[HN Gopher] Disney+ demands users' age and gender so it can "del...
___________________________________________________________________
Disney+ demands users' age and gender so it can "deliver targeted
advertising"
Author : NickRandom
Score : 177 points
Date : 2022-11-15 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reclaimthenet.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (reclaimthenet.org)
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I feel like this is rather superfluous on Disney's side. If my
| account has watched Frozen 172 times, you should be able to
| figure out which ad will be effective on it.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Off topic but is there any way to block/disable chromecast
| screensaver ads from Disney+/Netflix etc.?
| odessacubbage wrote:
| i have still never seen a 'targeted ad' that is even remotely
| related to my interests or purchasing habits.
| s3000 wrote:
| People buy status symbols not for their direct benefit, but to
| communicate with their environment. A brand doesn't have to
| influence those who buy but those who don't.
| [deleted]
| kderbyma wrote:
| and....I Cancel....because fuck them.
| vletal wrote:
| I'll happily build them a model which estimates it.
|
| Heck, it could be even better, since your "mental" age based on
| your interests in movies could be more suitable for delivering
| ads then your actual age.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Well then, I guess that I am born on Jan 1st 1970 and identify as
| a multi-user OS.
| egberts1 wrote:
| No thanks.
|
| We don't need curated ads.
|
| We will seek them out so just put it ALL out there for us to
| choose at our time and privacy.
| Markoff wrote:
| Good for them, I "pirate" content legally since I pay huge fees
| in Czechia from each storage media (last time I bought 64GB
| flashdrive, the copyright fees were more than cost of the flash
| drive), so I can legally download copy of any movie, TV show or
| music for my own use.
|
| Pahe in India, Philipines, PSA on PM, MKVking and plenty of other
| options to download legally content even without torrenting.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| just lie
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Why does Disney really need this information for advertising
| purposes when they already know what shows somebody is watching?
| I realize that any age/gender can watch any show, and of course a
| lot of Disney's catalogue is pretty universal to age/gender, but
| there's going to be some kind of a signal in anybody's viewing
| history.
|
| If some profile is routinely watching a show about makeup or
| horses or ballet dances, you have a pretty good guess about the
| age/gender. Likewise if some profile is watching a lot of shows
| about monster trucks, little league baseball, and RPG games, you
| likewise can make a pretty reasonable guess about who they are.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Because watching Starwars doesn't equate to buying Ziplock
| bags.
|
| Playing video games, of any kind as an adult is such a norm
| today that it's not entirely accurate to say "well this person
| plays Mario, let's advertise crayola",
| autoexec wrote:
| > Because watching Starwars doesn't equate to buying Ziplock
| bags.
|
| Sometimes it does.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Ziploc-Sandwich-Featuring-
| Different-D...
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Tiktok asked for my birthday and I couldn't navigate away from
| the page. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app to try and
| circumvent entering a birthday. They banned my account.
|
| This account was active for 2+ years and they out of the blue
| REQUIRED a birthday like wth.
| dmonitor wrote:
| that might have been compliance with some law regarding showing
| content to children
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I thought the same, but everyone I've asked hasn't run into
| this question. I signed up with my phone number and didn't
| give them an email, maybe they're getting age from SSO for
| other users?
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I've lost count of the amount of times the government has asked
| me what my race is. Surely they'd know by now...
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Hm. Recession is making us cutback on our streaming services, but
| which ones to keep and which ones to cancel? Thanks Disney for
| making the choice easy!
| nske wrote:
| Ah, I guess I'll just lie and if they somehow lock me out or give
| me trouble, let's just say it's their loss more than mine.
| Streaming services should remember they keep customers by
| offering convenience and the feeling of doing the right thing at
| a reasonable cost, not because they managed to enforce
| exclusivity of their content. That's a battle they never won.
| JadoJodo wrote:
| Part of me wants to just lean in and claim to be a "105-year-old
| they/them", but I know that the vast majority of people would
| happily provide this information just to keep their service up.
| What a shame.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| At the start Netflix was about getting rid of ads ridden cable TV
| so you now you can get competing Disney+ which is now just a
| cable TV with targeted ads based on your personal data. It is
| evolving, only backwards.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| At first, cable TV had no ads because it was funded by
| subscriptions. Then most cable channels slowly started adding
| more and more ads _and_ demanding higher and higher rates from
| cable operators to carry their channels. Then the local
| channels started demanding rates from cable operators to carry
| their channels that are otherwise available for free over the
| air. Then eventually they even started showing ads at the movie
| theater before the movie you paid to see.
|
| What is happening with streaming services adding ads was
| entirely predictable because the financial incentives of a
| company that adopts a subscription model are to add ads to the
| subscription once they think they can get away with it. If they
| already have ads, the incentive is to add more and more of them
| until there's pushback (i.e. the NFL has been cutting down on
| commercial breaks because they got long enough and frequent
| enough to become a common source of fan complaints when
| ironically the 2 minute warning was originally added to the
| rulebook in the early 70s to guarantee TV broadcasters at least
| one commercial break each half that wasn't because the clock
| ran out on a quarter).
|
| This is why all of the people who want a subscription based
| model for online services that are currently free are
| hopelessly naive. If they get their way, things will get better
| for a few years and then will eventually end up right back
| where they are but worse because you'll have to pay for the
| privilege of watching ads.
| njarboe wrote:
| Since many services now split into two tiers with a cheaper
| option for no ads, maybe ads showing up in no-ads tier won't
| happen. There really wasn't the possibility to do that before
| streaming (multiple cable channels I guess could have been
| done). I pay for ad free YouTube, HBO, and Netflix (although
| often cancel for awhile when nothing on the service interests
| me). Ads for other shows on the service at the beginning of
| shows/movies that I can fast forward through is the most ads
| I will tolerate.
| lfowles wrote:
| No such luck. The Hulu no-ad tier still has ads for a
| select few shoes.
| pests wrote:
| That's due to contract reasons. Hulu keeps a list of
| shows they are required to show ads on:
|
| https://help.hulu.com/s/article/no-ads-exceptions
| autoexec wrote:
| Contracts the wrote themselves for themselves. Disney
| owns Hulu and ABC and ABC owns Grey's Anatomy.
|
| They aren't being forced to show ads. They chose too.
| pests wrote:
| Grey's might have had a contract with an advertiser or
| other promotional partner that required them to show
| certain ads during the show.
| purpleflame1257 wrote:
| Shonda Rimes owns Grey's. Take it up with her.
| autoexec wrote:
| She created it, but doesn't own it. She sold the rights
| away to ABC/Disney/Hulu
| kgwxd wrote:
| I think all but Netflix show a preview for another show on
| the service before the thing I actually want to watch, I
| count that as an ad.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| I am from Eastern Europe, so I have missed the "cable used to
| be subscription based without ads" time, so thank you for
| showing me how history rhymes and that ads in subscription
| based medium are inevitable.
