Post AVmf25UI3lpq36muXY by jmeowmeow@hachyderm.io
(DIR) More posts by jmeowmeow@hachyderm.io
(DIR) Post #AVmdqZ6c0ybwTkedpA by lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org
2023-05-18T15:30:10Z
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***** Google's Privacy Sandbox ****I believe the big Achilles heel of #Google's Privacy Sandbox, their continuing effort rolling out in trials already, is Ad Topics, that replaces third party cookies with an advertising API involving local device modeling of your browsing history into predefined categories (about 350), with sites able to receive up to three of them most highly ranked.Google asserts that this will maintain or increase the value of targeted ads while increasing individual user privacy by moving away from third party cookies and ad hoc techniques used by sites to try target individual users.Google is moving to default the various aspect of Privacy Sandbox to ON, based on the usual hope that users won't bother to change the defaults.I think the two words that spell the main trouble for this plan are "browsing history." Most people are quite sensitive about this and assume it is private. Even if shared with Google for enhanced services, they don't really want advertisers to know anything about it.Hell, even I feel an emotional punch when I think about advertisers being handed information about my browsing, no matter how carefully categorized, anonymized, and sanitized. And I know how this stuff actually works. I even agree that in theory it's better than the status quo with third party cookies, etc.Is this really going to fly in the long run? It seems unlikely as currently defined. Most people aren't going to understand it, just like they don't understand that Google doesn't sell user data to advertisers -- a widely held false belief that Google has never really been able to dispel. And Privacy Sandbox is even more complicated to explain to the average nontechnical person.Politicians from both parties are going to jump all over this. The fine points of privacy balance will be lost in the noise. This is unlikely to end well for anyone. -L
(DIR) Post #AVmeXbBUA7mvNTSCpc by jmeowmeow@hachyderm.io
2023-05-18T15:37:56Z
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@lauren Google saw what Apple did to ad tracking by changing their mobile browser configuration.Privacy Sandbox sounds like a technical fix in code they control in order to protect one of their money fountains.This will probably be an unhappy ride.
(DIR) Post #AVmejDlB4y9MCfgsQS by lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org
2023-05-18T15:39:46Z
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@jmeowmeow There's plenty of blame to pour on Apple. Their "privacy" moves were largely to advantage their own ad systems and decimate everyone else, creating an escalating ad war.
(DIR) Post #AVmf25UI3lpq36muXY by jmeowmeow@hachyderm.io
2023-05-18T15:43:17Z
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@lauren Disney had to accommodate Apple's changes, and it was a bit of a scramble because it changed the way user sessions worked across Disney sites.
(DIR) Post #AVne4W4WHkESHYHvNI by cazabon@mindly.social
2023-05-19T03:07:27Z
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@lauren I think the issue for many people is more significant and harder to solve.When I buy a book, magazine, newspaper, etc, it may have ads in it, spreading the cost of production among more than the readers/buyers. People, in general, are fine with this.The amount of information the #advertisers in such situations get about me, the reader, is zero....
(DIR) Post #AVnfJ3bCWqloGz4WaO by cazabon@mindly.social
2023-05-19T03:10:30Z
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@lauren The best they have is averages and distributions of various demographic categories - readership of this magazine skews to higher socioeconomic status, or to urban DINKs, or whatever. Advertisers make do with that very vague targeting.And so many people - myself included - think advertising on the web should be exactly like this. The fact that the web makes it possible to stripmine personal data at the individual level doesn't make it okay....
(DIR) Post #AVnfJ4MLhYU4dD8B4i by cazabon@mindly.social
2023-05-19T03:13:21Z
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@lauren If advertisers/agencies could, many, maybe most, would be taking every datapoint that in any way let them sell that ad for more money, or target that ad more closely to a possible customer.But we're not okay with that.It might be different for Gen-Z, who grew up with surveillance capitalism and may not have the muscle memory for physical media distribution without data-gathering.So I subscribe to sites that generate content I like....
(DIR) Post #AVnfJ4vRb4YaO3YCmG by cazabon@mindly.social
2023-05-19T03:15:33Z
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@lauren And I block the hell out of ads and trackers everywhere. If we had a working micropayments system for the web, I would happily browse with a daily content budget, paying extra when I found something particularly worth my attention. Unfortunately, we don't, so I have individual subscriptions to a bunch of sites, and subscribe to a bunch of others via Patreon et al.
(DIR) Post #AVnfJ5bH5Y18Tn7byi by lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org
2023-05-19T03:21:18Z
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@cazabon The lack of any real practical micropayments system has hobbled the Net for decades. It's probably too late now.