
Ban Targeted Advertising - cpeterso
https://newrepublic.com/article/147887/ban-targeted-advertising-facebook-google
======
spodek
Why stop with targeted? Most of us would probably prefer fewer total ads.
Living in New York City, I thought of Times Square as a tourist destination,
but I hadn't thought about it without ads. On reflection, I'd prefer no
billboards.

Have you seen Sao Paolo before and after banning outdoor ads?

Sao Paolo:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0FUY5KI67Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0FUY5KI67Y)

Grenoble starting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSxCsmdanWA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSxCsmdanWA)

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Because then we'd have to pay for everything directly, and payment is
incompatible with anonymity.

In other words, I don't want to give my credit card to porn sites.

~~~
FussyZeus
In defense of porn sites: That's one of the seemingly vanishingly rare
instances these days where you pay the fee and _they knock it off completely._
No more ads, no more upselling, no prompting for reviews or comments whatever
the hell. It just becomes a functioning site in which to watch porn.

Yeah I know it's sad that this is so remarkable, but at the same time, it's
one of the rare instances where you're actually getting what you pay for.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I'm not concerned about the porn sites themselves. I'm concerned about the
increasingly intolerant sentiment towards anything sexual in our society.

There is a tendency to criminalise, censor or otherwise punish voluntary
sexual activity between adults, and its coming from all political sides with
different excuses and wording.

------
omk
While I find it difficult to align myself with the idea of a ban on anything
without thoroughly evaluating repercussions, I find the following argument
tempting.

"Companies would have to make all ads on its networks publicly viewable and
searchable"

Ability to specifically search for "promoted" or "sponsored" information on a
network based on keywords, texts, labels can transparently display what has is
being displayed and to how many users, and maybe even what demographics.
Leaves enough room for whistleblowers and regulators to spot foul-play.

------
deaps
As an outsider to the business entirely, I couldn't help but become frustrated
the other day with the lack of targeted marketing on Sling TV. I must have
watched an ad for Colo Guard 15 times - As a 36 year old, spending that much
time watching an ad for people only 50+ it just seemed like a waste of their
money and my time. While I'm sure they get some 'discount' for simply throwing
the ads out there, if the had a way to more specifically target
audiences/demographics, I feel like they could charge more for their ads.

That being said - maybe it should be an opt-in...that is to say, users provide
the information they want to be targeted as. AKA, maybe I feel ok putting my
race, my age, my location - and maybe another user doesn't - and that's fine.

I think most people's problems with ads are, more than likely, the 'deceptive'
ways that corporations go about obtaining our personal information.

~~~
smileysteve
Like when ESPN or Hulu show you the same ad for the same bad movie every ad.

~~~
karljtaylor
There's a handful of reasons that happens, but one of the biggest is that
those ads are placed by a variety of different providers. More often than not
when a large buyer goes to place a buy (think on the order of P&G promoting a
new product, the snack conglomerates, movie studios etc.,) they'll place an
order based on a certain number of impressions. they'll also mandate a certain
viewability threshold and a number of other conditions.

In order to execute that buy, the media desk has to make purchases from a
variety of platforms. Those platforms also buy and resell inventory from a mix
of other places. Segments aren't very well defined, so you end up competing
against yourself to buy the same inventory over again.

FWIW, a lot of those OTS services also have very traditional media desks.
(e.g., [https://nccmedia.com/](https://nccmedia.com/))

------
alkonaut
On one hand I don't need to see ads for products I can't buy - say an
advertiser has a product only available in China, they would want to run these
ads targeting only chinese viewers.

But on the other hand, until there is a better solution than todays targeting
wild west, I'd be happy to out law ALL targeting.

That is: it would be illegal for e.g. facbook to show an ad only to chinese
viewers, or only to women, regardless of whether the viewer themselves
willingly gave facebook this information.

Obviously this would destroy most "free" online services over night - but I'm
completely fine with that. "It's the etch-a-sketch end of the world".

~~~
gnode
> Obviously this would destroy most "free" online services over night

Why would it? TV and radio advertising is not individually targeted, and still
exists.

~~~
Veelox
TV advertising is very very targeted. If you don't think so, spend ten minutes
each on commercials from Disney channel, the Food Network, ESPN, and CNBC. You
will see very very different ads on each.