| kuratkull wrote:
| I think he's talking about the 70s or sometime back then
| thakoppno wrote:
| I looked into this and it's not true that cable existed
| without ads.
|
| From a 1981 NYT article
|
| > Although cable television was never conceived of as
| television without commercial interruption, there has
| been a widespread impression - among the public, at least
| -that cable would be supported largely by viewers'
| monthly subscription fees.
| https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-
| inv...
| autoexec wrote:
| Cable television may not have been conceived of as
| television without commercial interruption, but it was
| heavily advertised as being ad free and for a time it
| really was. I remember the ad creep. It started with
| channels adverting themselves or shows/movies that would
| air or replay later on their channel, then came ads for
| shows airing on other channels, then came the commercials
| for cars and dish soap.
| njarboe wrote:
| Only the premium pay extra channels. Similar to today,
| you could pay to have no ads for some content.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| In 1980 we had Showtime at our house. Standard VHF
| channels 2-13 that did have ads and one extra premium
| channel with no ads.
| [deleted]
| bdw5204 wrote:
| Ad free cable may have been US centric and that era didn't
| last very long. The New York Times had an article in
| 1981[0] about how cable networks were excited about the
| potential to start running ads.
|
| [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-
| be-inv...
| fullshark wrote:
| It was always acquiring market share and monetizing that
| market, a better product through technology is just the tool
| they used initially.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Market would be a hell of a lot healthier and better for
| customers if we'd prevent vertical integration of production
| and distribution, like we (in the US) did with movie theaters
| until very recently.
| noasaservice wrote:
| Just Pirate and store stuff using Jellyfin. It's an infinitely
| better experience, and everything just works. And you don't get
| advertised to, demographized, tracked, or anything. You download,
| copy, go!
|
| I used to recommend Netflix back in the day, cause it just
| worked. Now, there's 30+ different streaming services, and many
| have switched to the "leak an episode once a week/month".
|
| Just pirate. It's better, cheaper, AND not hostile to the end
| user!
| [deleted]
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I went from Exodus to Covenant and then eventually gave up on
| tweaking kodi and slowly went the path of least resistance to
| streaming services. But now it just feels like a repeat of
| cable tv with balcanized services.
|
| What do you recommend in the high seas, and how do you manage
| the threat of malware?
| noasaservice wrote:
| So first, get a VPN. I go with ProtonVPN. Mullvad is also
| high quality VPN. You need these because the copyright wonks
| surveil popular torrent trackers.
|
| Then, I stick primarily with video and audio. I stay away
| from software piracy because I prefer my data to be in FLOSS
| formats.
|
| MAKE SURE to use Firefox, with "uBlock Origin" and "Privacy
| Badger" plugins before going to any of these links. Also if
| you're on Windows, go enable in Windows Explorer to show
| "file extensions" - some torrents will be malware with
| movie.mp4.exe and try to trick you to run malware.
|
| --------------
|
| Movies: RARBG.to - One of the most
| organized public trackers, gets new content very quickly. Can
| search by IMDB tags (eg. tt0258038, appearing in IDMB URLs)
| rutracker.org [.org, .net, .nl] - The best general tracker
| from Russia and arguably the best one overall. It's great for
| niche movies, especially from Russia and other east European
| countries. TorrentGalaxy.to - Another highly
| recommended site for movies & TV. Proxy list.
| ettvdl.com Zooqle.com - Easy to use torrent site
| 1337x.to - Many public p2p releases/encodes are released
| here, including Tigole/UTR/YIFY. Cams are typically uploaded
| here as well. psarips.com - Small-sized x265
| (re-)encodes [Documentaries] forums.mvgroup.org -
| Very good documentaries tracker. Registration required.
| [Anime] Nyaa.si [Anime] hi10anime.com [Anime]
| shanaproject.com
|
| > DDL (Direct Download)
| forum.dirtywarez.com - Popular DDL forum. Has a request
| section. scnlog.me - Scene releases rlsbb.ru
| - Scene releases ddlvalley.me
| movieparadise.org adit-hd.com megaddl.co
| rmz.cr 2ddl.ms rarefilmm.com - Rare movies
| psarips.com - Small-sized x265 (re-)encodes
|
| > Private Torrent Trackers Nebulance (NBL)
| - Very good alternative to BTN and easy to join. Great for
| finding/requesting old, unpopular, obscure shows. NBL can be
| joined through MAM. You are eligible the moment you become
| PU, which is 1 month. Filelist - One of the
| largest general private trackers. Romanian tracker, but media
| content will typically include dual language audio (English
| and Romanian). The tracker might be smaller compared to IPT
| but the quality control is better, especially for movies and
| TV shows. You will be able to find high quality encodes from
| PTP and BTN which you might not find on IPT. Can be joined
| through MAM with a 5 months old account
| IPTorrents - The largest general private tracker, period.
| Definitely worth to have as a back up. Invites are easy to
| come by if you make acquaintances otherwise you can join it
| through EMP (unofficial invites; need access to invite forum
| so you have to be Good Perv user class which requires 8 weeks
| on the tracker). Also, don't forget to log in every 3 months
| or you lose your account (called Inactivity rule)
| Secret Cinema - If any of the following keywords interest you
| then this is the tracker for you - old (as early as the 1st
| movie ever), non-mainstream, non-English, arthouse,
| experimental, rare - movies and Tv shows. This tracker can be
| joined through MAM (6 months old account required) and RED.
