Got this notification when I opened Chrome when coming back to my desk after lunch.
“We changed our privacy settings to allow us to snoop on what you’re looking at and shove you ads accordingly. Feel free to opt out, but we’ll probably opt you back in when you aren’t paying attention.”
I’m always a bit amused when these sites and apps say things like, “If you turn off ad personalization, the ads you see won’t be as useful to you.”
My dude, I don’t think I’ve ever willingly clicked on an ad in my entire life. “Personalizing” them won’t change that.
I used to sometimes. When there was a simple, clean ad for something I was interested in, I would click through.
Mind you, this was in an era when the internet amounted to strings and cans because I’m a fucking dinosaur. Since then, ads first went obnoxious and loud, then they got plastered everywhere, then they started being invasive.
Fuck ads at this point. There’s nothing good in them for us at all.
I don’t know, ads were always dog shit. Yeah you had your static banners and what not, but I remember the popup wars from the 90s.
I was always told clicking on ad’s will give you viruses and sign you up to dick medicines
Yup, the last time I clicked an ad was before that :)
I don’t even click those. I’ll rarely navigate to their site manually.
In a way I kind of miss the old banner ads. Smack the monkey and win $1,000,000 or whatever it was. I swear I hit that monkey so many times.
Now I can’t even read a page without pop up after pop up on top of the embedded ads in between every two sentence paragraph.
Even if any of these companies were any good at ad targeting, I wouldn’t want “personalized” ads anyway cuz I’d just spend more money.
but but but but you’d get something good for it! You would never have missed it, but maybe you just didn’t know you wanted it? Come on, I’m sure consuming shit that will make you happy twice for two minutes each (once when clicking buy, once when getting and opening the package) will fill that hole in your soul! Spending money on stuff you don’t actually need is good!
(That was sarcasm, if it wasn’t clear enough.)
True. The only personalized ads I ever receive are for products I literally just purchased.
I don’t know how there’s so much money in the ad space. It just seems like a huge waste.
A lot of times people will visit a website for a product they’re interested in and may not immediately pull the trigger. When they see it later 3-4 more times, the chances of conversion are way higher.
Google probably doesn’t really know if you purchased the product, and may not care, as you may want to purchase another.
I’m sure it’s like gambling and microtransactions where the vast majority of income is derived from a small minority of people who aren’t bothered by the onslaught of ads shoved down their throats.
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Used to think otherwise, that I was immune to the phenomenon that you’re describing. But then the other day I realised my shoes were hurting my feet. I was seriously considering buying shoe inserts (if that’s their English name), even had the brand in mind, until I realised what was happening.
I’ve seen ads for this brand on tv like a decade ago. Before that, I honestly had no clue such things existed, I’d seen them in a store like, twice. Never seen anything related to them ever since. Literally forgot about them until I felt the slightest urge to buy them. I was really taken aback when I realised what had happened in my “advertising-immune” mind
It isn’t one or the other. They’re trying to both persuade you and develop brand awareness. But they’ll settle for brand awareness.
Fuckin love pink ladies
I see an ad and I zone out or ignore it.
I see an ad and wonder why my ad blocker failed.
I used to click on ads back in the day when you’d get paid for it (I was a poor school student, don’t judge. :p).
I don’t think I’ve ever willingly clicked on an ad in my entire life
Same here and I’ve certainly never purchased anything through an ad. You’d think there’d be some advantage for advertising networks to identify people (there are dozens of us!) who never click on ads and refrain from serving any to them - and use this as a selling point for ad buyers so that their expenditures are not wasted.
Just because you don’t click on an ad doesn’t mean it didn’t work though. If you see an ad for Coke you may not click on it to order a case of Coke online right away, but when you go out to lunch maybe you’ll fill your cup with Coke.
I mention food ads because I feel they are particularly effective for this type of behavior. You don’t need to click on a food ad, but I know I’ve had a craving for a certain restaurant or food from seeing it mentioned online (whether an ad or just a comment/post) and then gone to get that food for dinner.
Of course, this type of ad result is very difficult to track.
it’s not about your clicks, it’s to influence you, it can influence people in multiple degree, maybe next type when you go buy something think about it
Only did it once. The Rest EverCool comforter ad I kept seeing. Looked up a bunch of reviews and as someone who is a very hot sleeper. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s the softest coolest blanket I’ve ever felt. Every square inch is as cool as the other side of the pillow.
Upvoted for saying the phrase “as cool as the other side of the pillow”. Heard that once when someone was talking about a sports commentator and haven’t forgotten it in probably 35 years at least.
ESPN’s Stuart Scott used this as his catchphrase starting in the mid-'90s, so not quite 35 years (but damn close). Like all ESPN catchphrases, it was clever and funny the first time, not so much the next 5000 times.
I remember it from Billy and Mandy. But it’s a fun saying.
Ads work on the general population or else these companies would stop paying for them.
The only time I click on ads are on websites that actually have people buying ad space on websites that make sense.
Like… Fountain pen ads on fountain pen blogs. Or Linux product ads on Linux learning websites.
Basically the only times I click on ads is when I’m searching for something and the search engine I’m using has paid ads for the thing I’m searching for at the top.
Beyond that I can’t think of any times I’ve ever clicked on an ad intentionally.
“new privacy feature” and then “sites you visit can determine what you like”
translated: “this new privacy feature reduces the amount privacy you have!!! what a great thing you like!!!”
