AdTech Sucks: This Time It's Personal IDs
lockwood.dev
lockwood.dev
You say that they are relevant as if that was something to be proud of. You've had to track users across all the internet to be able to show relevant ads, so relevant ads disgust me.
People somehow think that if you get rid of ads the surveillance architecture will go away. They say “if you’re not paying, you’re the product” but the converse is not true - you could be paying and STILL the company could be collecting your data, such as ISPs.
We need full end to end encryption and decentralization! Everything should be opt-in by design.
The former evaluates the context of the content being delivered by the server, while the latter evaluates an encyclopedia’s worth of data (both inferences and known traits) about the user.
I have some experience with adtech, and I know a significant part of it is exploiting low-education low-income people to spend money with manipulative ads.
The people who actively exploit are the advertisers, and they use technology provided by ad-tech who make sure that the amount of money being extracted out of people is as large as possible.
The way to achieve this is to get as close as possible to users, which means breaking boundaries of what is basically a human right to privacy.
There's no one to blame, but the overall effect of the technology has some significant side-effects, which need to be curtailed, as those low-educated people don't know how they are being played.
That's not what this post is about, and not what most people here care about. I'm not attacking you here, but if you think that's what we're saying "Sucks", then you're really missing the point. Sure, we don't really want to SEE ads, but they're everywhere, and they're just part of life. Most of us just ignore them.
We absolutely positively do not want to be followed around by any number of AdTech companies profiling us and selling what we do and buy. Leaking all that to all the places it gets leaked. Trading our lives and what we do with others, all so someone can show us a "better" ad in the hopes we'll pay attention.
Show us an ad, fine, we can ignore it. Stop profiling everything single we do and not giving us any realistic way to opt-out. We have no idea who has all this and what will be done with it, and there's nothing we can do. All is the name of showing us a better ad.
Yeah, I definitely think advertising has a place, and I sometimes engage with ads. I know that ads work. But that's definitely not what I'm arguing against. Advertising isn't inherently bad, but the implementation currently is in most cases.
I think this does a disservice to the world evil and trivializes it: Hitler is evil. War is evil. Ad tech.. Inconvenient? Frustrating? Possibly infringing on your civil liberties? All possible, likely depending on which ad company it is, but evil? Let's talk about those things! Let's avoid the extremist language what serves no one and only divides people further into their respective camps, and let's try to have an intellectually honest conversation on HN for once, but given the response to my comment, doesn't seem like today is the day.
I follow that with an interesting anecdote!
During the filming of the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the actress playing Nurse Ratchett, the principle antagonist in the film, suffered a breakdown resulting from animosity built up amongst the film crew. Her mere portrayal and demonstration of wicked/evil tendencies was sufficient to taint the emotional atmosphere.
Point being:
When one is in an environment, and feels it necessary to try to say "I'm not evil! X, Y, and Z are evil! What I'm doing isn't!", it is generally a sign of cognitive dissonance being brushed up against.
There is an argument to be made, that if what the AdTech industry does is so effective at bringing up feelings of hostility, revulsion, and repugnance once properly understood, it may very well be to an extent "evil" due to a demonstrated capacity to generate widespread feelings of immorality.
It takes time, and effort to elucidate the various ways in which this industry triggers fundamental moral avoidance circuits.
AdTech violates moral principles of "being a good host", "professional discretion", "unimpositive (not imposing on one's guests or making light of imposing on or dominating their attention)", "non-intrusion", "being courteous in the immediate term", and "conservative in taking actions that could have far reaching consequences in the long term".
These are fundamental underpinnings of the fabric of positive societal interaction, and are to differing levels globally recognized.
Taking and violating such fundamental precepts, and in ways difficult to understand and extrapolate by the Common person illustrates a callous disregard for what makes society work, and implicitly sets off those alarm bells you mentioned earlier.
I'm not even being outright inflammatory; just pointing out the essential characteristics of the arrangement. If a barebones explication of what you do violates so many fundamental behavioral assumptions, and generates such animosity when brought out into the light of day, you really need to sit down and give it a long think.
