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Comment by TeMPOraL

5 years ago

The way I see it: advertising as a business model => want for better ads; targeted ads are more effective than untargeted ads, therefore the business model drives increased privacy violations.

I agree that in terms of privacy alone, an intervention point could be to get rid of third-party ad targeting. But advertising itself - not just targeted one - causes so many pathologies on the web that I'm in favor of focusing on the common cause.

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TeMPOraL

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WorldMaker  5 years ago

> targeted ads are more effective than untargeted ads, therefore the business model drives increased privacy violations

That's what the current lions keep saying (Google, Facebook), but what few unbiased, unsponsored studies keep showing and what nearly a century of advertising "common sense" knew is that they are wrong on multiple levels. Targeted advertising is "preaching to the choir" at best and calculated harassment of your target (micro-)demographic at worst. Neither of those extremes and largely nothing in the middle in between them is actually good for growing a brand.

I have a slow burning boycott of companies that target me too directly, and if trends continue I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes a more general boycott/movement/backlash among the populace.

Advertising can be reformed if we regulate the business models without killing advertising as a whole. It should be as easy as a reboot to pre-DoubleClick/Google advertising best practices that served reasonably well for a century or more.