This episode of Security Now covered Google’s plan to deprecate third party cookies and the reaction from advertising organizations and websites.
The articles and the opinions of the show hosts are that it may have negative or unintended consequences as rather than relying on Google’s proposed ad selection scheme being run on the client side (hiding information from the advertiser), instead they are demanding first party information from the sites regarding their user’s identification.
The article predicts that rather than privacy increasing, a majority of websites may demand user registration so they can collect personal details and force user consent to provide that data to advertisers.
What’s your opinion of website advertising, privacy, and data collection?
- Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?
- What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?
- Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?
- Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?
- Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?
- Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?
- Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?
Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?
Lots of sites require a free account these days. I don’t visit those sites.
What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?
I care.
Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?
I like advertising - how else are you supposed to find out what products/services are available? Regularly visit every website of every company I might be interested in? That doesn’t work.
It’s data collection I dislike, nothing wrong with ads as long as they’re a reasonably short interruption. Make ads relevant to the content, not the visitor.
Unfortunately under the current system I don’t see ads, because the only way to block tracking is to also block most ads. Sorry, but ad networks have burned that bridge. It’s going to take time to rebuild it.
Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?
A website would need to offer some really valuable service for me to “trade personal details”. Even sites where I have an account (e.g. YouTube) I generally don’t log into that account.
Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?
I think anything that gives users control over wether or not they’re tracked is a good thing - and forcing people to sign up / agree to terms before using a site does that. If websites want my personal details to access them… that’s fine with me. I just won’t use those sites. Other people will make a different decision. It’s how it should be.
I also think I’m not alone, and plenty of major sites will choose to just not do any tracking. I look forward to using those sites.
Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?
I reject that premise. Lemmy is free. I don’t feel like “the product” when I use lemmy. The product is the content and the discussions. If Lemmy has a few ads on every page, I’d be fine with that. I think it’d be a good idea - as long as it’s done right, without invading privacy.
Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?
It’s their business, choose whatever revenue model they want. Just be honest and open about it.
Did I? You signed up for an account where data collection is wide open to everyone.
Other people will make a different decision. It’s how it should be
This is an aspect of the predicted changes I can at least appreciate. Choice/consent. There should already have been obtained and informed consent. But instead, they just did it behind people’s backs. I say that because I don’t think most normal/non-tech people really know or care much about cookies and all the ways this stuff actually works.
If Lemmy has a few ads on every page
Ahhh! No please :) …but I understand. Unless these people (hosts) are getting those services paid for by something else, they might need to cover the costs of this like anything else. I really enjoy Lemmy because, at least right now, I feel like it’s in the true spirit of the internet and not a business. It can be for community and discussion like you said. Only reason I’m here. I like asking people why they feel a certain way about things and hopefully walk away with some understanding.
Someone else that listens to SN!
This is great news! I hope this ends the era of subversive psychological targeting that’s given rise to so much of the division in our culture.
I dabble in marketing for my company. Let me just say advertisers don’t need a damn cookie to know who you are to serve you ads. Even across multiple devices. There are so many methods… literally over a dozen when cross referenced tells companies exactly who you are, even on vpn, even incognito.
Google regularly thinks I’m a robot and the ads are not even remotely relevant. There’s no way they know who I am.
Which is why cookies, server-dependent adaptive design and many other things in the Web were big mistakes.
Gemini. Closing FF now.
Cookies don’t even matter for advertising anymore. They don’t need them. You leave breadcrumbs everywhere. Literally where you are, your wifi connection, browser used, browser build, device used, screen size, Google account logged into a browser, just to name a few. They string all this stuff together over days, weeks, years… you’ll slip up at some point no matter how diligent you are with something big, like that Google account login, a share from social media… there’s so much more lol
If you know who I am and what I like, gimme some damn relevant ads. No, me clicking the “Not interested” button doesn’t mean the next ad is the same damn thing. Worst are those when I search for something for several weeks, and when I finally find it and buy it a week later, I get peppered by the VERY THING for another week.
No offense, of course. The ad industry is just insanity for me.
For those “Just use an ad blocker” - I do, I just occasionally unblock sites to show support.
Some advertisers know their market and pinpoint, others just drag net to see what sticks. You’re getting the equivalent of cold calling for ads. If you show interest in something even once, you’re a target.
Edit: All advertisers are not geniuses. If they’re serving you the same ad for a thing that is not consumable, then one of two things happened. First, their tracking pixel at checkout was not able to associate you with your purchase. Maybe they set it up correctly or there was an error. Maybe you saw the ad on your phone and bought on your computer without enough common data points to connect them both to you. Second, the advertiser may not have set their campaign to stop serving after you converted, which is a total waste of their money. Laugh at them.
It’s easy and it started with that.