| PassThePopcorn (PTP) - Movies tracker. Best source for
| movies, period. Couple of unique features - !!!!* The amount
| of active fleshed out collections available to discover
| content to watch. It's often better than some legit sites
| dedicated to this stuff. !!!!* High quality encodes. Many
| torrents are marked Golden Popcorn (GP). They are best of the
| best encodes. It is like Oscars but for encodes. Currently it
| is not possible to join PTP unless you know someone who has
| an account there and can invite you. The best strategy
| suggested is to reach as high of a user class you can reach
| on RED as feasibly possible. This will increase chances when
| PTP starts recruiting again. In the meantime you can join SC,
| BHD, BLU etc and make requests there beyond-
| hd.me (BHD) - Movies/TV tracker. Focuses on HD and some SD
| content. Originally home to the famous FRaMeSToR remux group
| but then many more after AHD died. Currently the best
| alternative to PTP and BTN. After AHD's demise, this is now
| the 2nd best tracker for high quality encodes too. Can be
| joined through RED (either be Elite user class OR power user
| with 6 months old account) pixelhd.me - Movies
| tracker. Known for producing small sized encodes. PxHD Mobies
| - 720p/AAC/mp4 at 1.5-2GB (esp. for Mobile Devices);
| PxHD/PxEHD - 1080p/AC3/mp4 at 4GB and 8GB; and PxHDA -
| 1080p/DTS/ at "whatever size is necessary" for high
| transparency (usually 6-12gb). Can be joined through RED
| (Elite or "high-level" PU; + 2 more proofs; all 3 accounts at
| least 6 months old) and MAM (Elite or "high-level" PU; + 2
| more proofs; all 3 accounts at least 6 months old)
| HD-Torrents (HDT) - Movies/TV tracker. Focuses on HD content
| only. This tracker is great for HD movies though not as good
| as PTP. Specialty lies in allowing of multiple untouched
| material of the same movie, which helps in getting those
| foreign languages, different audio/video quality, or even
| different content in audio/videos. Slightly superior to PTP
| in this regard. You can pay for an account through their
| website. (Note - Only buy the account from their own website,
| not a 3rd party) uhdbits.org (UHDB) - Small
| movies tracker. Should not aim for it as your primary tracker
| but it is good to have as backup, aim for BHD instead. Can be
| joined through RED. TV Chaos UK - TV tracker.
| Great site for UK TV content. Best joined through requesting
| on /r/invites (proof of ratio from other sites required).
| Quality lacks a bit so use it with a TV tracker like BTN to
| get the most of UK content Broadcast the Net
| (BTN) - TV tracker. Best source for TV related content,
| period. Currently this tracker is not recruiting anywhere but
| it is recommended to join PTP where BTN will recruit again in
| the future TV Vault (TVV) - TV tracker. Best
| private tracker for old TV shows. Best way to join it is
| through MAM. More Than TV (MTV) - Movies/TV
| tracker. 2nd best private tracker for TV after BTN. Retention
| is not good but with a strong request section, this is not an
| issue. Can be joined through RED asiancinema.me
| - Movies/TV tracker. A neat little tracker for Asian content.
| animebytes.tv - Best place for anime on the internet. Can be
| joined through RED (account has to be 1 year old)
| AvistaZ - Movies/TV tracker. One of the best places for Asian
| (mainly Japan, South Korea, China etc) movies and TV shows.
| Best place for Korean dramas. Easiest way to join is through
| application on their site. Also one of the few top trackers
| that have open signups from time to time.
| Blutopia - Movies/TV tracker. Very nice tracker for Movies
| and TV. Like other private trackers, you can make the most of
| it through the use of its request section. As SD encodes are
| not allowed on this tracker, it is a great source for
| untouched DVDs, especially if you aren't in top trackers yet
| TorrentLeech - General scene tracker. One of the largest
| general private trackers alpharatio.cc - A
| general private tracker focused on scene releases. Inferior
| in content compared to other general trackers like IPT, TL,
| FL etc but has a very strong request section. Great for
| requests for which personalised trackers don't exist or
| aren't good enough. Can be joined through MAM and RED during
| AR's global invites period, keep an eye out
|
| > Live channel Streaming pluto.tv -
| Official legal service github.com/iptv-org/iptv -
| Mass IPTV aggregation sportsbay.sx - Sports & non-
| sports channels 123tvnow.com cxtvlive.com
| stream2watch.ws time4tv.stream
|
| > Sports /r/rugbystreams - Live streams.
| Links posted within the hour of the match
| /r/MLBStreams - Live streams. Links posted within the hour of
| the match /r/ncaaBBallStreams - Live streams. Links
| posted within the hour of the match /r/WWEstreams -
| Live streams. Links posted within the hour of the match
| /r/mmafights - Live streams. Links posted within the hour of
| the match /r/motorsportsstreams - Live streams. Links
| posted within the hour of the match
| rutracker.org > Sports - Torrents. Sports subforum at
| rutracker sport-video.org.ua - Torrent soccer,
| motorsports, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, rugby,
| other footybite.com - Highlights and live streams.
| Soccer nbafullhd.com - Replays. Basketball, football,
| F1 liveonscore.tv - Live streams. Soccer, MMA,
| motorsports, baseball, basketball, football, hockey
| sportsurge.net - Live streams. MMA, boxing, motorsports,
| basketball, football, hockey sporthd.live - Live
| streams. Soccer, MMA, handball, basketball, rugby, football,
| tennis and others sportsbay.sx - Live streams.
| Football, soccer, basketball, hockey, baseball, NCAA, tennis,
| cricket, motorsports worldcupfootball.me - Live
| streams. MMA, baseball, basketball, football, hockey, NCAAF,
| NCAAM 6stream.xyz - Live streams. MMA, baseball,
| basketball, football, hockey, NCAAF bilasport.net -
| Live streams. Soccer, MMA, baseball, basketball, football,
| hockey 720pstream.me - Live streams. MMA, baseball,
| basketball, football, hockey, NCAAF, NCAAM ripple.is
| - Live streams. Soccer, MMA, boxing, motorsports, basketball,
| football nflbite.com - Live streams. Football
| nbabite.com - Live streams. Basketball
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/wiki/megathread/movies_and_t.
| ..
|
| And there's also https://thepiratebay.org .
| Markoff wrote:
| you know you could just link r/freemediaheckyeah right?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH/wiki/index/
| mrwh wrote:
| I honestly thought this was a phishing attempt. There doesn't
| seem to be a way to enter these data via the website, only the
| email link.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Wife and I use the same account. What do I do?
| orthecreedence wrote:
| Average your ages and put "non-binary."
| alias_neo wrote:
| What if you're the same age and same gender. Damn, they got
| you both!
| dymk wrote:
| Age and gender are the two highest signals that targeted ads take
| into account. The Facebook growth team has always wanted to
| remove gathering age / gender from the sign-up flow (which
| reduces friction to sign up). But, ad targeting would take such a
| large hit, they could never do so.
|
| It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a gender
| option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a nudge
| towards the binary to retain better ad targeting.
|
| In addition to that, companies wants you to acknowledge that
| you're over 13 so they can be more loosey-goosey with data
| collection (thanks California!).
| lazyeye wrote:
| But gender is a social construct? Why should such a meaningless
| data point have any impact on their bottom line?
| anyonecancode wrote:
| Money is also a social construct, yet I suspect it has a
| decent impact on their bottom line.
| lazyeye wrote:
| How do you mean? The thing you are measuring affects your
| measurement?
| dymk wrote:
| Your assumption is the data is meaningless, yet the data
| shows that excluding self-reported gender from ad
| targeting leads to worse ad performance...
