this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023

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417

Norway Bans Meta From Showing Users Personalized Ads (uk.pcmag.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My favorite is when you go on Amazon to buy something, say like a TV. Then you get blasted with ads for TVs for the next month.

Mother fucker, I just bought a TV. I bought it from you. Are you smart enough to start advertising TVs to me before I even search on your site, but not smart enough to know I already bought the fucking thing? From you?

Please ban all personalized ads everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

We've had one yes, but what about a second TV?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would be so refreshing to get randomized non tracked ads just like in the ye ol free tv days. This shall be the new norm. But wait, i can't have that, there's a PiHole. :(

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

And you can't have that either because there are no Pi's (yes I know it runs on other machines as well)

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dear Meta,

Most of your business model is no longer legal here. Please kindly fuck off.

Sincerely, Norway

(probably)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Michael Scott

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can they also forbid facebook from collecting and selling (or renting) user data?
Because otherwise it won't change much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can’t really effectively do that, as every social media platform has to collect user data per definition.
Forbidding selling would be a bit difficult to define, but at least worth the try.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The cost of personalized ads is privacy. Do you value privacy? Whats your phone number? My friends want to send you some texts

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Test

[+] [email protected] -71 points 1 year ago (9 children)

... that kind of sucks actually. I'd rather have personalized ads that just random ass ads.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

lol wat

[+] [email protected] -20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If I looked up gaming monitors, I'd rather get ads for PC components rather than ads for soap, for example. If I'm getting ads anyways, I'd want ads for stuff I might actually be interested in. Does that make sense?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you don't mind bulk data collection?

you don't know how to block ads?

[+] [email protected] -11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

For better or for worse, these services, which people very clearly do enjoy using, would not exist as free services without advertising. Things have costs and they have to get paid by someone, whether directly by the consumer or by advertisers.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Advertising is one thing. Targeted, personalized, data-harvested advertising is another. The internet can still exist with just normal, non-invasive advertising, you know. It did once.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Something like Youtube could not exist without pretty extensive advertising or direct payment. The data costs at that scale alone are enormous.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

You can’t just have advertisements for computer parts on a YouTube video about computers? Is that so inefficient that google really needs to just track you across websites as well? I doubt it. What you end up with are advertising blinders. You never see anything new or intriguing. Just more versions of stuff you already have because that’s what you clicked on.

Hell I probably would have bought some weird stuff from advertisements and might have kicked off some new hobbies if google just showed me ads for the stuff craftsmen use in their videos. Instead I get stupid android game ads that are nothing but annoying. If I trusted ads, I’d probably engage with the more.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I guess they need their martyrs... carry on

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's a fine line of acceptable ads that I think websites stepped over and now everyone hates ads of any kind. They were mostly unobtrusive with the odd banner ad, slowly the whole web started getting more and more aggressive with ads, targeted ads begun and then people wanted rid of them. The cycle of more blocked ads, so they put more ads on, but then more people block, then they add more ads... on and on. Now it's too hard to convince people to go back to acceptable unobtrusive ads.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

When targeted advertising was banned in the Netherlands, NPO (Netherlands Public Omroep) had their various sites switch to advertising based on the contents of the page than the preferences of the user.

It turned out to be more effective to target the content than the user.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I get your sentiment, but having personalized ads is just an incentive for a lack of user privacy. If we kill the incentive, we can embrace security.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

having personalized ads is just an incentive for a lack of user privacy.

The most salient point here.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Meanwhile, targeted ads IRL: We kind of noticed you recently bought LAWNMOWER on Amazon. As a LAWNMOWER aficionado, would you like to buy more LAWNMOWER? Take your pick of these four crappy, overpriced ones. We will bill you like they are gold plated and dropship some junk from China, lol.

Also, you added your neighbor on Facebook and her aunt recently went on an esoteric streak. Would you like to buy some tarot cards to talk to your recently deceased grandmother or some crystals that can heal ass cancer? Doctors hate this one trick! Mostly because they hate seeing their desperate patients getting scammed, but they do hate it.

And while we are talking about your nether regions, as a proud owner of a penis you must have thought about enlarging it before, so here are some options …

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I’d prefer neither. No ads are best

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I actually tend to agree. I value privacy and I hate the idea of Meg-O-Corp selling my data all over the world but on the other hand, I’ve bought some really cool shit that I love off targeted ads

So are targeted ads better than just ads? Yes for the consumer in me, no for the private person

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Maybe it will counter people buying stuff they don’t need, in addition to better privacy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The solution is not personalized ads, but localized ads like what ExplainXKCD does.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I used to love getting American ads on spotify, hehehe, the fuck is a gieko?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[._.]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The issue is not the personalised ad, but how Meta decides who seems them.

Today they take a lazy but effective approach of collecting as much data as possible at user level, to draw correlations between the user data and the content of the ad.

If regulation prohibit them from using this approach they'll be force to innovate or die.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

that’s stupid

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

It's disappointing to see how many people are downvoting this because, to them, it's a "I disagree and think you're an idiot" button.

Well, actually, I've kinda come to expect it here. People aren't really interested in actual discourse.

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