The Case For Targeted Ads

Nofsck Ingcloo writes "CNet has published a guest column by Eric Wheeler warning the world of the evil consequences of Do Not Track. In it he makes strong (I would claim exaggerated) arguments in favor of targeted advertising. He claims the threat of political action on Do Not Track should, 'strike fear into the hearts of every company that does business online....' He speaks of compromising a $300 billion industry, which I read as being the industry composed of online advertisers and all their clients. He clearly thinks the trade off between freedom from snooping and free access to web content always favors free access. He concludes his arguments by saying, 'Taken as a whole, the potentially dire impact of Do Not Track is clear: the end of the free internet and a crippling blow to the technology industry.' He then goes on to advocate contacting legislators and the FTC in opposition to Do Not Track."

Comments

Isn't it Voluntary?

[ThatsMyNick]

Isn't Do Not Track voluntary? The advertiser can choose not follow it, right? If so, what is all the fuss about?

Re:Isn't it Voluntary?

[b4dc0d3r]

It is currently voluntary. A lot of people are pushing for it to be mandatory, which would practically chop Google's business plan off at the hips. Right now they read your mail (not the employees, but the servers), they track your searches, and if you have Android they know a lot more about you than you think. Do not track being mandatory would turn off a lot of their data gathering. And they are an advertising sales company, no matter what other products they bring to consumers. Just as with FaceBook, you are the product and your eyeballs are being sold to advertisers.

Microsoft intends to turn DNT on by default for IE 10, and even if you don't go with Windows 8 you might get some updates for Win7, if not actually IE 10, that set DNT accordingly. Now a huge browser market, including most people people who don't know what DNT is, nor do they care, will have it disabled by default. This pits Microsoft against Google in a huge way.

Aside from all of the other fallout that will happen by making it not just a standard, but a fine-inducing requirement, it will be essentially unenforceable in that it will be hard to prove tracking versus proper context-based targeted adverts. Pointless unenforceable laws/regulations that depend on politicians pretending to support their constituents on the small things so they can screw voters on the big things are not the way to a better internet. But that's what we're going to get when politicians get involved.

The fuss isn't about right now, it's about looking down the road and seeing oncoming traffic. A smart person would at least pull over, and assess whether a U-turn is in order, or getting off the road, or if maybe staying the course is in fact appropriate.

Re:Isn't it Voluntary?

[jonsmirl]

The way to combat this is for every website that detects the DNT header to simply respond with a page saying how to turn it off or download a different browser. How quickly we all forget what it was like to be constantly bombarded with ads for products you cannnot use or cannot be purchased in your locale.

Re:Isn't it Voluntary?

[Mr. Slippery]

How quickly we all forget what it was like to be constantly bombarded with ads for products you cannnot use or cannot be purchased in your locale.

I forget what it was like to be constantly bombarded with ads, thank goodness. Since I ignore any ads I do see -- I never click -- they might as well be for products I cannot use.

Re:Isn't it Voluntary?

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

The solution is actually quite simple. Making tracking opt-in only, and imposing harsh penalties for violations, can easily solve the problem.

Other have pointed out, that if you run a tech website then display tech ads. If you run a site about cats, post ads for cat food. There's *no need* for cookies following users around. Just display ads that are germane to what your site is about.

I was hating cookies back in the 90s. I understand the need for sites to make money. All this information we call the internet doesn't come free. Can we have a little restraint though please? Your idea of putting government in charge of advertising has only one fatal flaw: It assumes that governments will protect the interests of people better.

Re:Isn't it Voluntary?

[gnasher719]

How about do not track me as an individual, but here is a list provided by my browser of things of which I'm interested.

Shows that you don't have a clue what this is about. The advertisers don't care who you are. They care about _what_ you are, gathered together from little bits and pieces of information.