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Why in the world do they then collect all that data on us in
| general if ads still use age and gender for the highest value
| signals?
|
| Those are terrible signals and really should be replaced with
| something better.
| dymk wrote:
| They're not terrible signals. They're by far the highest-
| signal metrics that have been found for ad targeting. Legions
| of engineers and data scientist and project managers have
| been working on finding better metrics for a decade, and
| there hasn't been one found.
| feoren wrote:
| > It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a
| gender option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a
| nudge towards the binary to retain better ad targeting.
|
| It's odd that advertisers would _dislike_ that change for
| targeting -- surely the people who pick "custom" are sending a
| major signal that correlates with other preferences. It's a
| third grouping they can specifically target! If they split
| "male" into "HYPER-MASCULINE ALPHA MALE: CARS, GUNS, AND
| FOOTBALL FUCK YEAH!" and "I have a penis but I try not to let
| it make decisions for me", advertisers should presumably love
| that distinction too. Of course the reality is that their
| decades of research deciding what constitutes "male" and
| "female" has gotten them stuck in a shitty local minimum and
| they can no longer abandon this binary concept that they cling
| desperately to without admitting that they've never actually
| known what the fuck they're doing.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| If there was a 300 dimensional vector expressing your nuanced
| gender identity that would be even better, but advertisers
| would have no idea how to target it (at least at first).
| csa wrote:
| > advertisers would have no idea how to target it (at least
| at first).
|
| It would take very little time to reap massive efficiencies
| in targeting, and the rest would be long-tail that would be
| discovered as budget allowed.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| > It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a
| gender option
|
| Did a significant amount of users pick this though?
| ProAm wrote:
| My birthday is always January 1st, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| My failed PHP date conversions look similar...
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Well, most peoples birthdays don't change...
| 6yyyyyy wrote:
| If only there were a service that:
|
| - Doesn't show ads, or steal your personal information.
|
| - Has all the content from every major streaming service.
|
| - Is scalable and efficient without a centralized single point of
| failure.
|
| - Can be used with 100% free and open source software.
|
| - Lets you keep your favorite shows forever without being subject
| to the whims of corporate licensing.
| fsflover wrote:
| Try torrents in I2P. They don't have everything but growing.
| Markoff wrote:
| I think it was rhetorical question subtly implying torrent.
| dleslie wrote:
| DVDs. What you're asking for is DVDs.
| Wazako wrote:
| DVDs with 20s of ads not passable?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Buy the DVD and then sail the high seas for a digital copy.
| You get both a better media experience and a physical
| backup if your hard drive dies.
|
| Edit: I also spend the extra money on a Criterion or Arrow
| release if it's available. These never have ads.
| dleslie wrote:
| VLC, and other FOSS DVD players, do not abide by do-not-
| skip flags.
| autoexec wrote:
| Piracy, because these days a lot of shows never make it to
| DVD. Disney in particular is terrible about this (probably to
| push Disney+ subscriptions). Star vs. the Forces of Evil came
| out in 2015 and hasn't seen a DVD release. Same with The Owl
| House and their marvel shows
|
| https://www.cbr.com/disney-no-current-plans-release-
| marvel-s...
| dleslie wrote:
| In my experience, piracy is worse than DVDs for selection;
| if it's not recent, and not popular, then piracy won't have
| it.
|
| I also prefer compensating creators.
| autoexec wrote:
| My experience is the opposite. It can be harder to find
| unpopular things, but there are very few things that
| aren't out there at all. More often (as is the case with
| Disney) piriacy can be your only option.
|
| I do like having high quality physical media I can rip
| copies of myself when something is available but Disney
| doesn't like to give people that option no matter how
| recent/popular the show is.
|
| We don't really have many official options for
| compensating creators either. It doesn't matter how much
| you watch The Owl House on disney+ it's not the same as
| writing Dana Terrace a check. Thankfully she was already
| compensated by Disney. Support for creators and their
| shows can be given in a lot of ways. You can always try
| to support a show you download by word of mouth
| promotion, seeding torrents, social media engagement, and
| buying merch.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| I don't watch Disney+, but if I was so inclined this demand would
| certainly drive me from the subscription camp into the bootleg
| stream camp.
| biasedestimate wrote:
| At least they ask you for it, instead of tracking you until they
| can figure it out.
| Ancient wrote:
| Why not change the age/gender data every 6 to 12 months to see
| how they deal with that =)
| NickC25 wrote:
| A multibillion dollar corporation wants to advertise to me on a
| service I already pay for? Should be free, then.
|
| That's too bad, guess the high seas are calling.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like
| that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it
| and do something to your detriment if you lie)?
|
| If so, why?
|
| Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with
| garbage data.
|
| Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18,
| or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons
| not to do that. A bright 6 year old.
|
| I used to lie and say I was really old, but now I'm really old so
| I just lie at random.
| hiq wrote:
| I know somebody who lost an instagram account like this.
| Provided fake info when signing up. Years later, get a request
| to post an id or get banned. Id didn't match the fake info of
| course, so account banned all the same.
| soperj wrote:
| I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry at 8 or 9 years old.
| They'd test you to make sure you were over 18 but if you said
| you were over 99, it would just reply "No you're not" and boot
| you. I don't remember what they'd do if you said you were under
| 18, I don't know if I was dumb enough to ever try it once.
| kibwen wrote:
| Here's Leisure Suit Larry's age quiz, consisting of pop
| culture questions that would have suggested adulthood back in
| 1987: https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-
| quiz.ht...
| b800h wrote:
| Did they alter it for foreign markets? Some very US centric
| questions there.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| How much of a foreign market was there for English
| language computer games in 1987?
| wvenable wrote:
| Getting through the age quiz as a kid was almost as fun as
| playing the game.
| soperj wrote:
| That can't be all of them. I swear there was one with Bo
| Jackson as well, which I would confuse with the Bo Derek
| ones (didn't know who either was at the time).
| StillBored wrote:
| Yah I used to type 1911, but its interesting just how old some
| sites allow you to be. Some places can't even deal with 100
| year olds (which isn't that uncommon) while others allow you to
| be 150+.
|
| Presumably some places appear to just be doing todays
| date-120/130 years. So its possible to create an account that
| likely won't be able to revalidate ones birthday using their
| age validators in a few years unless they adjust the age
| because you will be over what they think is the max age.
| birdman3131 wrote:
| Depending on the site if they are gonna use it as verification
| in the future. Im not gonna remember the randomly entered date.
|
| Its not like you can identify 87% of the US based on Date of
| birth, 5 digit Zip Code and gender. Oh wait.
| https://dataprivacylab.org/projects/identifiability/index.ht...
| Hizonner wrote:
| Does that mean you give real answers to the other "password
| recovery" questions?
|
| "Verification" questions should get random answers that get
| saved in your password manager.
| nprateem wrote:
| It's always fun when you have to call up customer support
| though and have to spell your mother's maiden name.
