user17843 (u/user17843)

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

laughinghan · 6 years ago

> Super-targeted ads, instead of contextual ads.

Did you read the article? The point of this new platform is contextual ads, instead of personally-targeted ads.

user17843 · 6 years ago

It's more like a mixture of context and client-targeting (referer for example)

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

mochomocha · 6 years ago

> All of this money and effort to create something that has never scientifically been proven to work: Super-targeted ads, instead of contextual ads.

Have you worked in the field? Because I have, and I can tell you that ads targeting works. I've built some of these systems that people love to hate on HN. Hundreds of PhDs at Yahoo Labs, Google, FB etc have worked on this for decades and run thousands of A/B experiments. Are you saying that all these people are fraudulent / incompetent and that somehow the whole market cap of Google and FB combined (above 1 trillion dollars) is just a complete fraud?

Contextual advertising works, but much less than behavioral targeting. Anyone who has seen and worked on the data knows that.

Knowing that you just visited Best Buy website 10 minutes ago and searched for a camera is _much_ more relevant to figure out which ad to show you on nytimes.com right now than the content of the article you're reading on nytimes.com

user17843 · 6 years ago

I don't work in the field. I think part of the reason why my perspective diverges from yours is probably that your profession is extremely intransparent about what actually happens behind the curtain. Obviously people will speculate and err on the side of caution.

I should probably clarify that I did not mean to say that it doesn't work. What I meant is that it doesn't really work out for the publishers. The parties who profit are just first and foremost the platforms, then come the advertisers, and the publishers come last.

That explains the 1 trillion market cap. And also why Criteo didn't lose money after Apple blocked them from following their users.

I wonder if you can provide me to a study about the difference between Apple/Safari users and Google/Chrome users when it comes to advertising effectiveness, because since Safari users can not be tracked, that means according to your statement the revenue from Safari users would be way less.

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

oarabbus_ · 6 years ago

>I wait for the day some newspaper actually does an in-depth investigative study into the level of manipulation that drives sales in ad-tech, because I suspect that the entire system feeds off low-educated and poor people, for example lower-class stressed-out people who struggle to lose weight and are prone to manipulative ads. This is the target audience that you can manipulate into spending 500$ instead of 50$.

Why do you think you're immune or any different?

user17843 · 6 years ago

because I never see any ads :P

20-30 percent of people use ad-blockers, and I think I already know the demographics compared to the exposed population.

But for a serious argument, I refer to the studies on delayed gratification and the association with education and upbringing.

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

jefftk · 6 years ago

> All of this money and effort to create something that has never scientifically been proven to work

There are parts of the online ads business that are very scientific. They run A/B tests to figure out what will make them the most money, and they're very good at it. Amazon, for example: say you look at a blender there and don't buy it. Amazon has cookied you, and can then target that cookie on other websites, showing you pictures of the blender trying to get you to come back and complete your purchase. They have very good metrics showing how much they should pay for these remarketing ads, and they make a lot of money from it.

> Each article on a newspaper already provides the context.

The article you're reading does give some information. There are a few kinds of articles that people are especially likely to read before spending money ("what kind of phone should I buy", "which credit card should I get", "what do I do if I've been diagnosed with mesothelioma") and ads on those pages are worth a lot. But if you look over the front page of the Washington Post ("Opioid death rates soared in areas where pain pills flowed", "At rally, crowd responds to Trump’s criticism of Rep. Omar with chants of ‘Send her back!’", "House votes to kill impeachment resolution", "This German city had few foreigners. Then refugees changed it in some surprising ways") or any other general interest publication you'll see that most articles are targeted at, and going to be read by, a very wide range of people.

(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google)

user17843 · 6 years ago

Aren't A/B tests super short-term and specific to single advertisers? In the end the money in the system is limited, and if one competitor achieves a high level of revenue via A/B testing, someone else probably loses that amount of money.

I wonder whether Ad-tech has seen a reduction in revenue after Apple introduced Intelligent Tracking Protection, as these users can not be tracked via cookies.

This source claims there was no significant dip for Criteo for example:

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/08/01/despite-apple-s-game...

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

avn2109 · 6 years ago

You’re waiting for newspapers to investigate why their own primary revenue stream is unethical?

user17843 · 6 years ago

there are state-sponsered media like BBC, etc.

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

Donzo · 6 years ago

I'm not sure what scientific bar of proof you would need to see passed, but Google stalks users and targets them because it makes them more money. The ads perform better. Their systems fall back on context, when they can't do the more lucrative stalking.

user17843 · 6 years ago

Probably.

I think it's a downward spiral, it only works because each player is forced to play along due to fundamentals of game theory.

So what we are seeing is that the methods become more ruthless every day, but everyone needs to conform, and it's a race to the bottom.

The end result is spending-fatigue and numbness in response to normal ads that are not hyper-addictive.

I also think it does not really pay off for publishers. It only really pays off for the middle men and those players who sell unethical products aimed at manipulation.

user17843 commented on The Washington Post is preparing for post-cookie ad targeting digiday.com/media/were-bu... · Posted by u/madspindel

user17843 · 6 years ago

All of this money and effort to create something that has never scientifically been proven to work: Super-targeted ads, instead of contextual ads.

The context is already there. Each article on a newspaper already provides the context.

What is the true purpose of this? The true purpose is psychological control and manipulation, as well as making additional money with the data beyond ads.

Psychological manipulation gives the ability to actually create demand. And this is what this is about, because that's the only way to actually increase revenue in a meaningful way.

If you can target a person everywhere on all channels, and all the time, you can do things that are not possible with simple contextual ads, and the profiles that are being created are for lots of different purposes, not for ads.

I wait for the day some newspaper actually does an in-depth investigative study into the level of manipulation that drives sales in ad-tech, because I suspect that the entire system feeds off low-educated and poor people, for example lower-class stressed-out people who struggle to lose weight and are prone to manipulative ads. This is the target audience that you can manipulate into spending 500$ instead of 50$.

user17843 commented on Pornography sites found to be riddled with trackers from major tech companies nytimes.com/2019/07/17/op... · Posted by u/Jerry2

user17843 · 6 years ago

Should be easy to avoid with simply using another cookie jar or blocking third-party cookies. It seems the direct connection can only be made when a user is logged into a facebook or google profile. Otherwise the data can not be connected to a personal account without some degree of uncertainty and illegality.

G and F could use other data, like the browser fingerprint, OS information and the IP address to associate the data, which may be illegal, at least in Europe. Thus they probably use some other technique, for example creating pseudonymous shadow profiles and associating them based on similarity. In their front-end the data would just show clusters of profiles, which means they can claim they do not collect personal data, but from a quick glance it would be obvious to see connections between a user and "anonymous" clusters, if the similarity borders on 100%.

Thus a good practice would be to use a different Operating system and browser, together with the usual protective measures.

user17843 commented on Firefox to Warn When Saved Logins Are Found in Data Breaches bleepingcomputer.com/news... · Posted by u/rahuldottech

AznHisoka · 6 years ago

OK, enough is enough. I'm switching to Firefox now.

Protip to Firefox: Advertise this feature more. The other stuff I don't really care about, and didn't really convinced me to move to Firefox. Fear is an excellent motivator, however.

user17843 · 6 years ago

The functionality is part of every decent password manager, which takes care of basically all your passwords, not the ones stored in your browser. So I don't understand the enthusiasm.