Let some random people use your router for awhile, should muddy up the targetting.
I’ve always kinda wanted to see the private in house profiles google has on our IP, at one time three teenagers two male adults and a pregnant woman were all using our line. The varied flavors of porn alone in the cache was astounding.
Yea but I search a lot of stuff out of random curiosity, a while back I was wondering if outside insulin changes the body’s endogenous production so I was searching. It seems silly to go through life worrying someone will assume I’m a diabetic because of that.
Well, first of all, you don’t need to get so angry. The emotional response to this is precisely what I don’t understand about it. Maybe I’m an android or something, but I really, really, honestly, truly, and wholly don’t get what’s upsetting about targeted advertising.
Secondly, I’d like to have an example of exactly what you believe could happen to this information tomorrow that would harm you in any way. I’ve heard this argument before, but the only examples I’ve ever been able to get were patently ridiculous exaggerations.
I completely understand your last paragraph that providing market research is valuable to the companies that collect the data, but consider that (like with regular advertising, or even your browser’s userAgent string) you’re giving that value in exchange for the ad-supported content you’re consuming. If you don’t think the content you’er consuming is worth the value you’re providing, then simply don’t visit the site. Right?
The ads don’t exist in a vaccuum, they’re there in exchange for content you’re consuming. Providing eyeballs, analytics data, market research data is how you “pay” for the content.
I’m asking out of curiousity, I’m not trying to dictate to you or anybody else. Do what you like, it’s none of my business.
They’re not “just” collecting it, though. You’re consuming content, and in “payment” for that content they’re collecting the valuable information. It’s a market exchange like any other and, in fact, many sites allow you to simply pay them a few bucks a month instead of viewing ads.
But I also think you’re blowing this way out of proportion. The only data they’re collecting is bits like, “this user likes websites about gardening”. None of the data they collect could possibly be used to harm you in any way, and it’s no more accurate or comprehensive than the assumptions that traditional media makes about, say, readers of “Garden Magazine”. That’s one of the reasons I don’t get the objection to it.
I also want to point out for the record that there is a very, very thick and opaque wall between ad exchanges that serve to porn sites and those that do not. You’ll never get “this viewer likes porn” data mixed-in with “this viewer likes gardening website” data.
Blakeyrat, the more vitriolic posts notwithstanding, I’d be interested if my previous post (which focuses on completely different issues) holds any resonance with you.
(However, in response to the “voluntary exchange” concept, it isn’t a symmetric situation. For example, I find it annoying that airlines have started placing ads on the seatbacks and tray tables. You could say, “Well, you don’t have to fly,” but obviously I do, so in reality I wasn’t given a choice in the matter. The airline has inconsiderately forced me to look at “AVIS - We try harder” for three hours. They didn’t have to do this. They just didn’t care if it annoyed me, because they knew I had no choice and that I would fly anyway. Is that good for their bottom line? Absolutely. Does it annoy me? Absolutely. Those are not incompatible.)
To be frank, I simply don’t buy your points 1 and 2, and I don’t think you’ve adequately accounted for my previous point that, generally-speaking, the most annoying types of ads are non-targeted.
The best reason you gave to support your point 1 is your metaphor about the guy with the bullhorn. But as I said, the reason you’re annoyed by bullhorn guy isn’t because he’s advertising something targeted towards you, but because he’s using a bullhorn to do it.
In the online world, the annoying ads (the bullhorn guys) are all untargeted. So I would assume that if you’re against “bullhorn guy” you would be for, or at least neutral, on targeted ads.
Then you fly a different airline. Right? Again maybe I’m an alien android from Venus, but I just don’t see the issue here.
EDIT: actually I think the most interesting part of your post is that you admitted you’ve never tried to articulate it before. At the risk of being a jerk, it makes me wonder if it’s all just a knee-jerk reaction from people who don’t know anything about the online advertising industry. Maybe there’s no rationality involved at all.
Use Adblock Plus. I also use NoScript and Ghostery, but Adblock is the most important piece of software in my world. I would have destroyed my computers long ago and moved out into the woods if it wasn’t for Adblock.
Also, data tracking, even anonymously, has the potential for extreme privacy violations. There are 7 billion people in this world, so that means someone only needs 33 bits of information to uniquely identify you. If you live in a town of 100,000 and somebody knows where you live, they’ve already got 16 bits. It doesn’t take much more “anonymized” data for someone to figure out who you are, your address, and connect that to your browsing habits and online personalities. Targeted ads just aren’t worth the risk.
Risk of what? What am I risking by viewing the ads?
The risk is that an unscrupulous or inattentive agent inside these advertisers’ businesses could release personal information that can be tied back to you by third parties.
You agreed to my point 2 upthread. I am referring to the examples of a surprise gift getting spoiled or an inappropriate/telling ad appearing while looking at something else with a work colleague (say, an ad for resume consultations). I think these are self-evident, no?
On point 1, you are grabbing onto the wrong aspect of the bullhorn analogy, which was about point 2 not point 1. Ignore the bullhorn. My point 1 is that the very nature of the targeted ad is attention grabbing. When I see an ad that refers specifically to me, it grabs my attention way more than a generic ad that is sitting there like so much background noise. That’s all I mean – they grab my attention and distract me more than untargeted ads. Obviously other ads also grab my attention (rollovers, etc.), but I’m not talking about those. A different analogy: if you’re in a crowded room with conversations going on, you can ignore all the other conversations. But if the group next to you starts saying the name of your hometown, it distracts you from your own conversation. They aren’t being any more obnoxious objectively, but they are manifestly more distracting due to how humans sift for signals in background noise.
