While I agree Google is being a bit sly in lobbying against privacy legislation, I think they have a legitimate point, but also think that it'll lead to them concentrating more power in the ad market.
Google clearly believes that they can obfuscate identity by enough so that ads can be targeted while privacy can also be preserved.
If you don't think that all ads are bad (and Google argues that ads help make many of the sites we rely on economically feasible), then I think you may agree that sometimes, ad targeting produces more useful ads. Many of my friends have actually found Instagram ads interesting enough to talk about them at dinners. It's better to have those ads rather than random banners for things that you don't care about. Google would definitely also argue that ad targeting improves the worth of the Internet and allows more sites to offer their services for free because they can make more from AdSense.
The following only makes sense if you buy this argument:
The data for ad targeting has been abused so often that for many (most?) consumers, it's not worth it.
Google's perspective is: "we can be a responsible steward of this data for this new age of privacy-conscious ad targeting". The Chrome topics API and mathematical/statistical obfuscation are things that a blunt tool like the law may forbid. As far as arguments go, I think this is actually a plausible one. I do think Google has somewhat OK privacy controls compared to other large tech companies, and way better ones compared to bad acting small sites and ad companies/data brokers.
That being said, I don't love the concentration of power (that's why the DOJ is going after them) - I'd much rather there be some decentralized way to ensure privacy but still allow useful ads, but we get what we get.
> If you don't think that all ads are bad, then I think you may agree that sometimes, ad targeting produces more useful ads.
I do. Ads are psychological manipulation at scale. This well predates the Internet, even. Advertisements and marketing are immoral. As long as we have them though, I will concede that better targeted ads are sometimes better than non-targeted ads. However, I believe targeting does not need to be personal to be effective, it can be based on the content the ad is placed next to, rather than the individual visiting and be equally as effective without necessitating spying.
As it stands, at best ads are malware, at worst they are concentrated form of social evil.
So if you are selling something it's literally immoral to tell other people about it? How do you think people will ever find your store or product that you make? Just randomly stumble upon it? I'm genuinely curious.
Ads are no more psychological manipulation at scale than words in general. Your entire post is FUD. What form is communication that is disseminated at scale not "psychological manipulation at scale?"
There is no solid line separating ads from other content. What about a positive review for a game? Is that not an ad because the reviewer wasn’t paid? But what if they got the game for free? Or what if their job relies on access provided by the game company (an indirect form of compensation)?
There are many other examples. It’s much more a matter of degree than just saying “ads bad”.
I wish I could upvote you more. I too think that advertisements are at best unethical, at worst downright evil. Just like organized religion, the ads are designed to distort the perceived reality into something that it isn't and part the fool and their money.
That's quite a position. Are you also taking the position that capitalism and commerce are immoral? Because you really can't have those things absent marketing.
At any rate, I can't agree with this. The way that ads/marketing are done can be immoral, for sure -- but you also have PSAs against littering or simply marketing / advertising for any number of things that I'd hope we'd all agree are good ("Spay and neuter your pets," "Don't drink & drive") or at worst neutral ("Now available: The Beatles 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper CD").
Promoting a thing is not the same thing as "psychological manipulation" unless you consider "making a person or persons aware of something" is manipulation.
One might even argue that marketing is a good when the thing is something that people benefit from being aware of. Is marketing open source immoral? Fitness, as a concept? Ads for animal adoption are immoral?
At any rate - ads are a symptom of consumerism and capitalism, so as long as that's the system we exist in they're going to be present.
> If you don't think that all ads are bad, then I think you may agree that sometimes, ad targeting produces more useful ads.
I don't personally agree with this, but I think it's an irrelevant point. The point is that targeted advertising requires spying on people. Google's "solution" is a nonsolution because it simply codifies that spying. That it's arguably less comprehensive spying is beside the point.
It's not the ads I object to, it's the data collection that drives the ads.
> It's not the ads I object to, it's the data collection that drives the ads.
I'll take this one step further, it's not the data _collection_ that bothers me, it's the data _sharing_.
I have an Instagram account, I'm fine with Meta hoovering up every tiny bit of data from my account to generate highly targeted ads. They know my posts, my photos, my follows, my comments, my faves. They can use all that data to deliver highly targeted ads directly to my timeline.