Edit: The services I’m talking about have fees. Barrier to entry prevents knowledge and usage. There are hundreds of services that provide this, all to different degrees of quality. But you could just Google “UTM Generator” and, assuming you set up a free GA4 account and set it up on your site, congrats, you’re now using cookies to track purchases based on link clicks to your website. Very easy and literally free.
Constantly being brainwashed to consume is one of the great evils of our time. Consumerism is bad for mental health and the environment. But advertising also creates many biases in content creation.
When was the last time you heard anything about bad effects of advertising? Not just superficial “stupid ad” but as a massive corrosive force on society? That is how much freedom of speech we have.
The great evil is that we keep going to places where we are shown ads, despite having a choice in theory. It’s demoralizing.
I’m living mostly ad-free due to adblockers everywhere (except android) but most people don’t know, can’t do it or are brainwashed to think it’s amoral to block ads. If more people would catch on adblocking would be made illegal. And either way my personal choice doesn’t change what content is produced and how society is influenced. Personal responsibility doesn’t solve this just as it doesn’t climate change. Because advertising clearly does work.
Yeah, large portions of economies are being driven by consumption. I feel like so much stuff is just landfill fodder.
Massive affects of advertising
I was hoping you might have some examples, I’m not sure.
Here’s an example.
I was advertised camel smokes as a kid.
Everytime I relapse it’s on camels. Camels are shitty and cheap.
I relapse and then switch to a brand that’s not garbage. Then figure out again how to beat the addiction.
It’s a substance use disorder directly caused by advertising. And cancer causing (so my physical environment).
Here’s another mental illness that’s very easy to trace back to advertising.
Eating disorders.
I think those are good examples, thanks.
Off topic: I don’t smoke, but do generally hate smoking so much. I dislike the smell, and the affects on people around the user, like you said. I appreciate vaping. Not because of some hopeful idea that it would be safer, but cause I either can’t smell it, or it smells like cotton candy. Who doesn’t love the smell of cotton candy?
Also, props for quitting all the times you have. I’m probably majorly addicted to caffeine. Like smokers tell me they have one first thing in the morning, coffee is the first desire after I’m out of bed. I’ve already limited myself to two-ish cups/day, but I don’t think that helped. Coffee also has negative effects on others…fortunately, my wife has coffee breath too :)
The entire goal is to use money to change your behavior. They’re inherently manipulative by definition. It’s literally weaponized mass manipulation. There’s no way to spin that as a positive effect.
If you think about it in terms of it’s effects, advertising is the closest thing we have to mind control: companies are paying money to change the behavior of millions of people. Even without any concrete examples, you can easily see how dystopic it really is when you just think about the intention alone
Sorry I don’t have any great sources on this. It’s rather speculation because how could you research this scientifically? Even if you could, an experiment like that would actually be unethical! And who would fund this, there is no way to talk in mainstream about advertising without running against massive financial interests. There are some search results but most of those articles look like mental garbage.
My guess is that because we’re constantly being told what to consume our minds work quite differently from what they would without advertising.
Our minds constantly have to resist intrusive advertising and psychological manipulation which means we constantly have to switch between and adversarial mindset and whatever content we were watching / reading. Or we become obedient and just “let the advertising wash through us”. And advertising constantly has to find new ways to activate our emotions.
Just as massive is the effect on content produced, there is a “natural selection” that any content that helps sell advertisement is more successful on the market. It’s not just that you can’t piss off your advertiser but that generally you want the consumer to be in a certain mood - or that content producers who do this naturally are more successful and grow.
Then there are privacy concerns which reduce humans to machines and creates a powerful system that can and is abused for political control (public relations).
How can any of that not have massive societal impacts, since it’s being done on a massive scale and is near ubiquitous? How can anyone assume these effects are not incredibly bad?
You could have a country banning advertising that has a kind of “content tax” that is funded publicly and administered independent from the government through separate elections. And that has strict mandates and distributes the money to news papers, websites, movies and video creators dependent on views - similar to music rights agencies. But none of this is even talked about. We’ve completely lost the ability to even think seriously about how to improve our society. I believe in large part this is due to advertising.
PS: There is a film called “Branded (2012)” about the “horrors of advertising”.
My guess is that because we’re constantly being told what to consume our minds work quite differently from what they would without advertising.
Our minds constantly have to resist intrusive advertising and psychological manipulation.
I stopped quoting because you made many good points. I imagine we could find some supporting material for this basic idea. It seems like a safe idea to say people adapt to the environment they are in, including our thinking patterns based on what we take in and feed our minds (books, media, streaming, conversation, etc).
I wouldn’t be eager for a new tax, but the creative problem solving and imagining new ways to do things is good.
Also, thanks for the movie mention.
