
Problems coming for online publishing - jedwhite
http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/03/23/nothing/
======
IAmEveryone
This is a rather asinine line of argumentation.

(a) The New York Time's newsroom and editorial staff are rather well-separated
from their business department which makes decision about ad tech on their
website. If you don't believe me, see this paragraph from a recent article at
The Atlantic, which operates by the same principle:

 _As you read this article on The Atlantic, roughly three dozen ad trackers
are watching you, adding your interest in this story to profiles they maintain
on your online behavior. (If you want to know more about who’s watching you,
download Ghostery, a browser extension that tracks and can block these “third-
party” trackers.)_ [0]

That's a reporter arguing against the financial interests of his employer. And
they are not going to fire him.

(b) There's one big difference between Facebook and generic advertising
technology: the New York Times doesn't require you to sign up. Every time you
change devices or delete cookies, the ad targeting starts from a blank slate.
And while some websites try to get you to sign up, it's trivially easy to
switch to a new account every once in a while.

(c) Ad tracking knows which websites I visit. Facebook knows which nude
parties I attended in 2005

(d) The New York Times has actually turned to subscription revenue as its main
source of income. While the split used to be 50/50, it is not much closer to
75/25 (subscriptions/ads). The "if you're not paying, you're the product..."
cliché is getting tired anyway. But its premise simply doesn't apply to the
New York Times.

[0]:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/data-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/data-
misuse-bigger-than-facebook/556310/)

~~~
graeme
The mentions your first point, fairly early on.

~~~
IAmEveryone
Yes, you are right (and I was wrong). I admit I stopped reading when they
suggested the media was being "ironic" (i. e. hypocritical) on the matter.

~~~
graeme
If it makes you feel better, I had stopped reading your comment when I found
that point, and posted mine. My original version was that "the article
addressed your points".

I subsequently reread your comment and realized you made several other points.
Oops. I then edited mine.

------
docsearls
I've updated that piece several times to clarify things, so you might check it
again.

What it's a call for is hacking our way to publishing norms that don't involve
tracking. And that's what we're starting to do at Linux Journal, where I'm
editor-in-chief.

For the first time anywhere, we'll be agreeing to readers' terms, rather than
the reverse. In legal terms, the reader will be the first party and Linux
Journal will be the second party. I explain how we're approaching this in
"Help Us Cure Online Publishing of Its Addiction to Personal Data":
[http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/help-us-cure-online-
publ...](http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/help-us-cure-online-publishing-
its-addiction-personal-data)

The barn we’re raising is for all of publishing, but we’re short-handed. So,
if you're interested in helping, let me know (doc at linuxjournal dot com). Or
show up on 2 April at the Computer History Museum:
[https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vrm-
day-2018a-tickets-438706894...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vrm-
day-2018a-tickets-43870689413) . Thanks!

~~~
yuhong
Happens that I just posted an essay on that topic:
[http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/03/google-doubleclick-
mozi...](http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/03/google-doubleclick-mozilla-
essay-second.html)

~~~
sctb
If you're going to mention this post in multiple threads, please do a regular
submission instead.

~~~
yuhong
Yea, I don't normally do this. I did it because docsearls was there.

------
SolarUpNote
Compare ad tech that news websites use to what Cambridge Analytica did.

1\. Ad tech:

As I browse, my interests are accumulated into basic interest groups,
demographic data, and maybe recently visited websites that use tracking.

The result: when I visit a news website, I might see an ad for tennis racquets
(because of interest), or a local bank (because of location), or DigitalOcean
hosting, because I recently visited that site.

2\. Facebook's platform, used by Cambridge Analytica:

I install a Facebook psychological quiz app (supposedly from the prestigious
Cambridge university), and give it permission to access my data.

Through that, Republican campaigns also access my grandmother's account, with
all of her photos, likes, and comments. They use that data to learn her
deepest fears.

They hire designers and writers to create fake news websites, and get their
propaganda stories to appear in her Facebook news feed, where they appear to
be legitimate right next to the news about the local sports team.

