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Users Know Advertisers Watch Them, and Hate It
Chris Blanc tips an Ars writeup on a survey of consumer attitudes toward targeted advertising. The results of the survey, conducted for TRUSTe, confirm that advertisers are in a tough spot. "[The survey company] randomly selected 1,015 nationally representative adults... Although only 40 percent of the group was familiar with the term 'behavioral targeting,' most users were well aware of the practice. 57 percent reported that they weren't comfortable their activities [were being] tracked for advertising purposes, even if the information couldn't be tied to their names or real-life identities. Simultaneously, 72 percent of those surveyed said that they find online advertising annoying when the ads are not relevant to their needs..."
I'm not sure exactly ... what privacy we are supposed to expect online. We're essentially driving on open roads while surfing the net, right... sending packets over open wires or open air. As long as it isn't malicious and isn't gathering actual personal information, I'm not sure this is unexpected or even a problem; no different than checking to see what kind of people shop at certain stores or malls to see what to put on the billboard...
TrustE is more of an apologist than a regulator. TrustE stopped being serious about privacy in 1997, when they "simplified" their seal program. A TrustE seal doesn't mean that any standard has been met. All it means now is that the company claims to comply with their own privacy statement, whatever it says. That's it.
Even worse, a site with a TrustE seal is more likely to have badware than one without a seal.
TrustE has revoked only two certificates in its ten year history.
There are no positive articles on the topic of "behavioral targeting" because of how hard privacy activists try to publicize their views, and like "death tax", this is a case where the phrase itself is used to push an agenda. No one wants their "behavior targeted". So for the people who know and use the term "behavioral targeting", we can already assume they have a predisposition on the topic a bit. If instead we use "relevant advertising" to refer to the same technique, surely this will effect the way it is perceived.
With that said, I don't see how harmful this can be. Browsers do a good job of protecting us from the worst case scenarios, and web sites have a hard time implementing this effectively anyway. The sites best at this are those with real information, like amazon or ebay that have your info and can track what you do. But again, you are on their turf, so its kinda like complaining about being watched by security cameras at Best Buy, or about the membership card that tracks everything you buy at CVS.
I don't get that at all from these numbers; personal experience tells me that people don't want to see ads. Relevent ads aren't as bad, and some can be useful, but most just don't want to see ads.
The fact of the matter is that it is the advertisers themselves who want us to see their ads, not the other way around. To do this, they add stuff to their advertisements in order to make you pay attention to them.
People who pay attention to advertisements/commericals are the product to be sold, the advertisers are the real customer, and the content, whether it be magazine, movie, game etc is just the bait to lure us into the 'snare' and pay attention to the advertisement.
When people WANT to view an advertisement, we'll look for a product then. Building brand awareness beforehand might be effective, but that doesn't mean we enjoy being conditioned in such a manner. If we could have the carrot without risking the snare, we would totally take that. When we want the snare, we'll let you know.
What is the benefit for me viewing ads? Oh yeah, I "steal content".
It is MY choice what images I load, what scripts I render, and what HTML code I accept. You have NO SAY.
I have no qualms to disable ads any way I can, and I will show/set up ad killers so that my clients can surf safer and distraction free.
My setup does not block text ads... You want a way to our eyeballs, make ads like Kuro5hin.org . I recently bought a VPS because of an NON-obtrusive ad I viewed there.
Well, the big deal is that
1. people change their behaviour when they think they're watched. Doubly so when it's recorded and they're not even sure when it'll be used, how, and in which way it'll bite them in the arse.
My favourite example is about the USSR. Everyone knows the brutality of Stalin's NKVD and about the Gulag, but that got toned down a lot after Stalin. Mostly because it was cheaper and more effective to just give people the impression that everything they say or do goes into some dossier, and they have no idea when it'll be used against them or how. Maybe it'll be the GULAG, but maybe they'll never travel abroad again, or maybe their kid won't ever get a promotion because of what their father said, or God knows what else. Or maybe nothing will ever happen, but there's no way to know.
