The current trend for
privacy-enhancing technologiesfor surveillance in web browsers are going to be remembered as a technical dead end, an artifact of an unsustainable advertising oligopoly.
Don Martin has 10 succinct points on why users (aka we) don’t actually want so-called Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET) … some technical, some social, some economic.
Sadly WhatsApp will start sharing your account information with Facebook. You can’t prevent Facebook getting the data, you can only opt-out of them using it for ads.
It seems ad networks have reached a new low or as the author puts it:
This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it.
Of course AMP was introduced to optimize the delivery of ads. ?
Facebook started targeting ads based on its perception of a person’s race or ethnicity, but just to be safe without actually taking into account their race or ethnicity. The magic PR BS word they invented for it is “ethnic affinity.”
They want to monetize every aspect of your identity, whether that’s an ethnic affiliation or a preference for bean thread noodles.
The problem is that profiling somebody’s ethnic affinities has a lot more cultural baggage attached to it—to say the least—than profiling somebody’s taste in restaurants. And that’s why Facebook’s multicultural targeting scheme is getting a lot more pushback than the company bargained for.
In Q4 2015 Facebook seems to have doubled their profits by increasing ads by 29% (Source German).
Oh, so much “relevant” “content”, I’m impressed.
Angeblich sollen Springer-Anwälte dem Gericht in einem Verfahren gegen die Macher von Adblock Plus folgendes erklärt haben:
Das Kerngeschäft der Klägerin ist die Vermarktung von Werbung. Journalistische Inhalte sind das Vehikel, um die Aufmerksamkeit des Publikums für die werblichen Inhalte zu erreichen.
Nicht, dass das jetzt überraschend kommt … dennoch beunruhigend.
has a few points on why it’s stupid to think of all white space as unused advertising space.
[Look,] here is an “inefficient” use of space that could instead be used to “inform” the public of “opportunities.”
It’s interesting to see how one of the most wasteful industries of our society claims to make things more efficient by wasting people’s time and cluttering up everything.
All the joy of online advertising will now also be available to you offline! Thank you Facebook.
Facebook wants you to help them optimize their ads. You’re supposed tell them which ones you like or dislike so they can replace the ones you didn’t like with other you might “like more.” … This seems so bizarre … In essence Facebook is telling you to curate their ad stream for you the way you curate your own content stream. In doing so they blurt out things like
giving people more control about the ads they see
and
show you the ads that are most relevant to you
Is it just me, or is this exactly the way they used to talk about content?!? o.O