But what I hate is that you can't know what I am interested in from my browser. I have searched extensively for information on behalf of others. Those searches have _nothing_ to do with my interests. I bought Christmas presents. They have nothing to do with my interests. I bought several of a series of books from Amazon after buying the first ones in a shop; Amazon wouldn't forget about the ones that I didn't buy from Amazon and wouldn't give up on offering them again and again. I made the mistake of buying Justin Bieber tickets for my granddaughter and her friends. Guess what. Bloody information trackers think that I like the little gnat.

But worst is that my computer is not my computer, it is shared with my wife. If you look at my eBay purchases you will think that I am schizophrenic or very weird - in reality it is purchases from two people mixed up. I received targetted ads based on a Christmas present that she bought for me, which somehow spoilt the surprise. So fuck targeted ads.

Two words:

[Quakeulf]

Fuck. You.

Re:Two words:

[girlintraining]

Fuck. You.

I'm trying to figure out why swearing is considered insightful... but I got nothin'.

Re:Two words:

[mister_playboy]

You post history provides zero evidence that you are actually swearing-averse, so I conclude you must be an advertiser.

Re:Two words:

[girlintraining]

You post history provides zero evidence that you are actually swearing-averse, so I conclude you must be an advertiser.

For a limited time only, my bullshit is 20% off regular price...

Bullshit

[girlintraining]

So what? It could be a three hundred quintillion dollar industry. It doesn't change the ethics, morals, or the fact that most people don't want it. Advertising has been shoved down people's throats. It's been put in places where it was promised not to appear. It eats away at our culture, it deadens people's nerves, and it saturates everything it comes in contact with. It is a plague -- and it needs reform. It is an industry without regulation, without controls, and with an insatiable appetite.

And not a one of them are for reasonable controls. It was only recently, and after fighting tooth and nail, that we even got them to stop screwing with the volume on our TVs. Fuck them -- when they learn to be responsible, then maybe I'll learn to give a damn whether they get thrown under a bus or not. But probably not.

Re:Bullshit

[ColdWetDog]

It's the money. All the way down.

Pretty impressive diatribe by an advertising executive. He probably eats the Wheaties box for breakfast.

Re:Bullshit

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Actually, the larger the valuation for the industry, the worse it is, since the size of the industry is what gives you an idea of how much is being bled off from sectors that wouldn't be better off if set on fire.

Re:Bullshit

[Seumas]

I'll just never get the point of any of it and I'll never understand why people would rather get something for free than pay a little and get ads.

First, when someone says "hey, shut up, you can't complain about it because it's free". Bullshit. Charge me a buck a month or something. If you're a worthwhile service, my sanity and reducing the visual clutter of everything is worth a buck to me. Give me the damn *choice* to decide what is more important to me. Let me decide if I want to be the product or if I want your service to be the product and pay you for it. You know, like real life. Value for value transaction.

Second, I don't need targeted advertising, anyway. No amount of advertising changes how many tubes of toothpaste I need in a year or how much food I need to buy or how often my dishwasher has to be replaced. And when those things ARE needed, I will go investigate to find out what fits the bill and what has the best reputation, quality, price, etc. Throwing up a giant advertisement somewhere saying "HEY COME BUY OUR KITCHENWARE!" is meaningless. It's like the idiots who come to my door every god damn day all summer long, trying to sell me new siding or windows or sprinkler systems or insulation. If I was in the market for those things, wouldn't I already be looking at them? Who the hell says "why, yes, stranger -- now that a totally anonymous person has come to my door, I guess I *do* need some roofing done!".

Advertising -- targeted or not -- is just a fucking nuisance.

Re:Bullshit

[girlintraining]

Actually, the larger the valuation for the industry, the worse it is, since the size of the industry is what gives you an idea of how much is being bled off from sectors that wouldn't be better off if set on fire.

Hey, I'm not saying advertising doesn't have its place. I'm not even saying companies shouldn't be allowed to spend as much as they want on it. I happen to believe in freedom of speech, even speech I disagree with. But I also have the right to ignore others' speech, or to respond with speech of my own. Legislating away that choice is wrong -- and that's what this guy is advocating. Well, fuck him. His position isn't just unethical, it's unamerican. Nobody has a right to shove their own beliefs down other people's throats and that statement doesn't change because money is involved, even a lot of money.