|
| "Yes it's right bracket, exclamation, capital R, dollar
| sign..."
| b800h wrote:
| "She was a member of the Technocracy Movement"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement
| user3939382 wrote:
| My "birthday" is January 1, 1970 (an homage to unix) for any
| database/system inappropriately asking. This way they don't
| have my data to leak or abuse, but I still know what I
| specified if I'm asked to verify it.
| Ancient wrote:
| I always use January 1st {Birth Year} (easy to remember) but
| I like this now too. Thanks
| kgwxd wrote:
| That's still accurate enough for their goals though. I put
| random very old dates and just keep DOBs noted in my
| password manager.
| alias_neo wrote:
| My go-to for the same reason.
| katla wrote:
| I might just start doing the same. Thanks! :)
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| At 00:00:00 UTC, I assume?
|
| I don't expect there's any reason for them to divide by a
| datetime...but one can hope that some ad server somewhere has
| crashed as a result.
|
| My go-to birthday has always been January 1st of the year I
| was actually born. That way it doesn't raise any eyebrows if
| I want to convert something to a real account or interact
| with real people, but it fails verification if they mishandle
| my credentials.
|
| That's worked great, except that one time when I
| inadvertently booked a flight on united.com (who _should_
| have my actual birthday, with whom I 'd flown internationally
| several times before) with a session token or something set
| by a random travel search engine to whom I had given my fake
| January 1st birthday and then (I thought) abandoned before
| picking a different flight. Customs had pointed questions
| about the authenticity of my passport and driver's license,
| because their system showed that my documents should be
| different and they couldn't tell me why... They eventually
| let me back into the country, but that was not fun.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| Even better, if it ever ends up mattering -- say, at a
| border crossing -- you have plausible deniability. "Oh,
| that's the first Unix epoch timestamp, must be a bug in the
| system."
|
| Not sure how much it would help at a border crossing... but
| with any kind of tech support it would immediately elicit a
| chuckle.
| b800h wrote:
| What, you reckon first or second line tech support would
| recognise that as the Unix epoch?
| incomingpain wrote:
| This is brilliant. Thanks!
| valbaca wrote:
| Or, go with December 31, 1969 just to test their system. A
| little mini-bobby tables.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under
| 18
|
| For websites that respect COPPA, under-13 might be your best
| bet for less targeting
|
| ref:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...
| Hizonner wrote:
| Yeah, but the problem is that it often locks you out of the
| site completely, which they don't tell you until you've
| answered. And when it doesn't, it often breaks features or
| locks down your access to content.
|
| I guess in theory it could also trigger them to ask for a
| note from your parents...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > but the problem is that it often locks you out of the
| site completely, which they don't tell you until you've
| answered.
|
| I see now. _Children under 13 are not currently permitted
| to register on the sites and apps for Disney Parks. For
| activities on apps and other online offerings, minor
| children under 13 years old may access some content under
| the supervision of a parent or guardian within that person
| 's account._
|
| ref: https://plandisney.disney.go.com/question/create-
| accounts-mi...
| basch wrote:
| Have you ever given the wrong information, and then later
| needed to use it as some type of security / identity
| verification?
|
| I know I've run into it at least once, I think maybe Microsoft,
| where having an unknown birth date on the account became a huge
| headache.
|
| Lesson learned. Write stuff like this down in a vault too.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| I gave Google an off-by-one birth date way back when. A few
| years ago they figured it out -- sorry, don't recall what
| hints they may have been working from -- and demanded a
| correction. After considering the implicit threat, account
| termination, I surrendered the actual birthdate.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Keeping your legend straight is a fundamental part of good
| tradecraft...
| mikedelago wrote:
| I'm so exhausted from constant advertisements.
|
| I'm so tired of my information being sold off to third parties in
| order to deliver ads.
|
| I'm so tired of good, useful tools and services requiring a
| forfeit of my privacy in order to use them.
|
| Does anyone else wish that they could _just_ exist without being
| told to buy something every 15 waking minutes?
| amelius wrote:
| You're not alone. In fact, the planet itself is close to
| exhaustion from the over-consumption caused by ads.
| cinericius wrote:
| Does an adblocker not solve this problem for you? I see very
| few advertisements day to day, but I go out of my way to not
| watch TV live and turn up to the cinema late because I dislike
| ads as much as it seems you do.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Me too. My building has the gall to occasionally put ads in the
| lobby. A private entirely residential building. It's
| ridiculous.
| kderbyma wrote:
| it's even worse. I actively go out of my way to ensure I do not
| support these companies...and I petition all my friends to
| avoid them. I will offer them free training to get off the
| services. gladly would give a couple hours of my time to setup
| their own personal streaming services....just to see Disney cry
| a little...and Netflix and the rest of the moronic executive
| scum
| km3r wrote:
| Im exhausted about people complaining about. It's a fact that
| targeted ads pay a lot better. This enables better services
| that are free to the end user. Most people just don't want to
| pay for things. 99% of facebook users have never paid meta a
| dime, yet they have the audacity to complain about a free
| service. There are paid social media alternatives, or even self
| hosted ones, but by and large they fail because certain
| industries can't sustain off of a end user paid model.
|
| Ads are also a great progressive tool. Indirectly the rich pay
| more than the poor for the same service.
|
| > I'm so tired of good, useful tools and services requiring a
| forfeit of my privacy in order to use them
|
| You forgot free [w/ good & useful]. If the market could support
| paying for the services and tools instead of ads, businesses
| would move that way.
| gaius_baltar wrote:
| That's why I pirate; no reason to pay for these streaming
| companies, _and_ have my personal info collected to be sold
| _and_ receive ads. Just frak these companies, I 'm tired of
| this.
|
| Remember that old meme (I was not even called a meme at the
| time!) about the steps required to watch a genuine DVD compared
| with the ones required for a pirate file? We need an updated
| version.
| autoexec wrote:
| https://i0.wp.com/farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4369403959_fe.
| ..
|
| found here in case they hate the hotlink:
| https://www.techdirt.com/2010/02/19/reminder-you-dont-
| compet...
| hawthornio wrote:
| Have you considered supporting an alternative system to
| capitalism?
|
| I don't see this changing anytime soon because it is so
| profitable in our current system.
| autoexec wrote:
| A capitalist economy isn't the problem, the problem is that
| we have a capitalist government. Laws could be written to
| keep the amoral monsters who value increased profit over
| everything else (including human life) in check, but "our"
| representatives have been bought and paid for by companies
| who want to push ads and since money = votes oppressive
| multinational corporations have more power over our
| government than any of us do.
| blueboo wrote:
| It will get far worse before it gets better.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/01/28/my-flamboyant-...
