small data points from here compared to the big lot..
friend unsure about her marriage.. getting ads to sell her wedding ring via fbook.. they divorced 2 months later. Guess what the first thing she did was?
A friend's father.. gambling addiction and an android phone - sleeps on the streets and eats via dumpsters, still keeps that addictive android device running.
Google sending data on people to fusion centers.. maybe none of those people were ever hurt by that - or the sharing of info from location data dumps, or the vids from nest cams.. I would assume there is a probability that at least one person was hurt when actions via gun toting state came knocking on at least one door, maybe more - and that stuff 100% coming from collection of data.
Just because journalists aren't interviewing these people to see if they were hurt, does not mean it's not happening.
I have no way to opt people out of alcohol ads.. I've seen them so I know others have.. does a sale on the new pink-liqour at 10am lead someone to drink out of juice boxes before noon at a kid's soccer practice? I can't say for sure.. it's just a coincidence they are drinking the new advertised thing - maybe it was an ad on the liqour store window that did it - there won't be hard evidence there.
I can think of more, but I know these are small data points from here. I'm glad you have not witnessed such things.
- Are you suggesting that your friend got divorced so that she could sell her ring, because an ad told her she could sell her ring? I doubt that was the straw that broke the camels back.
- The android phone has utility beyond it's addictiveness. Yes homeless people need a phone.
- Re fusion centers: ads targeting data is a relatively shitty surveillance too, the three letter agencies have much better ways of collecting this data.
- Targeted alcohol advertising I'll agree is an issue, but if you're an alcoholic, you can't really escape the ubiquity of alcohol everywhere.
I think the adverse privacy impact of targeted advertising is pretty overblown, but it so happens that ad targeting is so effective it has the illusion of being surveillant. The actual data being collected is anonymized and not personal.
I am pretty sure I have some screenshots of google ads for alcohol when scrolling through my google news feed - I have not seen many - but it struck a nerve a time or two I am pretty sure - and I think I screenshotted them. I will check on this.
I would love it if they would ban such - I am not a prohibitionist, but also think people should be able to request a "non-alchohol ads on the table section", much like people once chose to sit in smoking / non-smoking..
when trying to cater to folks who struggled with such, indeed the options were limited for dining out.. IHop and waffle bouse two of the options I recall.
Those two are not mutually exclusive. You an ban images of alcohol while allowing adds for alcohol and bars (as long as they don't have images of alcohol.)
I suspect there may different rules for different jurisdictions/markets which might explain differences in your experiences.
I appreciate that these are weak examples, just trying to point out a couple off the top of my head - surely there are many more.
The ring thing - I think it was the straw that broke the camels back honestly.. and hey that might have been a good thing - it certainly wasn't the two-ton elephant on top - but I do think it was the thing that made an easy / quick escape possible - maybe that's a good thing - some religious folks may feel otherwise - I'm on the fence about it - but it does point to a weird thing that probably should not be happening with social network data imho.
the fusion centers / requests for locations / emails / search history - all other data.. I agree ads are shitty surveillance generally - however the mass amounts of data being collected to make the ads more valuable - the location data, the emails, the search history - all of that has been quite valuable in many cases from what I have seen on the news..
when it's a murderous ex lover people may cheer - but how much reporting is done on the requests for data that just pry into people's lives and cause them to lose time and money and threats of being shot - that don't go to trials / convictions / wrong person...
so this is more of a reply to the parent comment to consider about harm from mass surveillance they could not think of any.. well there are some - and really many.. certainly many more than my weak top of the head considerations. Not just specifically ads themselves.
I think there are some places where alcohol ads on billboards are banned - and part of me thinks that's a good thing, the free speech absolutist in me says it's not.. but if we ban nudes or gore or whatever on billboards cuz public safety - well sadly alcohol and tobacco probably should also be included there - and gambling.. and addictive technology.. I mean maybe not in Vegas.. I dunno. I hate the alcohol ads on the tables at restaurants and the immediate upsell by waiters/resses with great drink specials.. they should ask if you want a "dry" experience at the table imho.