You’re fighting the hypothetical. Imagine there are no other airlines. Or make it NYC yellow taxis. Or whatever. The point is not to solve the airline scenario (despite the fact that “fly another airline” is not actually a practical solution in many cases). The point is that you should be able to imagine scenarios where the aspects of the argument hold, if you choose to graciously allow them. For targeted ads on the Internet, should I use another Internet?
Being in the online ad industry has nothing to do with it. If anything, I would think the clear back-end advantages and perhaps even rationalizations that are ever-present for you in the industry would cloud your ability to empathize with someone who views the situation from the other side. Recall the apparent unnecessary nature of them that you may have trouble seeing. No one wants ads. We, on the non-ad-agency side, merely tolerate them, and having the world present more and more distracting ads without our control is annoying.
And then what? How does that harm me?
This two minute Youtube video has been around for several years. I think it pretty well explains the concerns of those who do not want to be tracked:
Ordering Pizza in the Future
To me, the ads are an just an annoyance – the problem is the tracking.
Well, not really. Like I said, you should be using a different browser for a different task. Why would you and the person you’re buying the gift for be using the same computer account?
That said, I know people don’t properly use the features of their computers, but that’s not the advertiser’s fault.
I just don’t agree to that. There’s no more attention grabbing than any other ad of the same type.
If you don’t like the ads a site runs, then use another site. Right? Just like the airline example.
If you’re going to say “imagine there are no other airlines” you might as well say “imagine all targeted ads are created by evil vampires”… either way it’s so hypothetical I can’t process it. I need solid, meaty, real-world examples, not hypothetical fluff.
I’m not in the ad industry. I’m in a related industry, though.
I can’t emphasize with X if I don’t understand the reason for X. What I’m trying to get in this thread is the reasons. WHY is targeted advertising considered so objectionable? So far I haven’t heard any reasons that would change my mind.
They don’t bother me personally. And when I asked others why they bother them, I never hear a convincing reason. So… maybe I am failing to emphasize, but failing to emphasize with what?
But I don’t agree that targeted ads are more “distracting” and I also don’t agree that you don’t have control over it: cookies are local files stored on your own computer and every browser has comprehensive cookie handling options, not to mention all the extensions mentioned in this very thread.
Anyway I’ve annoyed this thread long enough, I’ll just let it drop.
“Hey, honey, come look at this funny video I just pulled up.”
“Ha ha! Hey, what’s that ad in the corner for… Oh, you shouldn’t have!”
Do you think this is a crazy scenario? Should I be switching into my “Looking at something with my wife” login account? No, because that’s not how session management works on a computer.
Do you agree about the “hometown/conversation” example – that that is more distracting than random conversation? Surely you’ve experienced this.
This clearly doesn’t work. Should I go to a different straightdope.com? A different nytimes.com? These aren’t canned goods. They’re one-of-a-kind commodities. The entire point of the annoyance part of the argument is that the utility loss due to the ads is less (much less) than the utility loss from switching sites. But that just means my utility has gone down, and I can point to the ad as the cause. Thus, I don’t like the ad and I would prefer it wasn’t there. What step in this logic do you disagree with?
Banks you use? Health issues? Identity theft? Your privacy in general?
Compare it to the 2006 AOL search disclosures.
Did you read the paragraph before the sentence you quoted?
You’re not risking anything by viewing the ads. It isn’t a risk, it is 100% certain that the advertiser has sensitive information about you and your browsing habits. And this information is bought and sold by third parties without your consent or control. This data can be linked to your health records, your family, and your job. It can be used to blackmail you.
Google and others who collect this data try to “anonymize” it before sending it to advertisers. But anonymized data isn’t. So it’s basically just security through obscurity. You just have to hope that you’re uninteresting enough to everyone on earth that the only thing this data will be used for is to sell you toiletries. Just hope you don’t get famous, powerful, or make any enemies. Don’t give anyone an incentive to use that data against you. But hey, you didn’t do anything wrong so there’s nothing to hide right?
I would like to point out, however, that targeted ads allow an advertiser to get better results. This in turn allows websites to charge more for targeted ads, which allows them to show fewer ads while remaining revenue neutral. Also, advertisers have a higher incentive with targeted ads to make their ads less disruptive.
So the real point is not how to prevent target ads…
The real point is how to prevent all that personal information from getting out there in the first place.
I think I’ve done a fairly good job of this (AFAIK) by:
(a) Running my browser in maximally crippled mode (JavaScript disabled, Flash disabled, routinely delete all cache and cookies, stuff like that, except as needed). But this limits the browsing experience in ways that not everyone wants to do.
(b) Just not putting much of my personal data out there, except for known legitimate sites where I pay some of my bills or make the occasional on-line purchases.
So, what are other suggested techniques for just, you know, keeping a real low profile on-line?
Yes it is. That’s why all the browsers now have privacy modes. If you’re doing something you don’t want someone else with access to the computer to know about, you’re supposed to use those. Yeah, they’re usually used for porn, but that’s not their only use.
There are some negatives with targeted advertising, but someone who uses your computer seeing something you don’t want them to see is not one of them. That’s user error.