What I don't want is Meta knowing anything at all about my actions _outside_ of Instagram. What apps I have installed, my purchase history, my search history, my location, my real-life friends and family. That's all private and Meta should never know about any of it.
> If you don't think that all ads are bad... then I think you may agree that sometimes, ad targeting produces more useful ads.
No. The most ad targeting that should ever exist is by geography, and that's it.
Advertising has value in letting people know about your product. If you're selling locally, you rent a billboard on some street crossing, or a banner at a mall, or you buy a sponsorship at a local event because you think your target demographic will be there. At a demographic level, not individuals.
On the Internet, geography translates to maybe using zipcode from an IP address, and demographics translates to choosing which websites ("publishers") to put ads on.
And that should be it, that's fair and should get you enough bang for your buck.
Putting cameras in people's homes, listening to their conversations, following them around in their cars, stalking their relationships, tracking their voting records, etc should not be an acceptable way of increasing the efficiency of the targeting.
Of course you would make more money with this kind of spying (as what happens today). But this kind of invasion has great societal costs to privacy, and subsequently to freedoms, and should never be justifiable.
> No. The most ad targeting that should ever exist is by geography, and that's it.
This is an arbitrary moral line, and if you that's the one you want to draw for your own life, then fine.
But it's also really dumb.
Why should men see ads for tampons? Why should women see a message telling them to get a prostate cancer checkup? I already have tickets to see the superbowl - why am I getting ads to once again buy more tickets to the superbowl?
There's all sorts of value and productivity that can be gained from targeting ads. Are those capabilities used 100% for good causes? of course not. But it at least does something for society, unlike a weird moral finger wagging.
Very strange that you consider ads based on geography as fine. That's the one I am most concerned about, primarily with political and PR-focused advertising which are often heavily geographic based. I care extremely little about "products" advertising.
If you look at how Google is approaching competing with companies like Apple on Android, or Firefox and Safari on Chrome. It's obvious that the overarching theme of the company is to copy all their security upgrades immediately and create watered down versions of the privacy technology, so they can appear to care about your privacy and compete, but their solutions simply aren't very good at protecting your privacy and there really isn't any good reason other than the truth that they want to appear to care about your privacy, while controlling and developing their technology in such a way that it doesn't protect your privacy as well as the competition or just gives only them access to the info, but protects it from others.
Firefox and Safari blocked third party cookies ages ago.
It's obvoius that we cannot just trust google to control important technologies the way we used to and need consider the competition if we care about privacy.
> Google may indeed be a good, responsible steward of the data but what those that come after them?
I don't think this is a good argument, because the same argument can be used against technological advancement of any kind.
For example with genetics research that addresses diseases - you can say "ah but even though the current government is responsible, who is to say that we won't get a bad govt in 20 years who will use this capability to use bioweapons that perform genocide".
We shouldn't build factories, because the next generation can convert those factories into ones that make guns?
No, we have to count on each generation of humans to be responsible. This worked for the last ~5000 years of civilization or so, and I think it's the way it has to keep working
Why can't we have a system where you (and the vast majority that you're sure love targeted ads) can opt in to being tracked by Google and other companies, and everyone else is protected from invasive data collection by default?
When I was in Google Ads, someone explained to me that Search ads were 10x more profitable than banner ads. The reason is the search tells you something about what the user wants. Our canonical example was "flowers." It's perfectly reasonable to show you ads for 1-800-FLOWERS.
Of course, over time that's been corrupted so you see only ads. Don't bother beating that dead horse.
All the "targeted advertisement" efforts are to figure out what you want when you didn't say anything, and reduce that 10x to 5x or less. I don't see a good reason not to prohibit those, if people object to them. There's no right to make infinite money off the Internet.
When I was at Google I almost got in trouble a couple of times by asking if Google might have a monopoly. I was told to delete messages and to never say "The M Word".
This makes sense if your genuine perspective is that you don't have a monopoly.
Like if I sent a bunch of emails saying "Hey guys, we are making great progress on committing genocide" - people would say "wtf man, we don't commit genocide, we just make software, why are you talking like that?"
Then you're all like "shhh don't say the G word..."