| ravenstine wrote:
| It's worth considering a reduction in how much you watch. Let's
| be honest; you _can_ just exist without being told to buy
| something every 15 minutes. Don 't use services that force ads
| on paying customers, limit your passive screen time to no more
| than an hour per day, and find other things to do that
| advertising can't touch. Try being content not living
| vicariously through fictional characters or real people arguing
| with each other.
| JohnFen wrote:
| True, but insufficient. You'd also have to avoid going
| outside in an urban environment, etc. The bombardment isn't
| only online.
| ravenstine wrote:
| You're right, but I think that takes the spirit of the
| issue a bit too far. In my experience, it's highly
| dependent on where you live. Where I live, which is
| somewhere between urban and suburban, there really aren't
| enough ads plastered everywhere such that it's at all
| interrupting. I don't think most people outright hate every
| single form of advertising - it's the frequent
| interruption, obnoxious music, unreasonable audio volume,
| and over-repetition that frustrates people, not to mention
| the quite blatant social engineering present in at least
| half of TV commercials in America. In certain urban
| centers, yes, the outdoor advertising approaches the
| absurdity of TV commercials, but that by no means
| represents most livable places. Most reasonable people
| would agree that there _is_ an acceptable level and forms
| of advertising.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| No, it really doesn't take it too far. If anything, it
| doesn't go far enough.
|
| You know those ads in _Minority Report_ that track people
| viewing them? They 're here now. Maybe not out on the
| street, and maybe not via retinal scan _per se_ , but
| there certainly are eye tracking and facial recognition
| technologies watching to see if you're looking in the
| direction of indoor digital ads.
| jrnichols wrote:
| You're not alone. Not at all. I'm also tired of the mentality
| that we _need_ advertising or the internet would cease to
| exist. In my opinion, if you need invasive advertising revenue
| to exist, you don 't need to be on the internet.
|
| Advertisements are slowing everything down. Tracking us.
| Serving us malware in some cases. We don't need them. Pi-
| hole/adguard could be standard. I'd rather pay $200 more for a
| TV set than have one with "analytics." I'm sick of the ads and
| block as many as I can - Google's "unobtrusive ads" included.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Other people have a glass box with ants inside... I sometimes
| enjoy starting AdNauseam [1] inside a VM so that I can watch
| the machine click on all those ads that I never see (as long
| as the pi-hole works).
|
| It feels a bit like a bonfire with other people's money ;)
|
| [1] https://vimeo.com/111943439
| kag0 wrote:
| Hardware like TVs are especially insidious because unlike a
| service you don't simply decide to stop using it one day and
| the ad revenue stops. Rather ad revenue continues for the
| lifetime of the TV and there is very little chance that a
| company will forgo that recurring ad revenue in exchange for
| an increase in up-front MSRP
| monksy wrote:
| I'm exhausted to the fact that we have no rights to our own
| data or bio-metrics.
|
| Airline (TK and Delta do this) wants to roll out face
| recognition.. TAKE YOUR MASK OFF AND GIVE US YOUR FACE DATA. No
| explanation of opting out. (Turns out it's being used to
| implement exit controls at the US border)
| scarface74 wrote:
| Just pay for the ad free tier of Disney+?
| fxtentacle wrote:
| You have pretty much summarized the thinking that led me to
| build:
|
| 1. my own SmartWatch
|
| 2. a tool to remove iTunes DRM so that my TV can stay offline
|
| 3. fully offline speech recognition
|
| 4. a beefy Linux workstation
|
| 5. set up a pi-hole
|
| 6. patched LineageOS to work on my phone
|
| And now my life is pretty much ad-free :)
| monksy wrote:
| Don't forget to use libredirect, and ublockorigin on every
| browser. (libredirect will kill your shadow profiles websites
| collect about you)
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I prefer uMatrix over uBlock. But thank you very much for
| telling me about libredirect :)
| monksy wrote:
| Link for the curious:
| https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect
| fsflover wrote:
| > 1. my own SmartWatch
|
| You could buy PineTime instead.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I wanted to have WiFi connectivity and an e-ink display.
| But yes, I could have saved myself a lot of effort by
| purchasing a PineTime... It's just that I truly enjoyed the
| "work" of building my own.
| gorwell wrote:
| What will they deliver to me, a xi/xir, born in 1935?
| rickstanley wrote:
| What does "xi/xir" mean?
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| It means nonsense.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| It is one of the gender-neutral terms.
| webstrand wrote:
| There are quite a number of them, with a few dating back to
| the 1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_
| in_languages...
| rickstanley wrote:
| Interesting, I didn't know about this!
| jklinger410 wrote:
| I wonder how many commenters on HN work for businesses that in
| some way or another use advertising to help sustain their
| revenue.
|
| By the tone of every thread discussing advertising you would
| think the answer would be zero. But it is certainly not zero.
| matt_s wrote:
| I'm fine with advertising as a trade-off when a service is free
| but if I'm paying for a service why does that service have to
| become an ad network?
|
| Is the only answer to making money in tech to get massive
| traffic so you can get 1% of people that actually click on an
| ad and buy something? What I can't fathom is the amount of
| money being spent on ads, surely it must be paying off.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| You can definitely consider tracking and advertising as an
| extra cost of any service. You are obviously free to cancel
| services that are too expensive for you.
|
| The answer to your second question is yes. How many
| newspapers do you think we would still have without digital
| advertising? Close to zero.
|
| What people are willing to pay for and what is actually good
| for themselves and society are two different things.
| Advertising is a capitalist way to democratize attention.
|
| I also sincerely hope everyone complaining about advertising
| is a hardcore socialist or communist. If not they are awfully
| hypocritical.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Just say you're 6
| phone8675309 wrote:
| You have to mentally be 6 if you're enjoying the garbage
| they're chucking onto Disney+.
| pimeys wrote:
| The Owl House is one of the best modern western animated
| series available right now. Of course Disney cancelled it
| because "it didn't fit to the Disney brand". If you're into
| animated series, that is one not to miss. Yeah, I am too very
| surprised it was on Disney+...
| autoexec wrote:
| I'm still hoping for a DVD release, but I doubt it will
| happen because Disney. It took ages for Gravity Falls.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| I don't use my account, but you'd be surprised what's on
| there. It's not just WokeWars and Finding Nemo.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| It's like the existence of 40+ year old Harry Potter fans;
| the ones who were already adults when the books were first
| published. Hard to explain unless you acknowledge that many
| people are simple.
|
| (At least with Star Wars, nostalgia for something they got
| into during childhood is a plausible explanation for anybody
| under 60 or so. But even so, I'm surprised more people don't
| grow out of it.)
| autoexec wrote:
| > It's like the existence of 40+ year old Harry Potter
| fans...Hard to explain unless you acknowledge that many
| people are simple.