The result: when I visit for Christmas, I have to try to calm her down, that
Hillary Clinton isn't actually running a late term abortion clinic out of a
pizza parlor. And she won't believe me.

~~~
zombieprocesses
Can we please keep the reddit style hysterics on reddit? I pretty much left
reddit to escape the fake political nonsense. And with all due respect, you
are doing exactly what you claim cambridge analytica did. You are pushing
extreme fear and agenda. But for what end?

> As I browse, my interests are accumulated into basic interest groups,
> demographic data, and maybe recently visited websites that use tracking.

You are forgetting installing cookies and fingerprinting ( amongst others ) to
track across platforms. You are forgetting using that data to target customers
with tailored fearmongering news articles to better clickbait.

> Through that, Republican campaigns also access my grandmother's account,
> with all of her photos, likes, and comments. They use that data to learn her
> deepest fears.

I hate to break this to you but everyone does this. Obama did this. The
democrats did. Hillary's campaign did this.

I love how you excuse news websites when they cause hysteria and panic over
nonsense like campus rape crisis and pay gap in male and female sports. Not to
mention the hysteria over cambridge analytica. Seems like the news has done
far more harm to you than facebook did to your grandmother, assuming your
story is legit and not made up.

I recommend you go watch the 13th on netflix to see how news and media can be
dangerous. The problem now is that news has access to tons of data about us (
just like facebook ). The biggest difference is that facebook was pretty much
"neutral" whereas the news/media are highly biased. Facebook allowed both
trump and hillary political ads.

~~~
bmomb
You are right, both sides are to blame, but this don’t make any of the them
better.

In Brazil we have the same mentality of “sides” and I believe that this is
destroying the good sense of some people.

It’s not because everyone does it that it should be the norm, or that is not
evil.

Our true challenge is how we can stop this type of propaganda without hurting
any freedom?

In Brazil All the big publishers are in someway connected to the people in
power, so our non-fake-news were never really impartial or independent. Some
even say that the media should be controlled by the government (which is to me
a 1984 scenario, but not so much different from what it’s today).

I believe that the only way to end this fake-news madness will be a truly
anonymous p2p communication, but this would generate another kind of problem.

(Sorry for my english, I’m still learning how to write properly and an
argument is kind hard to do, I may sound like provocative but that is because
of my lack of vocabulary not my intentions)

~~~
spynxic
> You are right, both sides are to blame, but this don’t make any of the them
> better.

( _Both sides_ refer to the broadcast/online media & commercial/political ad
campaigns)

Blame can only be placed on either party if there exists the prior assumption
that people should believe all things which are presented to them as fact. If
this assumption does not exist _and without facilities responsible for fact-
checking_ then it's only the individual that is responsible for dividing fact
from fiction.

------
osrec
I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all
the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post
bumper profits, yet I see users becoming smarter at avoiding ads. Something
doesn't quite add up, and because the validity of clicks is shrouded in
mystery, it's not difficult for the platform owners to play dirty. I have had
very little success with online ads for my app
([https://usebx.com/app](https://usebx.com/app)), yet what worked really well
for acquiring users was releasing a JS library for free
([https://osrec.github.io/currencyFormatter.js/](https://osrec.github.io/currencyFormatter.js/))

~~~
exolymph
What doesn't add up is that you and your circle are not typical users. Try
talking to advertisers doing direct response on Facebook — they keep a very
close eye on ROI. Brand advertising is less trackable, but advertising does
and has always worked. If it didn't, businesses that didn't spend on
advertising would outcompete those that do.

~~~
osrec
Then why are companies like P&G cutting digital ad spend significantly? And
why is this actually having a positive impact on their bottom line?

~~~
elorant
Because advertising for big companies is all about brand awareness and has
little to do with sales per se. You can't follow a P&G add and end-up in a
page where you can buy the damn product, 9 out of 10 times you'll end-up in an
info page.

It's the little guys that get the most out of digital advertising, especially
e-commerce sites where they can link ads to products.

~~~
osrec
I would have agreed with you 5 years ago, but currently, I don't see the same
in my business, nor in the businesses of my close friends or relatives. It
could of course just be that we're in a niche where ads don't work too well!

------
purple-again
If the backlash lasts long enough to really change the landscape of non
explicit permission data gathering then an opportunity for hacker news one
million jobs may arise.

How much is my data worth? I’ll sign a buncb of revenue sharing agreements
with YouTube, Google, Mozilla, Facebook etc if the price is right. I know that
HN has a lot of really heavy pro privacy advocates but I hope you can
recognize a lot of people don’t share those concerns and would happyily
welcome a little passive income stream in their lives.

~~~
dominotw
> people don’t share those concerns and would happyily welcome a little
> passive income stream in their lives.

This is what I gathered from moviepass privacy thread on HN. Most people
didn't care about sharing location if it gave them cheap movie tickets.

