sort of website the ad is on, for instance), is fine.

Why? I didn't consent for that.

Do you object when sports TV channels show ads related to sports or people who enjoy sports?

Because that sort of target is based on the context the ad is appearing in, not on any data gathered about you specifically.

An ad for a golf ball hat is a pretty benign use case but that exact same approach could be used in much more distasteful ways.

For example, suppose depressed people are more likely to buy expensive impulse item X. Person A is depressed. Lets show them ads for item X!

That would be a nicely profitable strategy that could emerge organically out of a sophisticated ML ad targeting model, something like... AdWords.

Untargeted advertising is very often more egregious than merely telling people a product exists. Traditional pre-digital advertising runs the gamete from "Come to me and I'll fix your car" to "You are ugly and unpopular, but you can fix that by drinking our caramel colored sugar water." Advertising that tries to induce then exploit self esteem issues is a plague.

This little bit of misdirection Google and Facebook have propagated about how much better the advertising you get with tracking is the slimiest piece of bait-and-switch in history. Seeing people repeat it like it's fact is testament to just how insidious it is.

Targeted advertising is not designed to serve the viewer, it's designed to serve the advertiser. So advertisements you get are even sleazier than non-targeted advertising because they have by definition more information about the reader. So instead of generically exploiting people's self esteem, it exploits people's self esteem armed with much more information about the users.

Targeting and tracking is a plague and should be discouraged and blocked to oblivion.

Targeted advertising is not designed to serve the viewer, it's designed to serve the advertiser.

Advertising doesn't help the advertiser unless it helps you. Showing you an ad for something you don't want, can't use, and would never buy, benefits nobody.

Advertising helps the advertiser if it results in a sale - it doesn't matter if the sale helps the viewer.

If the ad results in the viewer getting an eating disorder, for example, that's fine for the advertiser if it also results in a sale.

Advertising helps the advertiser if it results in a sale - it doesn't matter if the sale helps the viewer.

Exactly this.

Often it doesn't even require a sale. A lot of Facebook & Google advertising is for bullshit sites which push increasingly sketchy content backed by even sketchier advertising. Sometimes the goal isn't even profit, the Russians paid for advertising to influence politics.

That's fair, and I should have been more specific in saying that I'm not referring to cases of outright fraud. What I mean is this:

If I an a potential buyer of, say, a book... and my interests include AI, multi-agent systems, and operating systems, then an ad for Barnes & Noble offering the new title OS Development for AI and Multi-Agent Systems is probably going to be mutually beneficial, because it will help me find a book I would want, and it helps B&N sell said book. OTOH, an ad for the new title Necrophilia And Cemetery Porn Of The Deep South is not beneficial to either party (if it's displayed to me) because it's not something I'd ever be remotely interested in. Frankly, I'd much prefer the (accurately) targeted ad.

Advertising helps the advertiser if it results in a sale - it doesn't matter if the sale helps the viewer.

If it resulted in a sale, then that means by definition it helped me find a product or service I wanted. If I made a bad decision in making that purchase, that's an orthogonal issue.

Advertising doesn't help the advertiser unless it helps you.

This is nonsense. History is littered with cases of advertising abuse and misuse. Everything from literal snake oil salesmen to modern day shysters profiting from selling conspiracy theories and anti-tax bullshit is enabled and propagated by advertising.

OK, fair enough, I should have specified that I meant outside of the case of obvious fraud (eg, snake-oil).

Also, FYI, I'm not the one who down-voted you. In fact, have an upvote to counter-balance that.

I get your point about the potential benefits of targeted advertising, and in an ideal world it's true. Of course in that same ideal world we wouldn't have sleazy non-targeted advertising either. I just see so much abuse of tracking and targeting that the damage far outweighs the benefits.

> "Advertising doesn't help the advertiser unless it helps you. "

That's incredibly naive. You've failed to consider the wide class of products which are tempting but harmful.

People buy crap they don't need all the time. The whole point of advertising is to sell. I believe the OPs are saying that they leverage information about you to bully you in to thinking that something is actually helpful and you should buy it, hence the talk about exploiting self esteem on a much more personal level. While I can't be sure if Google or Facebook actively do this kind of thing or sellers just use these platforms to do this, there's very little question that social media and consumer internet has gone rogue. Unless you've been living under a rock, you just have come across at least a few of those.

I, personally, have no issues with these platforms collecting my data and making money off it in exchange for their services that I use. But when they do the same even when Im not using their services or explicility expressing my disagreement, I'm not cool with that.

> "So advertisements you get are even sleazier than non-targeted advertising"

On average yes. Just as there is a gradient in non-targeted advertising of 'basically benign' to 'scum of the earth', I think there is a gradient in targeted advertising too.

On the basically benign end of the gradient you have the "You recently bought book X from author Y, perhaps you'd be interested in Book Z from author Y." (I don't like that stuff, I still block it, but it doesn't quite get me incensed if you know what I mean.) But the potential for harm from targetted ads can be truly extreme.

Yes, fully agree. Not all advertisers are bad. Not all advertising is bad. But the idea that targeted advertising is inherently better is bullshit and potentially far worse. I know you are not suggesting that either, just clarifying my above comment.

and... targeted advertising doesn't use these attack vectors? really?

Of course it does. I never suggested otherwise.

> "Do you need a hat shaped exactly like a golf ball? At Dave's Golf Ball Hats we sell six sizes!"

The implicit message here is buy buy buy. "There's cool hats shaped like golf balls. Everyone's getting one! I need one too!"

Do I really need a hat shaped like a gold ball? Do I need any of the crap our materialistic society says I need?

Ads like this are trying to shape my expectations about myself, the meaning and purpose of my life, and what I need to feel fulfilled; and all for someone else's benefit, not my own. I have made it a personal goal to reject consumerism, and instead live a simple, sustainable, and efficient life. Rejecting ads (electronically blocking where possible, mentally blocking everywhere) is part of how I'm trying to achieve that goal.

Any company trying to sell me something that I didn't seek out myself is my enemy.

You can imagine a company that has come up with a product that helps people live more sustainably, and they want to figure out how to tell people about it. You didn't seek them out though; are they your enemy?

Yes. So they are trying to tell me how to be more sustainable, and make a profit on the side? Which objective is more important to them?

Edit: I believe that analyzing the biases and incentives underlying the choices and abstractions presented to us is an important part of what it means to be an intelligent human being. Ads are not reliable sources of information, as the company is incentivized not to inform you, but to sell to you. There are many better sources of good ideas than ads.

The purpose of advertising is to manipulate you into buying things you don't need, not to inform you about a product that is useful. Turn on the TV, or the radio, or any website, and show me one advert that is purely informative.

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