|
| That's a weird take. I read the books as an adult and they
| were genuinely entertaining. What's hard to explain about
| that? It's not as if books marketed to children are the
| only things I read, but I've read a lot of children's books
| as an adult that were delightful.
|
| Why judge people as being simple? I hope you aren't afraid
| to try something that isn't marketed to your demographic
| out of fear that people will think the same of you. Most
| people aren't so weirdly judgey, and people afraid to step
| outside of the boundaries drawn for them by marketers are
| probably missing out on creative works they'd really enjoy.
| tzs wrote:
| I recently did a month of Disney+ when they sent me promo for
| first month for $2.99.
|
| During that month I watched the Pixar movies Soul, Luca, and
| Turning Red (and rewatched Onward). I also watched the Disney
| movies Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto. And Wes
| Anderson's Isle of Dogs. Oh, and also the latest Dr. Strange
| and Thor Marvel movies, plus the Loki series.
|
| Are you seriously claiming that all that was garbage?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| NGL, until the last sentence I thought you were going in a
| completely different direction with this comment. I haven't
| seen Isle of Dogs, but the rest of that sounds like garbage
| / kids' stuff.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Yes
| smoldesu wrote:
| Isle of Dogs is great! Disney+ is hardly the only place you
| can watch it though, and a lot of the other original Disney
| programming feels like Marvel-driven padding. The latest
| Pixar stuff is pretty mediocre relative to what they were
| making a decade ago, and Disney's modern films are...
| sketchy.
|
| If you get a kick out of it, then more power to ya. Disney
| even gives you a place to put your money where your mouth
| is. For my money though, there's a lot more entertainment
| value to be found elsewhere.
| tzs wrote:
| > The latest Pixar stuff is pretty mediocre relative to
| what they were making a decade ago
|
| What they were making a decade ago was Cars 2 and Brave.
|
| Brave was pretty good, but I'm having a hard time seeing
| it as better than Soul, Luca, or Turning Red. And I'm
| having an even harder time seeing that for Cars 2.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Haven't seen Turning Red yet, but I enjoyed Brave more
| than Soul or Luca by a country mile. Different strokes
| for different folks, I guess, but Pixar's best work feels
| well behind them now.
| msla wrote:
| To paraphrase Richard Adler, all films are children's films.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Andor is one of the better shows I've seen - ever. Their Star
| Wars offerings in general have been very well put together.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Back in my day, we were waited 15 years for more Star Wars
| content, then immediately regretted it and asked what we'd
| been doing with our lives.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| What about the other 99.999% of their content?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I imagine most viewers only watch .001% of everything
| they have access to; the rest of it would be properly
| irrelevant.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| That makes sense!
| bil7 wrote:
| it really is an amazing show. I hope it does very well.
| However I can forsee two groups; the first, who won't watch
| because "it's star wars and i'm not into star wars"; the
| second, "i like star wars but this show doesn't have any
| light sabers or jedis or the force - why would i watch it??
| boring!"
| falcolas wrote:
| Or, someone could be so burnt out on the dozens of new
| Star Wars offerings (representing hundreds of hours of
| wildly-varying quality video) that they've given up on
| it.
|
| Ditto Marvel.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I like your contrasting SW with Marvel here.
|
| I'm not into SW and less into Marvel (I'm repulsed by
| ubiquitousness).
|
| That said, I found Mandalorian, Boba Fett and Andor all
| enjoyable; I'm guessing because they stand pretty much
| alone.
|
| Likewise, I dig Pennyworth and Legion. I was well into
| watching both before I realized they were Marvelesque.
| Less Marvel seems to be my favorite Marvel.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The Star Wars shows are very bland and generic plots with
| Star Wars layered on top (at least the ones I've watched).
| They aren't very good as shows if you aren't instantly
| wowed just by the fact that they are in the SW universe.
| acd wrote:
| Coppa
|
| "Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA")"
|
| If the kids is below 13, targeting would probably not be allowed.
|
| "The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online
| collection of personal information by persons or entities under
| U.S. jurisdiction about children under 13 years of age, including
| children outside the U.S. if the website or service is
| U.S.-based.[1] It details what a website operator must include in
| a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a
| parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to
| protect children's privacy and safety online, including
| restrictions on the marketing of those under 13.[2]"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_...
| mankyd wrote:
| Indeed. I don't understand the outrage at wanting to know the
| age of your customer, especially when:
|
| a) there are laws involved
|
| b) you have a variety of content/products specifically aimed at
| different ages
|
| I won't speak to gender, that's certainly a different concept,
| but age doesn't exact ring alarm bells for me here.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Disney: "Gendered stereotypes are harmful -- be more
| inclusive!"
|
| Also Disney: "Tell us your gender so we can target ads based
| on that!"
|
| I would take DIE advocates more seriously if they reformed
| themselves -- rather than lecturing the rest of us while
| engaging in such blatant hypocrisy.
| sublinear wrote:
| It's called "cultural Marxism". It's not necessarily a
| conspiracy, but it's certainly a thing. DEI is just the
| latest consultant scheme.
| 1attice wrote:
| What I love about nonsense phrases like 'cultural
| marxism' is that they invariably have the opposite impact
| than was likely intended.
|
| Calling "cultural marxism" on [checks notes] a *marketing
| ask* is like calling a restaurant a food bank because
| they both involve food.
| [deleted]
| rsynnott wrote:
| I have dim memories of lego positioning their stuff as
| gender-neutral when I was a kid. That went comprehensively
| out the window in the mid-90s or so, presumably when some
| lego marketer discovered the (dubious) joys of market
| segmentation.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Yeah I was raised during the first (second?) gender
| neutral parenting fad.
|
| Marketing is what killed it. Boys followed "He-Man" and
| girls "She-Ra".
|
| Come to think of it, those are the most heavily gendered
| characters in existence. Look at their freaking names!
| shadowgovt wrote:
| it's a bit of a spiral.
|
| Marketing was responding to toy stores gendering the
| aisles; can't get on the shelf if the store doesn't know
| where to put your product.
|
| I'm not sure what stores were responding to. Possibly the
| public.
| autoexec wrote:
| He-Man wasn't any more targeted at boys than Transformers
| was. She-Ra was the most overtly gendered (being a "girl
| version" of an existing show) but it wasn't any more
| targeted at girls than My Little Pony was. Many cartoons
| in the 80s were just ads selling toys that were intended
| to be sold in either the blue aisle or the pink aisle.
|
| Growing up I watched both He-man and She-Ra, in fact I
| thought She-Ra was the better show since it had a
| somewhat darker tone than He-Man did, but I didn't know
| any boys who owned She-Ra toys.