If people hang a "no soliciting" sign on the door of their home or business, it should be respected. In many jurisdictions, there's a penalty if you don't. If you add your phone number to the "do not call" list, that also has to be respected. It's even required by law in cases where the other party is owed money. The right to free speech doesn't include the right to be heard: I can walk away. That doesn't change just because the speech is digital instead.

Re:Bullshit

[TubeSteak]

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to the public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
Life-Line by Robert A. Heinlein, 1939

If you cannot innovate; legislate.

Re:Bullshit

[fustakrakich]

It could be a three hundred quintillion dollar industry.

Whoa! That's almost the entire derivatives market.

Re:Bullshit

[fustakrakich]

He probably eats the Wheaties box for breakfast.

Probably tastes better than the bag.

Re:Bullshit

[klingers48]

This isn't specifiically about internet advertising, but it is relevant. Last week I paid $20 to see a movie at my local cinema. I also paid another $15 for stale popcorn and watery soda.

I then had to sit through what they had the audacity to call a "pre-show programme" which consisted of (I timed it) 3 previews totalling about 6 minutes together and close to 15 minutes of advertising.

This shit is in my face, wasting my time and adding no value. Based on the prices I'm paying at the box-office it's also not cross-subsidizing my moviegoing experience either... So how am I benefiting?

You can also apply this back to a doomsayer's future where half the web is behind paywalls. Will the ads magically disapear, considering that unlike print magazines the cost of delivery is as logistically close to zero as you can get? Or will I still be paying a premium price to have annoying ads plastered all over my content?

Also, I might be in the minority here but I'm actually less likely to react positively to targetted advertising. I find it offensive and creepy, not "relevant".

Re:Bullshit

[Zadaz]

The thing I I do want it. I would love it if I was only shown ads which were for things that I was truly interested in. It would be wonderful if ads were a product discovery service.

Except they're not. There's not enough margin in that and that's not how advertisers want to reach me.

Take for example and of the music streaming services. Pandora, Spotify, Last.fm, etc. They know exactly what music you like to listen to. So it should be a slam-dunk to target ads to you for stuff you're interested in. Sell you the album you're listening to, sell you tickets to a local show of any of your favorite artists. Hell, alert you some TV show, movie, or game that uses your favorite music in the soundtrack.

But no. You get adverts for songs, artists, and genres that you've explicitly told you never want to hear again. The service that can have surprisingly good accuracy when suggesting new music and artists is quite literally tone deaf when suggesting ads.

The only explanation is that the record labels are dumping so much money to promote X that they buy up all the available slots, whether its appropriate or not. They still think we're listening to the radio and are not an infinitely fragmented audience, so they throw money at it to keep the little guy out. The little guy who would most benefit targeted ads. And the streaming services let them do this, even though it's a disservice to their listeners because the listeners aren't their customers, the record companies are, and they're already on thin ice with them to begin with. So they'll do what it takes to keep them happy.

Now that's just streaming music, but the same factors apply in other areas where targeted ads could work if the players had any interest in playing that game.

Re:Bullshit

[KiloByte]

I do not want targetted ads. For two reasons: targetted, and ads.

You say "ads are a part of life" -- so is pollution and diseases. Proponents of pollution say "but it allows the industry to produce cheaper goods this way", proponents of diseases would want to ensure steady income for pharma companies.

Do Not Track is not a problem

[rgbrenner]

Do Not Track is not a problem.. because it will never seriously be implemented. It's just a request, and it will be ignored by every advertising company there is.

1) it's a $300 billion industry
2) targeted ads are more effective.
so 3) if your ad company implements DNT, you will be less effective, and your clients will go where their ads (and $) are more effective -- which is where DNT is not implemented.