I agree targeted ads are very good in many ways - I just think people should get more control to 'stop showing X ad cuz Y (already bought it / decided I hate it / have an addiction / whatever) - turn off all targeted cuz it's a shared device and fam is seeing presents.. whatever..
I must disagree about the data being collected though - sure a third party advertiser on yahoo may not be collecting a ton of info about someone - but google does collect a ton of personally identifiable info including emails, gps / locations traveled, search history and much more I am sure.
That data can be used to harm people, by the state, by divorce attorneys.. one could say the hernandez location data led to him being jailed and suicided - I think most would argue that catching him with tech was a good thing - but the demanding of data from big G is not always used for such things, and it can be abused or just used to fish expedition into lives.
There are many ways to harm using the data collected.. oh yeah - the insurance fraud people in new york demanding all stored info about people while they fished for people pretending to be disabled.. I mean, doing good was thier goal - but some people's privacy was slayed that were not doing fraud - is that harm? People seem to lean towards certain other pics of people being shared re-harms victims - so I dunno.
It's not just the ads - it's the other data collected to enable highly targeted ads that can and is used to harm.
How many arrests have been made using google data? How many investigations to peer into lives that did not lead to an arrest? How many give us all cell phones near location X during Y-Z time so we can look into them.. How many times has google taken info and sent it voluntarily to agencies with guns? I'd love to see that in a transparency report.
I know both F and G occasionally push back in requests from doj - but in the end - they give up data on a regular basis even if they ask to limit scope sometimes - and certainly there are times when harm comes to a target at least once I would guess.
Not trying to make a strong case for digital ad companies evil - just trying to point to parent commenter that there are examples in the news of harm done using the data - and suggesting many more examples exist - we just don't hear about them all. Admittedly - percentage wise - it's probably .0000002 percent or something, unless we get into addictions and shopping addictions - then higher - but it's not like the intent by the companies is to do evil always - it's just that the tools do enable it imho.
Targeted ads and analytics are not opt-in by default. This leads to shadow profiles and my data being handled by corporations I don't trust. I don't need facebook and all its stalkers to know where I live, for instance.
Not to mention targeted ads just don't work for me. They always show crap I'd never use, within my domain of knowledge, and never show interesting things outside my domain. Overall I'm more than glad to block ads because I gain nothing from them. They are a liability. Anonymization I don't believe in, what's the difference between my SSN and a MD5 of my SSN?
My Instagram ads seem to be laser-focused on my insecurities. I don’t buy the shit they’re selling by they definitely make me feel bad about myself, so mission half accomplished!
The first link is not a credible worry. Ad targeting is not even close to 100% accurate, no ad can out you. You can just brush it off.
Links 2 and 3 are concerning. The FB and Google do have a way to stop that though - you can click an ad and say it doesn't interest you or you don't like it, that signal is insanely strong and the platforms will turn off the spigot.
The rest is not actual harm to people, its people concerned about the idea of targeting being harmful. Cambridge Analytica was a laughable scandal btw, absolutely no one was actually impacted by it.
FB does enforce the fair housing act and other laws. The platform is actually quite strict nowadays and catches lots of innocent ads in their filters for protected categories. Ad platforms should follow the law, that's working as planned.
As a side note, it's funny how people say that ads are terrible, but also its terrible if certain groups of people don't get to see ads.
Same as saying that the draft is terrible, but having a gender-specific draft is even worse. We'd rather have no ads, but until that's possible, the least we can do is stop them from worsening social inequities.
A week later - and an HN discussion about ads on google that impersonate government web sites.. reminded me of a few more things where people get hurt by big surv-ad-capitalism -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27152524
If you are a woman have fun seeing ads for makeup and fashion all the time. There is a reason female users are hot commodity for any ad driven company, companies are willing to pay way more to advertise to women.
Targeted ads supports the status quo instead of exposing everyone to stuff they might want.
Targeted ads are much better at exposing people to new products they could want to try than non targeted ads, which appeal to the lowest common denominator. You're actually asking for better targeted ads for your gf