I'm not sure what you did in the company, but unless you had a VP+ level position, how are you qualified to know whether Google has a monopoly or not? Like, how do you have omniscient data on what competitors sales look like? You're just speculating in an unhealthy way. And that's why people told you to be quiet.
> There's no right to make infinite money off the Internet.
I like this a lot. Google is massively profitable. The only argument in favor of continue to extract every cent they can off the market, is that we have a fiction of perpetual, constant growth. It should be 100% okay for a company to say “we’re super profitable, we’re going to tone it down now and focus on making our services better”.
It’s wild that anyone believes Google supports privacy in any manner whatsoever. You cannot simultaneously support privacy while relying on a targeted advertising business model.
So tired of the “[company] claims to support my definition of [topic] while advocating different version of [topic]”
Privacy is an ambiguous term. Probably no two of us agree on 100% of the implementation details. Yes, Google’s approach does not align with my desires. But I’m not arrogant enough to think my definition is the single correct one.
How about “Google’s is lobbying for a weaker form of privacy than customers expect”?
> But I’m not arrogant enough to think my definition is the single correct one
I am arrogant enough to know what is acceptable to me, though, and to work towards that. Just like Google (or most anyone else) does, albeit Google outguns me by many orders of magnitude.
Regardless of who wrote this, I find it hard to trust an article written by a direct competitor to the company being scrutinized -- there is a clear conflict of interest here.
The adversarial system is the best we've come with in law and government. It seems, relying on opponents to keep each other honest, is a tool worth using.
The adversarial system has a time and a place, but in this case it's not like Google ever publishes blog posts on why ProtonMail may or may not be bad, and it would be quite impossible for them to debunk every accusation against them.
This isn't the adversarial system as much as it is just one company making marketing material for themselves by attacking another company.
"...Google and tech industry allies responded with a massive lobbying campaign... convince lawmakers banning targeted ads would hurt the global economy. The gambit worked, and the draft law no longer threatens Google’s advertising."
Lol, sounds like Google and the tech industry used targeted advertising to prevent a ban on targeted advertising.
Google is the worst offender in creating the current state of zero privacy.
Real privacy is privacy by default. Opt out is bullshit and everyone knows it. Just try to opt out of information sharing for every service you have. It’s simply not possible. Why don’t our lawmakers advocate for real privacy? Because powerful tech advertising lobbies prevent it.
Google doesn’t even respect opt out.
There’s no role for user privacy advocate at google . There’s no room for the discussion. They regularly and actively subvert even the weak privacy laws we have here.
Notice how they nag you forever to log into google maps? That’s so they can share your location data across all properties. They aren’t legally allowed to do it unless there’s a reason. The login service is their reason.
How do I know this? They said it openly. Is this conscious, active and continuous violation of privacy law? I’d say it is.
Minister of Privacy: “Let us gather to celebrate a trillion dollars of profit in one quarter. Our goal is to harness the world’s data and exploit it. Surveillance is Privacy”
—
Minister of Peace: “Comrades, our Ministry has an important duty to ensure the perpetual war that maintains our control. War is peace.”
Minister of Plenty: “Let us not forget our crucial role of the in rationing resources and keeping the populace in a state of need. Scarcity is Abundance.”
Minister of Truth: “The past is mutable, and it is our duty to control the narrative. Ignorance is Strength.”
Minister of Love: “Our goal is to eliminate dissent and ensure the loyalty of our citizens. Fear is Love.”
Readit News
Google clearly believes that they can obfuscate identity by enough so that ads can be targeted while privacy can also be preserved.
If you don't think that all ads are bad (and Google argues that ads help make many of the sites we rely on economically feasible), then I think you may agree that sometimes, ad targeting produces more useful ads. Many of my friends have actually found Instagram ads interesting enough to talk about them at dinners. It's better to have those ads rather than random banners for things that you don't care about. Google would definitely also argue that ad targeting improves the worth of the Internet and allows more sites to offer their services for free because they can make more from AdSense.
The following only makes sense if you buy this argument:
The data for ad targeting has been abused so often that for many (most?) consumers, it's not worth it.
Google's perspective is: "we can be a responsible steward of this data for this new age of privacy-conscious ad targeting". The Chrome topics API and mathematical/statistical obfuscation are things that a blunt tool like the law may forbid. As far as arguments go, I think this is actually a plausible one. I do think Google has somewhat OK privacy controls compared to other large tech companies, and way better ones compared to bad acting small sites and ad companies/data brokers.