No one is going to give up billions (or their jobs) to implement DNT.. any ad company that does will be out-competed by their competitors and die.

And NO consumer is going to pay to have DNT. If consumers REALLY cared about targeted ads, they wouldn't happily post every details of their lives on facebook.

Re:The problem, commenter,

[Quakeulf]

I wish that in my unfathomable, uncontrollable rage did not reply to this thread otherwise I'd mod this comment up.

Excellent

[DNS-and-BIND]

All this screaming means that we're on the right track.

Re:Irony not lost

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The writer of this bullshit piece is the CEO of an advertising/tracking firm "33Across"

"Over 600,000 publishers and more than 375 Fortune 1000 marketers use 33Across’s Brand Graph technology, tools, and real-time predictive systems to connect their content and products into the social graph. Clients rely on their Brand Graph to leverage how individuals and the networks around them react to what is read, purchased, shared, and recommended in real-time. Reaching over a billion users, 33Across processes tens of thousands anonymous social engagement, influence, and interest actions that surround marketer and publisher brands each second."

Why do we even listen to these people?

Here's a guest column on Slashdot

[Black Parrot]

Just another shill for the investor class, bemoaning the fact that there are still things that can't be bought and sold.

stopped reading TFA at " ... anonymous"

[logicassasin]

Are you logged into Google or any other search/email service right now? Then the data collected is most definitely not anonymous. Your search and surfing data is being collected and can be tied to you, or at least your online identity.

AdBlockPlus is mandatory

[betterunixthanunix]

ABP is mandatory; DNT is just a distracting waste of time predicated on bad ideas about what Internet advertising should be (and for that matter, what the Internet itself should be). We solved the invasive web advertisement problem long ago with ABP, just like we solved the email / Usenet spam problem with spam filtering.

The first paragraph of TFA should be enough to know how uninformed the writer's opinion is: he pushes the idea that anonymous data is being collected, despite all the work that has shown how that data can be de-anonymized (especially when several "anonymous" databases are combined).

Re:AdBlockPlus is mandatory

[betterunixthanunix]

The argument against spam goes like this: person A maintains an email server that person B uses to send spam. Person A shoulders the cost while person B receives the benefits, this is widely acknowledged as a bad thing.

No, the argument against spam is that (in the absence of filtering) it overwhelms users' inboxes with unsolicited and unwanted messages and makes it exceedingly difficult for email / Usenet / SMS / etc. to be useful. Remember the days of writing your email address like this: email example com? That is not what the administrators or owners of mail servers were doing; that was what users did, to avoid spam in their inbox as long as possible.

Visiting an ad supported website goes like this: person A maintains a web server that person B uses to retrieve content. Person A shoulders the cost but offsets this with advertising money, person B receives the (non-monetary) benefits.

The other day, my mother was trying to read The New Yorker online, but a hover ad kept covering the article -- and there was no clear way to get rid of it. She now uses ABP, because otherwise, some websites would be unusable. That is exactly the same situation as email and Usenet spam, except that this time, it is so overwhelmingly profitable that the people doing it can appear to be "legitimate" (OK, I'll be fair: they usually advertise real products, which adds some amount of legitimacy).

You know whose resources are wasted with advertising on the web? Users', that's whose; CPU cycles, RAM, screen time and space, and so forth. What benefit are users getting? Targeted ads they did not want to begin with? When people need to buy things, they actually do benefit from advertising, but of a much different kind: classifieds like Craigslist, shopping search engines (what, you think that is not a form of advertising?), etc. It is not surprising that Amazon makes so much money in advertising -- not because they track users, but because when people need something, they use Amazon's search engine to find what they need.

Advertising is very important to the web as it exists right now

If that is true (and frankly, I think the web would be fine if everyone used ABP), then it is time to make a better system, perhaps one that is more distributed so that popular online publications are not so costly to operate.

What I'm saying is, and I'm trying to put it politely, people as a whole should be aspiring to a higher level of ethics than douchebag spammers.