|
| Jem and the Holograms was supposed to sell fashion dolls
| sold in the pink aisle (competing with Barbie), but the
| show itself was specifically written with lots of action
| to keep boys interested so they wouldn't change the
| channel and prevent their sisters from watching.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| What is or isn't gender-neutral is quite subjective. Pink
| lego sets about princesses and ponies may seem quite
| gendered, but what about a fire truck set? Lego City,
| Castle and Space each started out in the late 70s. Where
| those gendered? Perhaps not as overtly gendered as pink
| princess stuff, but nevertheless I bet they sold more of
| those sets to boys than girls.
|
| To Lego's credit, they did seem to make a point of
| putting both girls and boys on their advertisements.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I didn't really mind it because when you mixed them up in
| a tupperware bin there was no "girl set" or "boy set",
| just a mess of Legos. Plus, like you said, there was a
| glut of gender-independent sets that were frankly pretty
| awesome. It doesn't matter if you're a boy, girl, or
| otherwise - you want to build that $399 Death Star kit if
| it's the last thing you do.
| Spivak wrote:
| I really don't get this, having things be gender neutral
| was never the goal, it was to be _gender inclusive_.
| Boys, girls, and enbys are allowed to like different
| things and it 's not evil to take off the blinders and
| use your gendered knowledge to help you figure out what
| to make. It only becomes an issue if you say boys can't
| like princes and princesses, playing house and girls
| can't like rockets and nerf guns.
| falcolas wrote:
| You don't need to know the age, you just need to know if
| they're under or over 13 to comply with laws.
|
| Anything more granular is marketing and advertising BS which
| they have no need for.
| mankyd wrote:
| My kids watched different content at 2, at 8, and at 16
| years old. Anything beyond late teens maybe could be
| chalked up to "advertising BS" but I would push further
| that my older parents watch markedly different content then
| I do at middle age, and I watch markedly different content
| than when I was in my early twenties.
|
| They could probably figure out watch preferences with good
| statistics, (and do), but asking for age probably gets them
| in the right ball park a lot faster.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| what you watch is it up to _you_ or up to _the company
| selling you things_ ?
| mankyd wrote:
| Both.
|
| I don't want to watch children's tv shows. They have
| never suggested children's shows to me.
|
| My children don't want to watch bloody horror movies.
| They have never suggested bloody horror movies to them.
|
| Sometimes I have to search for what I want. That's fine.
| Sometimes I don't, that's even nicer.
| falcolas wrote:
| Here's the problem: None of that is remotely
| generalizable. What you watch at, say, 40 is only going
| to apply to you. What you allow your children to watch at
| age 8 is also going to only apply to you.
|
| Tying things from what you watch to what you might want
| to watch will be miles more effective than your age,
| because your age has nothing to do with what shows you
| watch.
|
| I've known parents to show their kids "The Passion of
| Christ" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." I also know
| parents who watch (and love) shows like Phineas and Ferb
| or Spongebob.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| Might want to know the year. That way they can determine
| when the profile is likely over 13 and no longer covered.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Things you are entitled to know about your customers: what
| product or service they want, how it has to be delivered, and
| whether they will pay for it.
|
| Things you are not entitled to know about your customers:
| anything else whatsoever.
|
| Asking for people's age, gender, or whatever, is creepy and
| rude. Especially if you inconvenience the customer in the
| process.
|
| And...
|
| (a) You can comply with COPPA and similar laws by not
| collecting data on ANYBODY, which is what you should be doing
| anyhow. No sympathy.
|
| (b) Let the customer decide what the customer wants, thank
| you very much.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| > Things you are entitled to know about your customers
|
| Anything you are legally allowed to.
|
| For any questions or concerns please contact your senator.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Good to know that your concept of acceptable human
| behavior encompasses everything that's not illegal.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| I believe we look to government to solve these problems.
| I do not think whining online or thinking the power of my
| wallet is going to solve massive systemic issues like the
| entire advertising industry.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| I hate to break this to you but you are going to pine for
| these days very shortly.
|
| The UK is pretty insistent that they will require almost
| every site on the internet to be suitable for under 13s or
| credit card age verify.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| As a child of the 80/90s I don't recall having to tell my age
| to watch Duck Tales.
| lancesells wrote:
| Should we all just tell all platforms that we are under 13? Is
| that a new iOS setting to stop Meta and Google?
| NotACop182 wrote:
| My simple solution I'm a 99 year old male. Good luck
| advertising to me.
| jstarfish wrote:
| Prepare to be bombarded with ads for fibromyalgia
| treatments.
|
| I've been doing this for a while and it has yielded a
| purely-medical advertising experience. Old people don't buy
| anything else?
| 8note wrote:
| There's a strong market of refund scams available to market
| to you
| bregma wrote:
| Reverse mortgages. Walk-in tubs. Emergency call lanyards.
| Prearranged funerals. Rain gutter protection. Stair lifts.
| Arthritis liniment. Blood glucose monitors. No-medical life
| insurance. Prepared home-delivery meals. Assisted living
| domiciles. Denture cream.
|
| Believe me, there is no end to being a target market.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| And "dia-beet-us."
| the_only_law wrote:
| So daytime TV commercials?
| some_random wrote:
| They will have a plethora of scams that they have been paid
| to show you, since you've self identified as a vulnerable
| demographic.
| erehweb wrote:
| Eh - that just puts you in the 65+ bracket - plenty of ads
| targeted there.
| sockaddr wrote:
| Yeah but at least your kid isn't going to run up to you
| begging to join a mesothelioma or trans-vaginal mesh
| class action suit because they saw it on TV. Some ads are
| just out of phase with them. I like this idea.
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| I identify as an attack helicopter.
| knodi123 wrote:
| Interested in dirigible rides in your area?
|
| What about someone to revulcanize your tires for a couple
| of nickels?
|
| The centenarian market is a goldmine, I tells 'ya!
| ronsor wrote:
| No, because unlike Disney, they have no interest in an
| audience of children and will simply ban your account to
| avoid the hassle.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Yep. I know someone who commented that they were 12 on
| YouTube and got their account terminated.
|
| There is an official way to create <13 accounts though:
| https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103338?hl=en
| john_fushi wrote:
| Unless you live in Quebec - then google disabled this
| option to avoid complying with local children protection
| law.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| That might be a good idea in some cases. But, some platforms
| put limitations on your account if you're under 13, so it may
| not be what you want in other cases (requires a second parent
| account to manage the under 13 account, can't make account
| changes, content restrictions, inability to make purchases,
| etc).
| [deleted]
| thrill wrote:
| All they need to know is that someone old enough to have a credit
| card is paying for the subscription.
| throw03172019 wrote:
| Will these ads be shown in their paid product?
| alias_neo wrote:
| Yes, in the $7.99 "tier" apparently. I wasn't aware there even
| were tiers (not US).
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