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Comment by armandososa | Hacker News Reader

    I can almost guarantee that, if asked, most users would request that their browsing not be tracked some ad company you have no knowledge of.

I think that depends on how you frame the issue. "Do you want to have your privacy invaded by evil marketing companies?" vs. "Would you help Google to know you better, so it can serve you better ads?"

For me, ads are a necessary evil because I don't want to ever pay for every content I consume on the internet. So, If third party cookies are used to serve me better ads, ads that actually interest me, then I'm all for it.

Just this past week I finally decided to move my blog from Dreamhost to a Managed WP Hosting company, and it was all because of their ads following me all over the internet. I'm thankful to Google that it showed me those ads and not something about beer or hip-hop music or macrame or whatever I don't care for.

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Let's suppose you didn't deliberately bias the question. I think Gruber is right. Arguing that if you slanted the question you could slant the result is beside the point.

Second, if Google can't do a good job of showing me relevant ads in gmail -- and it can't -- I don't think its cookies will help it. You're assuming facts not in evidence.

Three, there's also no evidence that making ads better targeted has been good for the ad industry (whose overall revenues have if anything fallen) or ad quality (when's the last time you saw a great online ad? I've seen plenty of great print and tv ads).

Your second point really hits home for me; honestly, I would love to know what Google (or most any other modern ad company) /is/ doing with its cookies, as it never seems like any of the ads I see are even remotely well-targeted.

What do you mean "no evidence that making ads better targeted has been good"? You mean no evidence as in you A/B tested your on app and found no reasonable increase? Or you mean no evidence, as in you never bothered looking for evidence?

Judging from my personal anecdote with A/B testing targeted ads, there's a lot of evidence that it's good for both advertisers and users. Just try running tests and you'll see it for yourself.

Nice how you left off part of my sentence. Targeting ads is good for (some) advertisers (whether it's good for customers is debatable) but I said "good for the ad industry".

If a/b testing increases conversions all that demonstrates is you can get more revenue per ad dollar. Whether any "good" occurs is an entirely different matter. You might be selling penis enlargement pills.

> For me, ads are a necessary evil because I don't want to ever pay for every content I consume on the internet.

I can understand, sort of (even though the parts of the Internet I use most are community supported, not ad supported so I don't think less effective ads will suddenly destroy the Internets even if a large majority currently is ad supported)

> So, If third party cookies are used to serve me better ads, ads that actually interest me, then I'm all for it.

But this I do disagree with. I surf the Internet a lot, and there's already more than enough stuff distracting me that I wasn't looking for. No matter how useful it may seem to be, it cuts deeply into my productivity if every venture into some research or just surfing gets sidetracked by extremely interesting ads. Extremely interesting (but non-relevant to the topic at hand) links are already enough of a problem, slurping bits off my willpower to not click them, that I don't need any ads hypertargeted at my personality to draw away my attention from what I was looking for in the first place.

No really, I prefer ads that don't apply to me at all.

Doesn't the Facebook "Like" button rely on this, too?

This just my personal opinion, but in the case of a "like" button, it relies on you having interacted with Facebook, having previously accepted their cookies.

In the case of most ad networks, no one knows who they are, no individual visits their site directly. Now in the case of Google, I don't know why they couldn't just serve ads from google.com and still get around this issue, since most people would have accepted cookies from them already.

I meant to say, in the case of the like button, I think this is OK, since you've previously interacted with the site in question.

Exactly. Having spoken a lot about these issues to regular people, I would bet most people would give up privacy for better ads. Just as most people would give up privacy for a safer world.

Not sure if serious.

My instinct is that most people would not want dozens of faceless ad companies collecting large swaths of their websurfing history.

But, but... better ads! Let me know how that sales pitch works out in the long run.

I think you're right, but only up until that point where people see concrete, actual consequences of giving up their privacy.

A friend of mine was not very happy when he discovered that he was served ads about "how to lose weight!", and "struggling with depression?". Of course, I don't even know if those were targeted to him. Maybe the next ad he'll see is "struggling with paranoia?" :)

What are better ads? If I want something specific to buy, I can search 1000 million places on the web and find it with unprecedented ease. So why I need "ads" at all? (and much less "better ads").

Plus, if I searched Google or visited sites for "depression", "dildos", "flatulence problems", "David Hasselholf CDs", "weight loss", "quit your job" etc, I sure as hell WOULDN'T want to see "better ads" targeting me for such topics --especially when I'm browsing with other people around me.

Better ads are ads with higher click-through rates, which provides more dollars for the site whose content you are freely consuming.

Higher click through rates come from a better match between the user's interests and what the ad is offering. It is good for the advertiser (since they get more customers), and the site (since they get more ad revenue), and the user (since they see relevant ads instead of garbage).

Better ads are ads with higher click-through rates, which provides more dollars for the site whose content you are freely consuming.

Well, I'd happily pay to get rid of the ads, given the chance.

It sure as hell isn't good for me. I don't want to see "relevant ads".

For one, they are just there to make me spend more.

And second, as I said above, I ABHOR relevant ads shown when I browse, especially with other people around, that can guess that all those "adult diaper" ads I'm being shown have something to do with what I was searching for in private.

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