I agree, but I am not greedy.

Re:AdBlockPlus is mandatory

[Tom]

ABP is mandatory; DNT is just a distracting waste of time predicated on bad ideas about what Internet advertising should be (and for that matter, what the Internet itself should be). We solved the invasive web advertisement problem long ago with ABP, just like we solved the email / Usenet spam problem with spam filtering.

Is the portal to your parallel universe still open?

Spam still makes up the majority of E-Mail traffic. That you don't see it does not mean the problem has disappeared.

ABP has not made a dent in advertisement, because almost nobody uses it. Remember that we aren't the average Internet user. According to the Mozilla AddOns page, ABP has 14 mio. users. There are about 2.4 billion Internet users. So 0.6% of the Internet users use ABP. And I'm being generous there because most of those 14 mio. will also own a smartphone, iPad or other device where they do not have ABP installed.

DNT is non-mandatory, correct. But it can be made mandatory through legislation, and as a standard feature it is much easier for common people to deploy than ABP etc., and with a default on setting like MS is moving towards, it does something very important and very dangerous: It blows the plausible deniability away for the advertisement companies. That is what all the whining is about - with DNT in place and widely used, they can no longer claim to respect you. The mask will come off. And that could pave the way to more regulation, to the Internet equivalent of the do-not-call lists and such like.

Because right now, when ad company EvilAds claims that nobody minds their crap, you can not prove them wrong. When they deploy ads in a way that circumvents DNT, their argument falls apart.

golden rule

[slashmydots]

Don't forget the golden rule of business! It applies to advertising as well. It is: "If customers hate your product, fuck you, I hope you go out of business."
Sorry, web advertising. There's always Valpak, lol.

Re:Irony not lost

[TubeSteak]

Why do we even listen to these people?

"We" don't, but our elected representatives do.

Re:Irony not lost

[kwerle]

Why do we even listen to these people?

We don't. But the editors put it on /., so there you go.

if he is right

[binarstu]

Just imagine what would happen if "do not track" were incredibly successful, and as this guy predicts, the "bottom drops out" of the online advertising industry, forcing "free" sites like Facebook to turn to subscription-based models to pay for themselves.

We would find out really quickly what people actually care about on the Web. My guess is that for many advertising-supported sites, Facebook included, we'd see that user loyalty is a mile wide and an inch deep. Most current users would be unwilling to have to pay to continue using the service, in my opinion. Most people don't care about paying for a service with their privacy, but make even a small dent in their wallet, and they will suddenly care very much.

Right to exist?

[devphaeton]

He speaks of compromising a $300 billion industry

Just because there is some 'industry' where some arbitrarily large amount of money is exchanged, it doesn't mean it has any right to exist at all.

This is different, but about as justifiable as the "too big to fail" arguments of yore.

Re:Such ignorance here...

[TheRealMindChild]

You know how to code, but I doubt you know how these systems actually work, what they actually collect, or how that data is actually used in the real world

I am one of those people who DO know how they work and what data they collect. I spent plenty of time engineering them and the subsequent delegations of production. They are just as evil as you can imagine, only more so. You may feel that you are a single point of consumer data, but your behavior changes and your habits along with them. They know this and see this, and if they can tell you are willing to spend more money, your new PC from XCompany is $39 more expensive.

Your post is misleading, and on purpose. It may be well articulated, but the Devil is in the details

Re:Irony not lost

[RKBA]

"We" don't, but our elected representatives do.

More specifically, our elected representatives listen to their campaign contributions, bribes, etc.

Netflix and Amazon don't need this.

[Animats]

Netflix and Amazon don't need tracking of casual browsers, because they have real customers. They have, legitimately, information about what you knowingly bought from them. Businesses that have real sites that sell real stuff don't really need to track browsers, just customers. Even Facebook doesn't need tracking of casual browsers, since, while they're intrusive, you clearly sign up with and log into Facebook. Google doesn't really need personalization; they were profitable just putting up ads that were relevant to the current search.

