
Facebook Ads Are All-Knowing, Unblockable, and in Everyone’s Phone - tim_sw
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/facebook-ads-are-all-knowing-unblockable-and-in-everyone-s-phone
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snorrah
All that talent at Facebook, and they use it to come up with creepier and more
invasive ways of ad targeting. I could not help laughing at the quote about it
being for "the greater good". Hot Fuzz flashbacks ahoy.

~~~
gkanai
The same can be said about Google, no?

~~~
eru
We also make self-driving cars, to keep our conscious clean.

~~~
eevilspock
It's nice to know that some Google employees are resistant to cognitive
dissonance.

I remember reading somewhere that there is a (underground?) group within
Google dissatisfied with the dominance of advertising at the company, both in
business and product decisions.

~~~
eru
Advertising is a brilliant business to be in for Google, and the main cash
cow. Nothing wrong with success. The ads are paying my salary indirectly.

(If all ads were like Google ads, I wouldn't have bothered installing an ad-
blocker in the first place.)

> I remember reading somewhere that there is a (underground?) group within
> Google dissatisfied with the dominance of advertising at the company, both
> in business and product decisions.

We have very vocal employees. You can find people complaining about
everything. (Including the lack of M&Ms in some micro kitchens.) I am sure
there are also people dissatisfied with ads.

If you want to hear me complain, ask me about the choice of programming
languages we are using. Or about open plan offices.

Still the best run company I've worked for.

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onion2k
What people don't seem to have considered is whether or not unblockable ads in
FB's app would be enough to make users who install ad blocking abandon FB.
There's a tacit assumption that FB is more important to users than blocking
ads, but until that's been tested I think we ought to remain skeptical whether
such an assumption is correct.

I think it's reasonable to think that someone who pays money not to see ads
would be willing to leave FB if their app fails to respect that wish, and FB
might well _allow_ blocking to avoid any sort of cascading network effect a
core group of users leaving might have.

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onewaystreet
Should restaurants respect the wishes of people who want to eat without
paying? If they kick them out they might leave a bad Yelp review.

~~~
Retra
You don't get unilateral power to trade free services for arbitrary
obligations. If you have a restaurant where you've decided to list all your
menu items at zero cost, that doesn't automatically grant you the power to
kick people out because they refuse to eat off the floor.

Your customers must first explicitly agree to such a thing before you should
be able to enforce it. You don't get to make all the decisions for both
parties. That's obviously exploitative.

~~~
hsod
> If you have a restaurant where you've decided to list all your menu items at
> zero cost, that doesn't automatically grant you the power to kick people out
> because they refuse to eat off the floor.

Why not? Kicking someone out of your restaurant is exactly what you should do
if you can't come to an agreement.

~~~
Retra
There _is_ no agreement. That's my point. People serving websites with
advertising are doing so under a bargain that users have never actually agreed
to: that they are exchanging free content for advertising views. But the
website makes an agreement with advertisers, not with the public.

So in our restaurant analogy, it would be like if you had an agreement with
your _food supplier_ that they will provide you with cheap food if you make
customers eat it off the floor, and now you're complaining that customers are
not fulfilling their end of this deal. The customers don't have a deal with
you. You just offer them free food, and they are taking it and trying not to
eat off the floor. It's not their fault you offer free food. Don't do that.

~~~
hsod
The agreement with the food supplier is irrelevant.

If a customer walks into your free-food restaurant and finds the conditions
unsuitable to them, they should leave. If they refuse, you should kick them
out.

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Retra
Then do it. Kick everyone off your website if they use ad blockers.

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hsod
You just said I (the restaurant owner) don't have the power to!

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drdaeman
No idea about how things are on iOS, but on Android there is Xposed with
MinMinGuard that does the job of removing in-app ads really well. Not
absolutely perfect (some apps may crash in rare cases, but they're really
rare), but at least on par with in-browser ad blocking. Or, given than there
aren't too many ad libraries (way less than web-based ad networks), maybe even
better.

~~~
soylentcola
There's also AdAway for more "traditional" system-wide ad blocking via hosts
file or applications like "Tinfoil Hat" which opens the mobile Facebook site
in a sandboxed wrapper so you are essentially able to view the site without
using their dedicated app or needing to open an incognito tab in Chrome or
Firefox before visiting the mobile site.

Ads and tracking aside, it's worth it even if just for the lowered system
resource usage (my battery life improved by a decent margin even though I
still check out Facebook every 1-3 days on my phone).

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skrebbel
What a spammy title. The ads are only "in your phone" if you use a Facebook
app.

Breaking news! Ad-powered app shows ads in its app!

Does anyone know whether Facebook also tracks you into and out of WhatsApp, by
the way?

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martinko
> Does anyone know whether Facebook also tracks you into and out of WhatsApp,
> by the way?

It most certainly does. I have contacts in WhatsApp that I have no other
contact with (nor do they with me, dont know my name etc.), yet after the
first time I chat with them on WhatsApp, they are in my recommended friends on
facebook. Pretty infuriating.

~~~
drdaeman
Does both WhatsApp and Facebook use (and were actually allowed to use) phone's
built-in contact/address book subsystem?

Honest question, I don't use either app, so no idea. Just thought this could
be a possible that WA had created a contact in the system-wide address book
and FB saw it.

~~~
martinko
I have other people in my phone contacts that Ive never communicated with on
facebook and I have never been suggested to be friends with them. So Im
doubtful.

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jrs235
I have as few phone apps as possible. Undesired ads and asking for waaaaaay
too much access to my phones data and features, no thanks I'll just use my
browser and view your page. I'm sure many in the HN crowd practice similar
behaviors however for the majority of people I'd assume this article holds
more weight.

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thewarrior
Just browse FB in safari with an ad blocker ?

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newscracker
Isn't it an exaggeration to say the ads are unblockable even on apps on
phones? The apps generally do have more control on what's shown and what's
not. To start, couldn't the ads be filtered and masked from one's router or on
a (home) proxy server that one uses? The apps could be written such that they
detect if an ad is being replaced with empty content, but I don't think the
apps are there yet.

On this topic, what are the latest alternatives available for routers/proxy
servers that are as good as uBlock Origin (or ABE) on the desktop (sharing the
same popular block lists)?

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pmlnr
Wrong.

No FB app, adaway + ublock + pale moon.

~~~
raverbashing
I use Fb but the Fb app is a disgrace, and not only because of privacy reasons

It usually shows me what's happening last week instead of the latest posts

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forgottenpass
_the Fb app is a disgrace, and not only because of privacy reasons_

Having it installed also kills your battery life. Probably a knock-on effect
from the privacy invasion (but at least I have a reason not to use facebook
that doesn't weird out normies).

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cognivore
Um, not if you don't use Facebook?

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unclebucknasty
FB continues to promote the self-serving fallacy that users really, really
want ads.

According to FB, users just desparately want those ads to be highly targeted
and relevant. And, that's awesome, because it just happens to correspond
exactly with what advertisers want.

Most amazing is that advertisers continue to believe it. Testament to the
power of desparation and wishful thinking.

~~~
magic_man
No one really wants ads, but people do want facebook for free.

~~~
ams6110
In other words, they only want facebook because it's free?

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Spivak
If Facebook charged money to the end user it would be immediately abandoned.
It's weird that such a large service has such a low value to users. Most other
huge free services could charge end users and get away with it but FBs value
is tied to the fact that it's free and accessible by anyone.

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mrbig4545
They're not in my phone, I don't use facebook on it.

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rndmind
Not for people that refuse to use it.