That uncertainty is actually scarier than immediate repression. It removes the feedback. With Stalin's NKVD, you could know pretty soon whether they have anything against you or not. With something that might, or might not happen, and might take a decade or two to, you just don't know.
The bigger effect is that it made people distrust each other, and thus unlikely to get organized. If comrade Piotr swears at the Party, how do you know if he isn't some agent provocateur trying to get you to say something you'll regret. And even if he isn't, do you want it on your record that you hang out with a disgruntled enemy of the people? Best avoid going drinking with Piotr in the future.
Of course, you could point out, that was only because Big Brother there had not only ears, but also an arm with a whip and an inclination to use it. Well one way or another disincentives exist just as well in a free society, and in the West we're all the more eager to accept them if they're wielded by the private industry instead of the state.
E.g., just like in Soviet Russia you might have feared that you'll never get a well paid job if you have on your record that you're a maladjusted malcontent, the exact same can happen in the west too, in a world where employers routinely google their employees. Even if your current boss doesn't mind it, how do you know if the next job interview doesn't get influenced by something you said or did?
E.g., to get to more mundane western worries, if you're, say, in a particularly bigotted town in the Bible Belt, do you want your next employer to know that you're surfing for gay porn? Most people even if they're not particularly secretive about either being gay or surfing for porn, don't wear "I download gay porn" on a badge at a job interview either.
This whole data collection, and the possibility that it'll get leaked, sold to the highest bidder, or just given as a "gift to the community" like the infamous AOL search data, is enough to make a lot of people think twice about what they do. Even if it's not antisocial per se. Better not trip someone's sensitivities the wrong way, and all that.
(And, yes, I know, maybe _you_ are brave and fearless and never give in, bla, bla, bla. The vast majority of others aren't. That's the problem.)
It can enforce a degree of conformism that's outright scary.
2. Data mining, especially the way Joe Sixpack doesn't even understand it, adds another layer of scariness to it all. You don't know over what inferences they'll get to you, or whether you'll be a bystander casualty of one.
Basically the same as you wouldn't go into a black or jewish boss's office carrying some white supremacist magazine under your arm. Chances are the "pays to read that kind of thing => probably is a racist" inference won't help your career much. So even the real bigoted guys still wouldn't do it.
Data mining promises to make the same kind of inferences from other more mundane things. That even much more innocent things could finger you as something you'd rather not proclaim yourself as, or even genuinely aren't.
E.g., what if some data mining survey says that employees drinking Coca Cola are twice as loyal to the
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The new Intelligent Barcode encodes both sender and recipient, along with a ton of other info. The PO is allowed to track this and turn it over to the three letter agencies.
The FBI no longer needs a court order to open mail, and the Intelligent Barcode makes it easy to track and intercept mail midstream to grab it for opening.
It's Tire Pressure Monitoring for the mailstream tailor made for the police.
Google and Apple are both much-much loved by slashdotters. Apple makes sexy kit that (for the most part) works very well. Google makes a search engines (and other software) that (for the most part) works very well. In a world dominated by shitty computers that don't work very well loaded with operating systems that don't work very well, products that Suck Less are going to get noticed. It "helps" that Apple has a Geek Chic image, and that Google employees have extensively evangelized what an incredibly AWESUM place Google is to work.
Yay.
At the of the day, Apple charges lamorghini prices for chevette parts in cadillac boxes* and Google promises "don't be evil" while collecting and tracking data at a volume that probably makes the NSA green with envy. I personally find this to be irritating (on the part of apple) and heinously evil shit (on the part of google), but both companies are Best Of Breed, and as long as their products Suck Less than everything else on the market, they'll be loved by the slashdot crowd - and any questionable activity will be rationalized or ignored by the fanbase.
* Yes, an equivalent PC that has every last one of the features a Mac packs will cost more. But I can upgrade the video card on a 400$ Dell. The entry level for upgradeable video in the Apple world is currently 2,799$, and the starting point for a useable (non-intel) video chipset (non-upgradeable) is currently ~1,200$. Oh, and the Intel minis cost more than the PPC minis did, with arguably worse video. Mention any of this in an Apple thread and you'll be modded troll or flamebait.