~~~
gnode
This is why I said "individually targeted". The TV advertiser doesn't know
your name, age, gender, search history, etc.

~~~
alkonaut
Right. But they do know what program you are watching (which might be a
demographic clue) and they do know a rough geographic area.

If facebook couldn't show chinese products to chinese visitors, they'd have a
hard time selling ads. They'd be _worse off_ than a tv station in that case.

~~~
gnode
Disregarding the fact that Facebook is blocked by the Great Firewall, and
virtually unused in China, serving internet ads on a national or township
basis is easy to do with IP address based selection. This can be done without
tracking users (recording information about them) or otherwise impacting their
privacy. It isn't necessary to build a database tying individual identities to
nationalities or addresses, to geographically target ads.

------
JackC
"The surveillance economy should die."

This is the key point. We don't need a perfect fix. We "just" need to change
incentives enough that, say, 95% of engineers who work on surveillance and
psychological profiling of individuals move on to something else.

~~~
jonbarker
This is a great point. A common complaint about adtech is that since it prints
money, the opportunity cost of the brain power being poured into it is other
more important problems, like cancer research, for one. Where it gets tricky
is when the adtech behemoths start funding cancer research. I don't have an
answer to this one.

~~~
alpos
Cancer research needs brain power. Of course, brain power costs money.
However, funding cancer brain power by transferring brain power out of cancer
seems like a broken window fallacy.

~~~
jonbarker
I'm not talking about funding cancer research by transferring smart people out
of cancer research. I was actually referring to encouraging cancer research
and other more beneficial endeavors by discouraging very smart people from
working in adtech. This discouragement may come in the form of regulation, or
not. As an example, many folks had to go into some other field when the global
financial crisis and subsequent regulation caused a bunch of finance jobs to
go away.

~~~
alpos
I get it, just trying to provide ammunition for you. :D

The reality may be that there is a decent amount of brain power to go around
but I can easily agree that any brain power spent of ads would have been
better used if such a money printer were not allowed to exist.

With that, I can see the continued existence of advertising work as something
that ultimately removes more value from the economy that it creates.

------
mabbo
I'm torn on this.

Targeted advertising should allow me to stop seeing ads for things I would
never buy- I'm not a parent, so why do I need to see ads for diapers? And
since so many services I use depend on ads to make money, showing targeted ads
should mean that they can show fewer ads to me to make the same amount of
money.

But on the other hand, they aren't showing less ads. They're showing more.
There isn't sufficient competition in most markets using advertising to make a
competitive advantage for "we show fewer ads". There's so much money in
targeted ads that showing more is worth the lost customers from some people
getting sick of it all. Worse, we're being trained to be used to it.

------
phonebucket
My first thought before reading the article was: "What is targeted advertising
anyway? I could choose to target a specific demographic by placing my
billboard in a certain spot, or choosing which magazine to take my ad out in."

Thankfully, the author does state his suggested law explicitly: "The ban I
propose would be rather straightforward: The U.S. would disallow all
individually targeted ads, with large fines or even removal from the public
airwaves for repeated violations. Nothing tied to a user’s identity should be
used to serve them a particular message. Companies would have to make all ads
on its networks publicly viewable and searchable, so regulators can oversee
them."

It's perfectly possible to achieve a very targeted system of advertising
without going down to the level of targeting an individual explicitly. In
fact, this sort of similarity and demographic targeting is the most effective
form.

IMO, the correct approach is to regulate _what_ is advertised, not who is
targeted, or how they are targeted. The point is that political advertising is
potentially dangerous. People don't complain too much about craft beer and
coffee adverts, right?

~~~
dominotw
>the correct approach is to regulate what is advertised

Wouldn't that contradict first amendment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Political_speech)

~~~
icebraining
EDIT: Nevermind, misread the thread

~~~
quietbritishjim
The top-level comment proposes banning political advertising, but this link
talks about commercial advertising so (honest question) surely it doesn't
apply?

~~~
icebraining
Yeah, I misread the top comment.