------
roywiggins
Ha, redmorph's website doesn't even load without enabling third-party scripts
(it loads [http://ip-api.io](http://ip-api.io), I guess to geolocate visitors)

------
empath75
I think adtech companies are at greater risk than publishers. Publishers will
move to a subscription model and most of them will be okay. A whole lot of
adtech companies’ entire business model is sleazy at best and outright
criminal at worst.

~~~
blablabla123
Yeah but it's also crazy how many pubs (the word is nice ;)) already had to
close or at least merge which others. Google News made it quite obvious how
redundant a lot of content is. Often articles are just exact copies of
Reuters, AP, ... texts.

If subscription is the only solution, I expect more pubs to disappear. Being
from Germany, if I had to subscribe to nytimes.com to read articles from there
I'd stop reading them probably. Just pretending I would subscribe, I would
also have to subscribe to 5 more US Newspapers, 2-3 UK ones and 10-15 German
ones. NYT Basic is 1.75 € a week, Washington post 10 $ a month. That would be
more than 140 € a month. No way :-) (Oh, I forgot all the commercial tech pubs
I read)

I hope the publishers come up with a better model.

~~~
mlb_hn
> Google News made it quite obvious how redundant a lot of content is. Often
> articles are just exact copies of Reuters, AP, ... texts.

Reuters and AP are newswire services which is meant to be used by multiple
pubs because local pubs don't have reporters all around the world. The local
papers' reporters are busy telling you what your local schoolboard is up to
and whatnot.

But I agree more pubs will likely disappear or be merged into larger media
conglomerates, and that leads into issues like Sinclair forcing all their pubs
to push certain agendas.

------
dqpb
I would like to mention that I find it extremely irritating that despite
paying for a subscription, the NYT still collects data on me and serves me
ads. That's the worst of both worlds.

~~~
criddell
Yep. I'm not anti-advertising, but I am anti-tracking. Serve me ads, but
please don't personalize them.

------
Dowwie
No, change isn't coming. Sorry.

Trump's victory signaled a social media gold-rush for political campaigns.
2018 is a major election year in American politics. You can bet that campaigns
are evaluating and signing onto social media related efforts. To meet this
demand, as Cambridge Analytica buckles, others will take it place. The people
who benefit by these services are those who make the laws. While legislators
benefit by social media targeted services, there won't be a political will
sufficient to pass a law that will slay the goose laying golden eggs.

------
jedwhite
Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal had an Editorial piece yesterday that
Facebook should pay for news and media content to increase its trust. There is
a lot of self-interest in much of the the commercial-scale hating on Facebook.
This is the article although it may be paywalled (WSJ uses variable
restriction based on user prediction ironically enough):
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-public-
reckoning-1521...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-public-
reckoning-1521846210)

~~~
domevent
Media is definitely taking the chance to try and kick Facebook to death, and
often for selfish reasons. That shouldn’t distract us from the very real fact
that Facebook is a terrible value proposition for users of their service,
untrustworthy, and even dangerous. Facebook deserves to be kicked to death,
even if the media wants it for their own reasons.

------
jedwhite
The original title was "Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problems are nothing
compared to what’s coming for all of online publishing" for those wondering
what more specifically this post is about. I shortened it when I posted it to
get it under the 80 char limit, but the further mod edits probably lost some
information of value :)

------
protomyth
Craigslist replaced paper's classified ads. Pretty much every website is using
online ads. I gotta wonder who is doing the coupons that a fair number of
people use the paper to get?

~~~
cosmie
Coupons are a fascinating business, with a lot of middlemen taking cuts. From
the agency that creates the advertising campaign (and possibly books the
media) to the media platforms that display the coupons (whether inserts in
physical papers, direct mail flyers, digital coupons via coupons.com/Quotient
and retailer sites and emails, etc). Plus the clearinghouses that process the
physical coupons for retailers, and the processors that handle the financial
aspect of cutting a check from the manufacturer to the clearinghouse and onto
the retailer for the redeemed coupons.

There are a few big names in each of those sections; but "doing the coupons"
is an entire process that sets off a chain of necessary suppliers, rather than
just a single name like Google.

------
Scaevolus
The title should end with "publishers", not "pubs".

~~~
jedwhite
There is an 80 character title field limit on the HN input field so the title
had to be shortened.

~~~
dom96
The title should be reworded, I had to read the article's title to understand
it.

Edit: and as I say this it was just modified.

