Same senators who thought Google made iPhones? Not defending Google but I am saying that most of those senators are not the holders of truth when it comes to technology.
Of course there are numerous factors that may have contributed to the ad (and maybe Google wasn't involved) but they went with the smartass answer and the media ran with that narrative instead. It's not the greatest question but it's much more valid than what people are assuming it was.
Video of the question (and notice the title): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmuROTmazco&t=60
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/monopoly-m...
iPhone claims aside, that's just a terrible question. Doesn't know what type of phone it was, doesn't know what type of game they were playing, doesn't give any details on the sort of photo shown or the ad copy shown. By all likelihood it sounds like this was a Facebook ad because of FB's "Social Ads" policy does use profile pictures of people on your friends list in their ads. On top of that, kids are not the smartest or most honest. It could have been a picture of any old man that looks similar and she assumes it's her grandpa. It could be a made-up story entirely.
It's unfortunate but it shows just how bad the understanding is on all sides, and why these corporations can get away with so much. The most recent hearings this year revealed how much training these CEOs get and how adept they are at maneuvering around any real investigation.
A reasonable, non-combative answer to this question may have been something along the lines of:
Senator, ad providers have little control over what the content of the ads that are going into these applications is. While I'm not sure what the specific ad that your granddaughter saw was, I can tell you that at google, there is a system where a user can report an ad as inappropriate. Again I'm not sure what the specific ad that you saw was, or if it was part of google's advertising platform, but if it was, you could have reported that to google for review, and I can understand why that would have been an uncomfortable experience for you.
> Senator, ad providers have little control over what the content of the ads that are going into these applications is.
This isn't really true, and also if interpreted in the most negative way it can be, this is opening up a big can of worms that isn't true. To say that they have little control over whether an ad somehow finds a picture of your grandfather and shows it to you is just straight up false. The only ad network where this is possible is Facebook and the advertisers do not get access to those images or know what names they are using to affiliate with their ads. Only that they can show names from a user's friends list.
I still think the most likely assumption is that the ad showed an old man and the 7 year old assumes any elderly man is her grandpa, or that the congressman made up the scenario based on something similar happening (seeing an ad in a facebook feed with a photo of the grandpa). It's a combative question and deserves a combative answer.
It's like when my mom calls me to say her iPhone is showing an error on the screen, but she can't remember what it was. So I ask her to write it down on a piece of paper and then call me next time it happens. It is always
"A new version of iOS is available for your device. Press OK to upgrade to iOS x.x.x."
Edit: If they were chatting at the bar about how ad networks work, it's one thing. But this is a congressional hearing and there's no reason you should need to potentially implicate yourself on a situation that doesn't even exist.
Question: "how does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone".
Interpretation 1:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone"
Senator, the iphone has a component on the front of it called an LED screen. LED stands for "light emitting diode", and the screen itself, which is similar in composition to a piece of glass, contains millions of these LEDs. The software in the phone selectively turns these LEDs (called pixels) on and off in patterns which your eyes interpret as images and text.
Interpretation 2:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator, there is a complex system of interactions between the user and the device they are using which influences the things that show up on the phone. I'm not sure what specific actions your grand daughter took to cause that specific ad to show up on her phone; one of the goals of interface design is to allow the user to precisely indicate to the device or software system what it is that they wish to see, or have the system produce. Likely there were some actions that your grand daughter took that caused the ad you are concerned about to appear, and some of these actions were likely tracked as a part of an advertising network which takes into account previous actions, location, browsing histo..
<Speaker the senators time is expired>
Interpretation 3:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator I am not sure how the age of your granddaughter is effecting that advertisements that she is seeing in this specific case, however I can tell you that at google, age is certainly a part of the algorithm we use to select which ads we show to children.
Interpretation 4:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator my company doesn't make the iphone.
This is not how things work legally. If they want better answers they need better questions. It's not about interpreting what they meant but never actually said. Especially when what they said it accusatory of Google and very likely false. He asked a terrible question, and you're bending over backwards to interpret it in the most charitable way possible. That's fine on HN, or in a group of friends. That is not how things work at a congressional hearing. If I was Sundar, my answer would be that without photographic proof I don't believe this ever actually happened.
Cheers to whomever is downvoting my responses. It doesn't change the fact that it was a bad question and it got a deservedly snarky answer. I'm leaving this thread, it's clear most people here don't want to understand ads and just want to be angry at the big corp.
It’s worked out really well for me so far.
https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/27/media/att-time-warner-senat...
Can you name one positive law with regards to tech that the government has passed in the last 20 years?
During the last hearing, many of the representatives were more concerned about Google and Facebook being “unfair” to conservatives. Well that and grilling Zuckerburg about Twitter’s practices.
And then there are the ones that were only stopped because of massive protests like SOPA and PIPA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA
Not to mention regulations that killed the concept of net Neutrality.
There are also constant mumblings about passing laws against encryption that the government can’t decrypt.
The Snowden leaks should scare anyone about giving the government more power.
It was in 1996, but there is also the CDA.
They don’t have to be. Their staffers do.
I’ve worked with a number of staffers on these questions for about three years now. They’re some of the smartest people I’ve worked with in my career, which has centred around Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
That and trying to use the military to “takeover” Texas.
The house of commons has 600 more MPs for 5x less population.
(I know the system isn't perfect and not everyone listens to educated voices and in a perfect world, there would be a range of knowledge in the elected body itself).
Edited for a missed comma.
It's not a bad idea in theory, but you run into the classic problem of deciding how to define "good information".
Also senators can, and often do is have experts and have them provide sworn statements about given subject.
Or in the case of the FTC that gave the cable companies more power and upheld states blocking municipal broadband and got rid of net neutrality?