So, really, it's the junk sites that need this. Those with Google AdSense junk ads. Most entertainment sites. Slashdot. Crap like that. Getting rid of tracking would hurt them. We might lose some of them. No big loss.

Re:Irony not lost

[tnk1]

I think we are sorely misstating the problem to say the problem is bribes or even contributions, even though both have influence, more or less.

The real problem is that representatives *have no fucking idea what they are talking about on most subjects*. If we ignore that tiny, but critical fact, we start realizing what a shitty idea it is to turn the operation of various industries over to their tender mercies. If we just pretend that it is possible to elect a white knight representative who will not take bribes, all this will get better. It won't. He or she will be honest, but just as useless as the current people.

We get these laws because the industries write these bills. Some of these bills are almost carbon copies of model legislation that the lobbyists hand representatives or their staffers. And even an honest rep is probably happy to have them, because they don't have the resources or the knowledge to properly regulate the industries that we've given them to regulate. That's why there is a revolving door, folks. The government needs people who know the industry, and the industry need people who know the government system. And every time we insist on even more regulation, we make industry people even more necessary to the government.

Who needs bribes when the only bribe you need is someone to do your homework for you so you can get your ass re-elected?

Re:Irony not lost

[dgatwood]

Do Not Track is definitely far less damaging to ad-supported sites than ad blocking. Revenue from ads served to DNT users would be lower than tracked users because the ads wouldn't be targeted, but it would be nonzero.

One interesting aspect of DNT is that it doesn't cover tracking information gathered by the sites you visit for their own use. It covers only third-party tracking services, and only to the extent that the data is used by someone other than the first-party site. This means that Amazon can continue to track what people buy on their site. More significantly, as far as I can tell, there's nothing inherently preventing companies like Amazon from using that knowledge to serve ads based on the user's buying history on other sites, so long as they record the data only in aggregate (X site got N copies of ad Q) and do not in any way record the fact that a particular user visited the site. In that scenario, there's no tracking data being gathered according to DNT rules because all the data was gathered legitimately while the user was actually using and interacting with the (Amazon) ad network's first-party website.

Thus, the most likely result of DNT is the erosion of nameless, faceless tracking companies like doubleclick and the rise of ad networks built around sales platforms like Amazon, search networks like Google, and maybe, *maybe* social networking sites like Facebook. This is almost inarguably a good thing, as it will not only result in much better targeting of ads, but also a clear separation between your non-commerce activities on the Internet and the sorts of ads that you see.

No more television

[chrismcb]

He is probably correct. The lack of targeted marketed has spelled the end of television.

opt-out

[drew30319]

The author is CEO of 33across.com. And . . . here's their opt-out link: http://optout.33across.com/api/optout/

Re:Irony not lost

[sabt-pestnu]

> The real problem is that representatives *have no fucking idea what they are talking about on most subjects*.

This is a double-edged sword.

The one hand is that the ones that realize they don't know anything about (topic X) will turn to people they can identify as experts on (topic X) for information. Your homework task is to BE that person they turn to.

The other hand is that the ones who think they DO know something about (topic X) may well be wrong. And thus, get it wrong. Clipper chip. Internet censorship. Authority over the content and linkages of domains. Need I go on?

On the gripping hand, what are the implications of our representatives knowing precisely what they are talking about (for any given topic)? Such as, how did they all get that knowledge? And will they still be representing OUR interests?

"campaign contributions"...

[Herve5]

"campaign" I don't know, but money I do.
I'm in my 50s. I have sons that are young engineers, and as such I regularly meet a range of their young colleagues: somehow I have a view of the 'young engineer' population here in Europe.

If one thing is clear within this 20~30 people group, it's that the richest of them BY FAR are the ones that are employed by an ad-targeting firm.
And the firm itself is HUGELY profitable, recruiting as much as they can, etc.

So, definitely there is money running, pouring, flooding even, presently in the ad-targeting business.