zlacker

[return to "EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram"]
1. mjburg+kc[view] [source] 2023-11-02 11:58:07
>>pbrw+(OP)
Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data.

Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking.

It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., google, facebook, amazon, increasingly microsoft, etc.) do. There is both an individual harm, but a massive collective arm, to the infrastructure of behavioural tracking that has been built by these companies.

This infrastructure should be, largely, illegal. The technology to end any form of privacy is presently deployed only for ads, but should not be deployed anywhere at all.

◧◩
2. alkona+4E[view] [source] 2023-11-02 14:27:45
>>mjburg+kc
I think in the context of privacy "personalised" always means "personalised by using information the publisher shouldn't have".

Facebook has my age and home town, knows what many of my interests are via groups I'm in. I don't think it's wrong to say I have given them that information voluntarily and so long as they keep it on their servers only, I'm ok with them showing me a mountainbike ad because I'm a 40yo male who is in a mountainbiking facebook group.

I don't consent to them showing me an ad for a specific mountainbike that I placed in the shoppingbasket at cheap-mountanibikes dot com last week, and then abandoned there, and the reason they know is because the store has some kind of arrangement of any kind with facebook. That's the kind of thing I don't think I should even be allowed to consent to.

◧◩◪
3. s3p+2H[view] [source] 2023-11-02 14:43:04
>>alkona+4E
I totally get where you're coming from. Isn't that the approach Apple took with their (small) business running app store and news ads? they only allow generalized location and user info, and in app store context its almost entirely query based. but there's no identifying info. FWIW I absolutely hate the ads I see in apple news and they seem to be AI generated images with shitty headlines such as "New government program can wipe out debt. see how much you could save".

Instagram in comparison sends me a ton of personalized ads and I actually really like them. I have a modified .ipa of instagram (Rocket for iOS) and while it turns ads off I actually have that setting changed so I still see ads. Sometimes I find things I really like.

[go to top]