------
eXpl0it3r
This is ridiculous.

I see the reasoning, but if you want to ban targeted advertising you might as
well ban advertising, because what exactly is advertising? You're showing of
your product in hopes that your target audience will see it. Any advertisement
is made for a target audience and if you can't even limit your ads for
specific region or country, what use does it have unless you're selling
generic things intentionally?

I'm fine if you set some degree of how far targeting can go, like no personal
data digging - however far that goes - but when you can't target for a certain
region, country or even gender, then ads only become interesting for big
international companies.

Besides I'm really not a fan of regulating everything all the time and adding
laws on top of laws on top of laws.

~~~
badrabbit
You target the content and location and not the user. That is how advertising
had worked throughout history,for example with TV,news papers and magazines.

~~~
karljtaylor
I'm not sure where you stumbled into this idea, but advertising hasn't worked
this way since well before the golden age of positioning...which predates the
Mad Men era.

~~~
rhacker
Yes absolutely it is. Cartoon channels get cereal ads. Drama shows get tax
ads. They didn't know I was watching.

~~~
karljtaylor
I'm not going to argue with you, just go check Cartoon Network's media kit.

------
sowhatquestion
I was glad to see this posted here. Reading it again, I thought, "I can't be
the only one who works in ad tech yet broadly agrees with this proposal."

~~~
yuhong
I have an essay about this entire topic:
[http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/04/google-doubleclick-
mozi...](http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/04/google-doubleclick-mozilla-
essay-final.html)

------
JulianMorrison
It should be illegal to advertise in any way that shows any evidence of
manipulative or misleading intent. That includes essentially 100% of the
"tricks of the trade" and the entire contribution of psychology to
advertising. Pure information should still be permitted. And with that
limitation, targeting in a way that doesn't show manipulative intent is likely
harmless.

~~~
karljtaylor
it's against the rules in the US, and TV is a particularly big offender here,
it's very rarely enforced.

------
bertil
That is classic Luddism: people don’t understand how something work, so they
want to get rid of it rather than ask how it works and how it can be improved
first.

Targeted advertising, like any recommendation system, works fine if you give
if positive and negative feedback and if you can inform it at a higher level.
Click-through and plenty of X-out, with a preference control like Facebook’s
makes ad genuinely enjoyable. Try it for a week.

I agree this drives data gravity and a strong monopoly position – but I don’t
think the solution to Standard Oil power was to ban the combustion engine.

~~~
beojan
The problem isn't X will like product Y, so lets show ads for product Y to
them. The problem is X will like features A, B, and C and hate D, so lets
mention only A, B, and C to them. Y will like B and D and hate A and C, so
only mention B and D to them.

If you're having trouble thinking of why someone might hate a feature of a
product, the main case where this is a problem is political advertising, where
features are policies. It is a problem with commercial advertising too,
though.

EDIT: The other big problem is using tracking for price discrimination, but
banning targeted ads wouldn't help there, you _have_ to ban the tracking.

~~~
karljtaylor
features are candidates, policies are selling points.

~~~
beojan
The candidate is the product, the policies are the features.

------
guyzero
The crux of his thesis is this: "Nothing tied to a user’s identity should be
used to serve them a particular message."

But is pseudonymous behavioural data the same as a user's identity? Google can
make a guess about your gender based on your search history without knowing
anything about your identity. Would that type of targeting be banned? You can
geolocate an IP address trivially - would location-based ads be banned? The
notion of what constitutes "user identity" could tie up court cases for years
if ads are banned and companies challenge it.

~~~
dominotw
All ads on TV are based on user identity. Banning ads would be nice :D.

------
xtreme
Have to disagree with the article. The author claims "Back when targeted ads
didn’t follow me around the internet, I still somehow found what I wanted to
buy." What's different about the job market or the housing market, the two
examples the author used to claim targeted ads are so terrible?