Is delivering a better Ad really worth throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
Is delivering a better Ad worth endangering the framework that got us this far?
If your answer is still yes after giving it intense thought, you need to spend more time amongst your detractors, because you've likely only seen one side of the matter at issue.
The opt-out model is inherently incompatible with the desire to not be tracked. If the default is that everyone is tracked, and you need to opt out, then just setting a flag in an HTTP header isn't enough, because your digital traces encompass far more than your HTTP requests. In order to make sure you're not following people, and not just browsers, you need to set up some sort of universal identification for adtech to. . . wait for it. . . track.
The fact that ad companies are evidently not acting in good faith makes this a bit of a moot point, but morally it's important to point out that ad companies don't have to make it impossible to opt-out.
I think a lot of us here have played the ad game with Google, realize it's optimized to help G, not us, and call bullshit.
Nevertheless, the industry touts its success but a lot of us think it's smoke and mirrors- basically, the ads only help with branding, which does not require such deep tracking.
We think you guys know it too, but keep insisting on tracking.
That makes us very suspicious: what are you doing with the data if it's not effective at getting me to buy something? And exactly how much do you know about me?
So, in the eyes of many, the tracking ad industry has about as much chance of convincing us it's morally fit as Trump does.
This is the core point you’re missing. People here are talking about the industry as a whole. Not your ethical internet ad firm or you yourself.
The industry. Not you or your situation.
I’ve worked at a “marketing analytics solutions” company before (shudders at the memory).
I had access (was a data processor) to 60 million UK people’s info on their mortgage, email address, age, marital status, car make/model, likely holiday destinations... etc etc.
What we did with the data doesn’t matter. The fact it does is exist and is hidden from the customers view is the problem.
No snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche. But one couldn't reasonably say 'children love catching snowflakes landing on their tongues so it's not black or white whether avalanches are a bad thing.' That's not your position, I know, but there's not nearly as much gray as you seem to suggest.
However, browsing the net without an ad blocker these days is like having unprotected sex with random people in some alley behind a bar... it's just not safe.
Sure there's a whole lot of gray but that doesn't mean there's no truly dark parts.
What a sibling comment said is much how I feel, I don't want to feel like in visiting a site or using an app that it feels the right suck up as much info about me and then uses my info as currency, then when it leaks out, no one cares. I don't want to have to worry if a site is hosting malware through their ads.
If you want to do it ethically, take a note from https://www.roguefitness.com/privacy-policy
They described exactly what they do, how they use it, and they show you that they can let you opt out if you choose. I actually don't mind letting their ads through because they are so transparent about their policy.
Wouldn't you feel better with yourself if you worked for something that actually provides value to people?
I'm not saying you are evil; but if you were, you would be the last person to know it.
A near-zero percent of people we would consider "evil" think that their actions are/were not justified.
Beyond that you get into grey territory, and most of the time down right predatory.
I can run a campaign based on location of search and keywords, that's fine for me. I don't need the user user data. That information is non specific in relation to an actual user. What excuse does anyone have for needing a users history?
They're so "valuable" that you admit people "don't want to see ads". Explain?
> but we actually get quite a bit of user feedback saying they are appreciative of the money we were able to save them by using our service
Sure you do. Show us.
If I were to, e.g., scientifically study which words and clothes optimize getting college girls to sleep with me, the outcry would be deafening. But if I do the exact same thing to optimize getting them to click links or pull out credit cards, it's perfectly respectable?
Nah you'd just be a pick up artist
The following exchange is interesting to read in the context of a dystopian mass surveillance society (John 4:16-19):
Jesus told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
"I have no husband," the woman replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are correct to say that you have no husband. In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully."
"Sir," the woman said, "I see that You are a prophet."
Won't happen.
Please don't. We're optimizing for intellectual curiosity here, and there's none of that left when a statement becomes so predictable.
If you think of the threads like conversations, this might make more sense. Nobody likes it when someone repeats the same thing over and over in every conversation. It doesn't matter how right you are.