Yahoo And Google Now Let You Opt Out Of Ads (Because It’s Better Than Letting You Opt In) | Hacker News Reader

Yahoo And Google Now Let You Opt Out Of Ads (Because It’s Better Than Letting You Opt In)

techcrunch.com

17 pointsdrm23710 comments

As notauser says, this title sucks, it's about targeted ads. I don't understand why people are so against targeted ads. These companies are going to collect information about you either way, it's (at least for the moment) not illegal, so why shouldn't they use that information to give you ads that don't suck? If Digg wants to determine that I've never clicked on a Snorg tees ad even though they've shown me 10,000 of them and conclude that maybe they should stop showing them, that sounds like a win for me, Digg and the Snorg tees people that are paying for me to see an ad I will never click. Now I can see an ad I might actually be interested in, Digg can charge more for advertising, and the ad providers aren't throwing their money away

that makes too much sense.

I had a rather amusing conversation with my coworker today about this. I think that companies should not collect that kind of data, despite the benefit in terms of improved products (personalized search, ads that don't suck, whatever), whereas his basic attitude was "I'm not doing anything illegal, they're not doing anything illegal, so why not?"

While I would not mind being shown ads I care about, I worry about the cost. I don't want companies to be able to share detailed click trails and be able to produce in depth biographies because of the potential for abuse, be it governmental, corporate or "hm I wonder what I can find out about that girl I met yesterday".

PS: as an addendum, I know people with Google log access, and while it's less scary than it sounds, I know there are "tons" of people with such access... and counterparts at other companies. I don't know if I can trust all those people with knowing when I get funny rashes or whatever.

I like to stumble around in the dark because at least that way the spy cameras can't see me!!!

I don't like it either, but if they're going to do it either way I would rather at least get some benefit out of it

It can lead to embarrassing moments when your mates are over and see ads for the newest Britney Spears CD and toy ponies...

Hey, toy ponies rule. I don't think I like your tone

Very misleading headline - this is not opting out of ads, it is opting out of cross-site tracking. (By having an opt-out cookie set.)

Everyone should just install Ad Block

The issue with targeted ads isn't the targeted ads, but the information collected and stored to generate them. AFAIK, Ad Block does nothing to help with this. Also notice that opting out likely doesn't help either.

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