IMHO I'd rather see ads that are customized for me, because the probability
that I'd find them useful is much higher than some random ad. Of course some
people are going to disagree with that, but that is not a strong justification
to ban all targeted ads.

~~~
nnq
NO. Your attention span is limited, if it gets saturated with "things I'm
likely to buy" or "things I need", then I'm not going to see:

(1) new and interesting things that could really open new possibilities (even
if 90% of them are irrelevant)

(2) things that might actually be _a better deal for me_ , but that would
otherwise not be targeted to me because the targeting algorithm might've
guessed "this guy can afford better version Z, why suggest him cheaper version
B instead"

It's just as annoying as shop assistants that come to you with those ultra-
annoying "how may I help you", "what are you looking for exactly" or "are you
interested in X, Y or Z type products". And all I want to do at that point is
squash their heads into minced meat with a baseball bat because I'm just
fucking _browsing_ to _discover new things_... If knew exactly what I wanted,
I would have ordered it online and it would be at my door already! If I wanted
advice I would have either done "serious" research going through reviews from
multiple less biased sources, or just asked some friends around.

Targeted adds are like having the creepy shop assistant following you around
everywhere instead of _discovering new things you would 've never thought of_
and instead of _finding better deals that would 've never been pushed to you_
and _being bullied with information_ instead of actually _taking your time to
make research before your attention budget and capacity for critical thinking
gets fully spent_ and _not having to actually interact with people and get
some authentic mouth-to-ear feedback from friends with "skin in the game"_
(people actually motivated to have you enjoy and benefit long term from your
purchase).

I want businesses not trying to rob me of my limited attention span and
limited ability to do critical thinking based selection. I don't really want
what I "need". Fuck "what I need". I want what _I_ (me, myself, just me, not
someone trying to instill a message into my head) want. Pseudo-random,
unoptimized, unfiltered and mostly useless information helps me keep being
crazily and uniquely me.

~~~
chimprich
I think both your viewpoint and the one you replied to are reasonable. One way
to keep you both happy would be to make targeted advertising opt-in or
-outable. This would be my preference.

------
sundvor
I just love the fact that as I was reading this article, I got targeted ads in
the middle of the content. (Bicycle stuff, which I have been looking at
recently).

------
golergka
> This manner of advertising doesn’t serve the public

This is not true. As a receiver of targeted advertisements, I often appreciate
and enjoy them. It's companies that I respect releasing new version of the
products I love and I am genuinely thankful that I learn about them without
the need to follow the industry's publications. I often buy something because
of these ads and they serve me well. (If you're curious, for me, it's mostly
ads of new plugins and sound packs by Native Instruments and other similar
companies.)

------
emiliobumachar
Way too broad.

DuckDuckGo's business model seems innocuous enough. They do no tracking
whatsoever. They still target ads based on the search terms you're using on
that particular search.

At a minimum, DDG should be allowed to continue doing that.

This might seem like nitpicking, the article does explain what it means, but
if we wait until we see the "no targeting" language on law proposals, it might
be too late.

~~~
fenwick67
I agree, targeting based on the current page is okay, but targeting based on
the user isn't.

~~~
karljtaylor
targeting based on current page creates a marketplace where only those who are
capable of paying an absurd CPC show up, if your stated goal is as above, it
really isn't what you want.

Google had to do a lot of work on this front, and really still hasn't sorted
it out very well. the personal injury keywords are a really good example of
this.

------
theartfuldodger
This is ridiculous

I expect the author and many others don't realize how many very small
companies with very small budgets get amazing results from the intelligent
targetting options available.

A small landscape company that does snowplowing and can now strictly show ads
to the region a single operator can drive and just to "business owners and
property managers"

A dog groomer who can target their reasonable physical area and "dog lovers"
in Google or those who like specific long haired breed content on Facebook.

A Sports medicine doctor who can target only sports enthusiasts or more
explicitly runners.

Business owners are not just large corporations. There are many people who get
great value for their money, for their business and support families and their
employees by not wasting advertising dollars in mistargeted or untargeted
manners.

When we target "users" we are mostly targetting behavior and groups of people
with similar demos or behaviors. Most worthwhile networks dont even allow
groups of less than 200 to be live campaigns (remarketing/interest based)

------
spunker540
This is not an actionable proposal because there are many ways to target
people via direct mailers, locations of billboards, selection of platforms.
And in the end I don’t think people seeing targeted ads is really the crux of
the problem. Facebook will still store our data. And fake news will still
proliferate via non-ads channels.