That being said, I don't love the concentration of power (that's why the DOJ is going after them) - I'd much rather there be some decentralized way to ensure privacy but still allow useful ads, but we get what we get.
I do. Ads are psychological manipulation at scale. This well predates the Internet, even. Advertisements and marketing are immoral. As long as we have them though, I will concede that better targeted ads are sometimes better than non-targeted ads. However, I believe targeting does not need to be personal to be effective, it can be based on the content the ad is placed next to, rather than the individual visiting and be equally as effective without necessitating spying.
As it stands, at best ads are malware, at worst they are concentrated form of social evil.
So if you are selling something it's literally immoral to tell other people about it? How do you think people will ever find your store or product that you make? Just randomly stumble upon it? I'm genuinely curious.
There are many other examples. It’s much more a matter of degree than just saying “ads bad”.
That's quite a position. Are you also taking the position that capitalism and commerce are immoral? Because you really can't have those things absent marketing.
At any rate, I can't agree with this. The way that ads/marketing are done can be immoral, for sure -- but you also have PSAs against littering or simply marketing / advertising for any number of things that I'd hope we'd all agree are good ("Spay and neuter your pets," "Don't drink & drive") or at worst neutral ("Now available: The Beatles 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper CD").
Promoting a thing is not the same thing as "psychological manipulation" unless you consider "making a person or persons aware of something" is manipulation.
One might even argue that marketing is a good when the thing is something that people benefit from being aware of. Is marketing open source immoral? Fitness, as a concept? Ads for animal adoption are immoral?
At any rate - ads are a symptom of consumerism and capitalism, so as long as that's the system we exist in they're going to be present.
I don't personally agree with this, but I think it's an irrelevant point. The point is that targeted advertising requires spying on people. Google's "solution" is a nonsolution because it simply codifies that spying. That it's arguably less comprehensive spying is beside the point.
It's not the ads I object to, it's the data collection that drives the ads.
I'll take this one step further, it's not the data _collection_ that bothers me, it's the data _sharing_.
I have an Instagram account, I'm fine with Meta hoovering up every tiny bit of data from my account to generate highly targeted ads. They know my posts, my photos, my follows, my comments, my faves. They can use all that data to deliver highly targeted ads directly to my timeline.
What I don't want is Meta knowing anything at all about my actions _outside_ of Instagram. What apps I have installed, my purchase history, my search history, my location, my real-life friends and family. That's all private and Meta should never know about any of it.
Nope, nothing I wouldn't wouldn't share publicly. Just like every other time I checked.
(I won't copy it all here since I'm on mobile, but otherwise I would. it's all very bland topics like "Online Communities.")
It's technically targeted advertising, but only barely. I voluntary share much more information on the Internet.
Ads are, at best, malware for the brain.
What little positive they could possibly serve (discovery) is unfixably corrupted by the profit incentives involved.
No. The most ad targeting that should ever exist is by geography, and that's it.
Advertising has value in letting people know about your product. If you're selling locally, you rent a billboard on some street crossing, or a banner at a mall, or you buy a sponsorship at a local event because you think your target demographic will be there. At a demographic level, not individuals.
On the Internet, geography translates to maybe using zipcode from an IP address, and demographics translates to choosing which websites ("publishers") to put ads on.
And that should be it, that's fair and should get you enough bang for your buck.
Putting cameras in people's homes, listening to their conversations, following them around in their cars, stalking their relationships, tracking their voting records, etc should not be an acceptable way of increasing the efficiency of the targeting.
Of course you would make more money with this kind of spying (as what happens today). But this kind of invasion has great societal costs to privacy, and subsequently to freedoms, and should never be justifiable.
This is an arbitrary moral line, and if you that's the one you want to draw for your own life, then fine.
But it's also really dumb.
Why should men see ads for tampons? Why should women see a message telling them to get a prostate cancer checkup? I already have tickets to see the superbowl - why am I getting ads to once again buy more tickets to the superbowl?
There's all sorts of value and productivity that can be gained from targeting ads. Are those capabilities used 100% for good causes? of course not. But it at least does something for society, unlike a weird moral finger wagging.
