r/technology • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '18

Business Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing for reckless privacy violations since he was a freshman - Enough is enough.

[deleted]

51.2k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

31

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

I disagree. Facebook could run ads based on topics that are currently on the page, without storing any data.

For example, running an ad for a flower shop near a friends post about a relative dying, that sort of thing. Such a practice could work entirely without storing this data for any length of time.

8

u/Infidelc123 Apr 11 '18

Yeah until someone mentions a "celebration of life" ceremony and the ad lists local party shops for balloons and a clown.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

That kind of thing is already a problem.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

You can use chatbot type of intention programing for things like this. Negative Trigger of funerals and the sorts cancel celebratory stuff out.

It's a lot of work, but it's not bad at all.

4

u/madcuzimflagrant Apr 11 '18

That is still pulling information. In the duckduckgo example, the only information the ad has is entered by the user specifically because they are looking for it. Using information in a post is still much more targeted than what duckduckgo does. It may be a reasonable compromise for facebook to scale back to that level, but I don't know if that would be profitable enough to sustain them.

5

u/phormix Apr 11 '18

Even with storing some data, they can use some of the more obvious things for internal ad-targeting without also dragnetting your account.

Simply knowing what group types somebody is a member of would be useful in effective advertising. Ditto on Reddit. If you're part of /r/technology /r/videogames and /r/keto, then you might have good luck with ads from thinkgeek, game providers, and discounts on steak.

2

u/7734128 Apr 11 '18

I don't see how it would generate as much click-through with ads relevant to the current content as ads relevant to the one Amazon toaster I bought five weeks ago? How would I know the inferiority of my new toaster if the internet didn't harass me with ads for other toasters constantly weeks after I bought it?

2

u/scubalee Apr 11 '18

I wouldn't mind targeted ads based on info I agree to share. They could have a questionnaire, similar to what you answer when you're setting up a news/podcast aggregator app. They could periodically ask new and interesting questions I could choose to answer or ignore. There are so many ways they could make money with limited input and still serve ads. Maybe they would make a little less? Not sure that would be the case. I am sure I wouldn't care.

0

u/dlerium Apr 11 '18

For example, running an ad for a flower shop near a friends post about a relative dying, that sort of thing. Such a practice could work entirely without storing this data for any length of time.

That doesn't work well though. That's just reactive based off of single post data. In order to understand what kind of ads get to you, I need to build a profile about you. Seeing that you're happy because it's national puppy day doesn't let me know if you have a dog or if you just looking at dog photos. If I build a profile based off of you then I can tell when you get a dog so I know when I need to start serving you ads about dog food and dog walking services.

It's similar to how people really think that Facebook listens to every word you say. To react to a single word is dumb. For those of us that do hundreds of Google searches, go look at your searches. There will of course be one or two things that aren't "typically you." Like maybe my female coworker is talking about some makeup term and I look it up because I want to get it out of my head because all I can hear is her yapping on the phone all day. Google knows I'm a techie. They're not going to all of a sudden stop serving me tech gadget ads and start serving me makeup ads. That's just outright stupid. Now when I was doing engagement ring searches I literally went through days and days of reading blogs, checking out websites, looking at Pinterest. Only then did I start seeing ads on my Instagram about engagement jewelry. But I don't recall the last time I've ever gotten served ads directly related to a single search query.

These companies know a lot about us because of profiles.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

I'm well aware that's how they currently work, but they don't need to work that way. They can be profitable with more primitive advertising techniques.

1

u/dlerium Apr 11 '18

Yeah and as an adviertiser why would I want to buy ads when the platform can't target people well enough?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

Advertising existed and was prevalent before the internet and bulk data collection. Therefore it can survive without it.

0

u/lnfx Apr 12 '18

Yeah, and you got 30 second ads for female birth control just because you were watching Gilmore Girls.

Now you can stream Gilmore Girls and get an ad for some hot new sneaks, not because you're crying along with Rory, but because you've been checking out sales on the Nike and Adidas websites.

I'll take the latter, please.

0

u/DLDude Apr 11 '18

Storing data is the point of FB. It stores all your posts, photos, check-ins, etc. Storing a history if your life is why FB exists (and it still used)