Also a lot of people think Facebook makes a lot of money off its data but
that’s really far from the truth. Facebooks main innovation was letting other
companies leverage their own customer data on the Facebook platform by using
cookies to cross-reference. They notice their user ‘123’, who shopped for
shoes last week but never bought also had a Facebook cookie indicating how
they can advertise directly to that user on the Facebook platform.

That is a wildly more expensive ad and it has nothing to do with facebooks
personal data. Facebooks secret weapon is not personal data but rather that 1
billion people log in for a half hour per day allowing 3rd parties to reach
many of their customers directly.

~~~
paulie_a
< direct mailers

I'd love for that one to just go away. It's annoying to pick up the mail and
just drop everything into the garbage. I actually wish I could unsubscribe
from USPS ala that Seinfeld episode

~~~
bbarn
The worst part about the USPS is that it occasionally contains incredibly
important correspondence. So you can't just bin the whole thing, instead you
have to sort through a pile of garbage on the 1% chance something critical is
in there.

~~~
jschwartzi
I wish I could pay someone to do this for me. I hate getting the mail.

~~~
nugi
There were services that recieve and scan your mail, I suspect they still
exist. I used one about a decade ago. Some po boxes also offer the feature.
You still need to pay to fwd things you need in hard copy or pick them up.
Grreat while traveling.

------
iamben
I can't be the only one that prefers targeted ads? I mean, I'd much rather see
ads for watches or sneakers or whatever else I've been looking at buying that
ads for dresses, birdcages, or house paint or whatever else I have precisely
zero interest in? More so, if these ads are supporting the businesses that
show them, I'm happy they're there and I'm happy that they make some money
when I click on that pair of Nike that I'd really like but haven't pulled the
trigger on yet.

I also assume by 'targeted ads' the meaning is ads on something like Facebook
/ Google retargeting? There's nothing that stops "scam companies and grifters"
buying ad space on websites directly - sure it's a little harder, but you can
always sell your snake oil using the banner ad on that 'alternative medicine'
forum where people voraciously chat...

~~~
badrabbit
You're not the only one. Many other people also vastly underestimate the
societal and privacy implications of user targeting and behavioral analytics.

My position on this is simple, let it be opt-in. Something as simple as a HTTP
request header(DNT for example) should by default tell advertisers they
shouldn't perform any sort of user targeting.

For individuals such as yourself,you could simply turn off that feature in
your browser and start seeing targeted content.

Why should the technically illiterate masses be targeted and tracked by
default? Why not allow it only for those who accept the privacy and behavioral
modification implications?

------
wangii
Isn't it obvious the solution is to ban cross-referencing from data collected
via different products (even inside one company)? I think targeted ad,
including micro-targeting, is the future as long as vast majority not willing
to pay for services.

of course we then need to proper define 'product'.

~~~
itronitron
Why don't companies just place ads by content? If you are reading an article
on diaper rash then you would see ads related to caring for a baby.