Firefox and Safari blocked third party cookies ages ago.
It's obvoius that we cannot just trust google to control important technologies the way we used to and need consider the competition if we care about privacy.
And you don't think that user-based targeting is bad.
This is a huge parenthesis, that you forgot to put on the disclaimer. In fact, it's more important than what is there.
Besides:
> Google clearly believes that they can obfuscate identity
Yes, they act as if they believe. What is either incredibly negligent or fraudulent.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable not to accept this premise in the first place.
This often happens with government laws and policies too, in the U.S.
Google may indeed be a good, responsible steward of the data but what those that come after them?
I don't think this is a good argument, because the same argument can be used against technological advancement of any kind.
For example with genetics research that addresses diseases - you can say "ah but even though the current government is responsible, who is to say that we won't get a bad govt in 20 years who will use this capability to use bioweapons that perform genocide".
We shouldn't build factories, because the next generation can convert those factories into ones that make guns?
No, we have to count on each generation of humans to be responsible. This worked for the last ~5000 years of civilization or so, and I think it's the way it has to keep working
Of course, over time that's been corrupted so you see only ads. Don't bother beating that dead horse.
All the "targeted advertisement" efforts are to figure out what you want when you didn't say anything, and reduce that 10x to 5x or less. I don't see a good reason not to prohibit those, if people object to them. There's no right to make infinite money off the Internet.
It still results in strong perverse incentives. If I search for $company I don't want to have the top hit be $rival_company
This makes sense if your genuine perspective is that you don't have a monopoly.
Like if I sent a bunch of emails saying "Hey guys, we are making great progress on committing genocide" - people would say "wtf man, we don't commit genocide, we just make software, why are you talking like that?"
Then you're all like "shhh don't say the G word..."
I'm not sure what you did in the company, but unless you had a VP+ level position, how are you qualified to know whether Google has a monopoly or not? Like, how do you have omniscient data on what competitors sales look like? You're just speculating in an unhealthy way. And that's why people told you to be quiet.
I like this a lot. Google is massively profitable. The only argument in favor of continue to extract every cent they can off the market, is that we have a fiction of perpetual, constant growth. It should be 100% okay for a company to say “we’re super profitable, we’re going to tone it down now and focus on making our services better”.
At a certain size, the answer should be "It's not."
And then they get valued by their dividend yield. That IS boring, to some people.
Privacy is an ambiguous term. Probably no two of us agree on 100% of the implementation details. Yes, Google’s approach does not align with my desires. But I’m not arrogant enough to think my definition is the single correct one.
How about “Google’s is lobbying for a weaker form of privacy than customers expect”?
I am arrogant enough to know what is acceptable to me, though, and to work towards that. Just like Google (or most anyone else) does, albeit Google outguns me by many orders of magnitude.
The adversarial system has a time and a place, but in this case it's not like Google ever publishes blog posts on why ProtonMail may or may not be bad, and it would be quite impossible for them to debunk every accusation against them.
This isn't the adversarial system as much as it is just one company making marketing material for themselves by attacking another company.
Lol, sounds like Google and the tech industry used targeted advertising to prevent a ban on targeted advertising.
Google doesn’t even respect opt out.
There’s no role for user privacy advocate at google . There’s no room for the discussion. They regularly and actively subvert even the weak privacy laws we have here.
Notice how they nag you forever to log into google maps? That’s so they can share your location data across all properties. They aren’t legally allowed to do it unless there’s a reason. The login service is their reason. How do I know this? They said it openly. Is this conscious, active and continuous violation of privacy law? I’d say it is.
Google is the Ministry of Privacy.
Minister of Privacy: “Let us gather to celebrate a trillion dollars of profit in one quarter. Our goal is to harness the world’s data and exploit it. Surveillance is Privacy”
—
Minister of Peace: “Comrades, our Ministry has an important duty to ensure the perpetual war that maintains our control. War is peace.”
Minister of Plenty: “Let us not forget our crucial role of the in rationing resources and keeping the populace in a state of need. Scarcity is Abundance.”
Minister of Truth: “The past is mutable, and it is our duty to control the narrative. Ignorance is Strength.”
Minister of Love: “Our goal is to eliminate dissent and ensure the loyalty of our citizens. Fear is Love.”