------
realpeopleio
Rather than banning it, why not support platforms that don't use ads?
RealPeople.io doesn't have ads, or allow third parties access to any data. No
bots, no AI either. Users pay to use.
[https://realpeople.io](https://realpeople.io)

~~~
wffurr
Generic and annoying ad content plastered even more heavily on free sites to
"make up" for the lost CPC rates could drive adoption of paid services.

------
ben509
>My wife is in advertising, and her first reaction to this proposal was that
lots of people at ad companies and tech firms would be fired, which is true.
But when globalization destroyed hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing
jobs, few elite policymakers batted an eyelash.

When markets restructure, people are making _voluntary choices_ and the demand
for certain goods and services declines while for others it increases. If
we're working at a job, we know that if that work is not needed, we shouldn't
expect to get paid.

In this case, you're outlawing their livelihood. You're making a singular
decision, and threatening to go after them with fines and jail time if they
don't comply.

------
jonbarker
This whole conversation makes me wish Stanley Kubrick were still alive, he was
famously interested in subliminal ads, which were the 'adtech' of his day.

------
hso9791
Just out of curiosity - has anyone tried logging and analyzing Facebook
traffic from their phone to see what kind of voice traffic it picks up?

------
magoghm
"...with large fines or even removal from the public airwaves for repeated
violations" <\--- removal from the public airwaves?

That's sounds like the author is thinking about television broadcasting.
Although we might say that mobile phones use "public airwaves", almost all ISP
services deliver Internet connectivity over some cable or fiber optics.

------
vinayms
Lets start with something simpler first. How about websites asking for user
permission before using cookies instead of being genteel and saying "please
note that we use cookies thank you", or at least have a 'delete cookie' button
next to 'ok'? Doing this shows the respect for user's wishes wrt privacy. If
this can't be done, then there is no hope of changing a billion dollar
industry which is essentially based on similar tactics.

As for the topic, I can't understand why people demonize targeted advertising.
This has been happening forever. On TV, you see products targeted towards
housewives during soaps and products targeted towards men during sports. The
same goes to news papers and magazines. You wouldn't find an ad for sanitary
pads in a car and bike magazine. Stereotypes rule here. What we have now is
just a more advanced technique, with good amount of maths helping it.

I think I know the answer myself - people conflate breach of privacy with
targeted advertising. For me, breach of privacy would be something like my
phone number being sold to telemarketers who make cold calls for bovine
excreta, or gmail showing ads based on email content. However, google showing
ads related to items I have recently searched is perfectly acceptable, even
beneficial when done right.

That said, the point about ads that discriminate racially or based on other
social factors is unethical and worrisome. I have no idea how the ad industry
works behind the scenes, beyond the technology, but a business that socially
discriminates in real world will always discriminate online as well. So this
point is really sociological and not technological.

~~~
koolba
Content aware advertising isn’t the problem or even remotely as creepy.

If I’m reading an article about ski resorts it’s not out of line to try to
sell me skis or even a vacation package. It pertains to the content thats
being interacted with and may be a commonality across everyone interacting
with that content.

If I then read a political news site and see the same ad it’s creepy.

The real world analogy is a guy literally following you around, seeing what
storefronts you’ve peeked into, then holding up signs for them (or likely
their competitors) everywhere else you go.

~~~
vinayms
Creepy stalker vs subservient personal assistant is just a point of view. The
example you cite is not creepy. It just shows that the ads are not congruent
with the content of website that is showing it. Not sure who is at fault here,
the webmaster or the ad algorithm, but its just odd, not creepy.

------
wemdyjreichert
I don't enjoy targeted advertising. I don't want "relevant ads" that "interest
me more", because they make me more likely to spend my money (I tend to be
rather thrifty).

------
wffurr
"ensuring the profitability of ... companies is not the government’s concern;
protecting the public is."

That's a pretty thought. I wish it were true.

------
evolighting
"Targeted Advertising" in my opinion is just gimmick of those advertisers.

Sure it do works sometimes, but it is not panacea for all.

~~~
mrweasel
It also only works if you have enough ads. Take Youtube as an example: They
don't have enough ads available in Denmark for them to display enough ads
sufficiently targetted towards the correct segment.

The result is that I see the same three or four ads all the time. Currently it
seems to be 50/50 if I'm show a One.com ad before a video.

------
jasonlotito
A title like that on a page that literally has targeted advertising smack dab
in the middle of it.

------
kristianc
Bear in mind that The New Republic may not be an entirely unbiased source on
the subject of Facebook. [1]

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2014/12/08/369402128/new-republic-
owner-...](https://www.npr.org/2014/12/08/369402128/new-republic-owner-
defends-strategy-shift-that-led-many-to-quit)

~~~
bertil
I believe that you have obsolete information about the company’s owner:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/chris-hughes-sells-new-
republic...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chris-hughes-sells-new-republic-to-
liberal-publisher-win-mccormack-1456510500)

~~~
kristianc
It's more the ruckus that Hughes ownership caused and the direction he wanted
to take TNR in, that would cause negative feeling toward FB from current
employees.

------
clarkenheim
This is just as bad an idea as banning encryption to stop terrorism.