Idk why the heck you just got downvoted into oblivion for pointing out the irony in google calling this a “privacy feature.” Good old reddit moment it seems.
lol it’s no worries. actually I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I’m just an asshole.
Damn, you’re still copy pasting that? That link doesn’t even go anywhere lol
He thinks he’s getting bot downvoted, but there’s actually people invested enough to stalk him. Cute.
didn’t think about it like that! i feel loved :)
Yeah, he’s definitely “important”
I don’t particularly care about your or his internet spats or attempt to control the all important narrative on lemmy. You are the one giving him rent free space in your brain and on your keyboard though.
Lol wat
See WarmSoda!? This is why I shouldn’t have stopped. People ask this question, your advice was wrong! I’m going to continue what I was doing before you called me stupid.
edit: The link points to lemmy.world which is intermittently getting DDOS’ed.
Please ignore my negative initial vote score, as I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I’m just an asshole.
It’s funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people. Everyone uses chrome and rarely types in a web address, they just type the name of the thing into Google and trust mommy to show them what’s appropriate. They’ve back doored the entire population into basically what AOL was trying to be 20 years ago.
“we are going to help protect your privacy” from WHO Google? Is it from you? Because it seems like we need protection from you most of all. Constantly being gaslit by mega-corporations is the new American dream. It’s okay because they love us, deep down, and we know that even though they don’t show it.
small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up
I (and many others I presume) has been saying Chrome is shit since the beginning. It didn’t feel like nothing was happening, it felt like we were slowly getting to the old days of IE and Netscape.
There are always a few that see this stuff coming, but they usually get looked at like a crazy person shouting about the sky falling.
It also feels like they really push a lot of the terrible on mobile first, get people used to concepts with the “that’s just how mobile is, it’s a different world” and then when most are accustomed to it they move to regular pc enshitification.
I do not like how websites prioritise the mobile view over desktop view even when it is on a desktop. You have a widescreen and want to waste all that horizontal space? Just ridiculous!
Yeah yeah, I understand it is less maintenance from a developer point of view, but still it is infuriating as a user.
They gotta their digital peasantry, I mean users, from other feudal lords, I mean corporations, to maximize their power over them and ability to exploit them, I mean … No wait that’s right.
Use Firefox
This is the way.
This is why I use Linux at home, along with TOR and a VPN. I’m not doing anything other than looking up woodworking and camping stuff, but fuck all ya’ll for being nosy.
Literally Ron Swanson
There are worse fates.
My dude. All the feels right here.
Same here I only do mild stuff like look at computer parts, servers and burglar tools. Damn nosy bastards.
What’s the benefit of Tor and a VPN? Isn’t a VPN sufficient?
That really depends on what you’re trying to do.
A VPN just makes it look like you’re somewhere else, but it doesn’t really add any amount of anonymity. You’ll still get tracked around the Internet like you normally would, but sites will just think you’re somewhere else.
Tor is an anonymizing network, so your traffic gets mixed with a bunch of other people’s traffic so websites get really confused about where you are. It’s almost impossible to track someone using Tor because Tor will change how your packets are routed from request to request.
So if you just want to get access to different Netflix shows, a VPN is probably what you want. If you want to truly be anonymous, you need Tor. Just know that anonymity through Tor comes at a price, a lot of sites block Tor traffic, and performance is nothing to write home about because your traffic is routed through a bunch of other people’s machines.
Doubly paranoid, doubly protected. Lol.
Ironically enough, using a VPN makes TOR protection weaker
Can you explain this, or point me in the right direction to learn more?
Firefox ftw
With uBlock origin!
Just want to point out that Firefox has sponsored links, sponsored articles, and Mozilla ads that randomly pop up. Is it way better than Chrome and anything Google? Absolutely, by miles and miles. Is it completely innocent in the ad game? No.
I use LibreWolf. It’s a Firefox fork with enhanced privacy and it gets rid of the built in adware. Combine with uBlock Origin for an ad-free experience.
I just use ublock with Firefox, I’m fine with the baked in ads on Firefox I don’t mind supporting them. Considering what the other option is, I want to support them.
Mozilla at least goes to great lengths to ensure any advertising they do is about as privacy friendly as it can be, plus it’s easily disabled in the settings
I’m already seeing all the ads I want to see.
Fucking. None.
From where comes the idea that personalised ads are good? I hate this timeline.
Google is a large company, they need to pay their employees and server. It’s pretty entitled of you to expect them to work for free. /s
I read this everywhere these days. Shilling has become culture.
No I understand why websites show ads. I don’t understand why whenever I disable personal ads, I get a message saying “Are you really sure? If you disable this you won’t see your favourite ads anymore and only see ads for things you probably don’t want to buy. That’d be awful wouldn’t it?” and expect me to change my mind because that’s definitely not why I wanted to disable it in the first place.
They act as if people like to see ads because then they can buy stuff they think they want/need. And I’m getting afraid that’s actually true for a lot of people too.
I dunno how other people operate but I never once bought something off an ad.
me neither I think? but it probably still subconsciously affects me
Does it? Can you even remember a product that you bought after looking at its ad?
Games probably. If I’m browsing the store looking for new games, any games I’ve seen in ads will probably pique my interest more because I recognise them.
Same with food, movies, so many other things.
Let me take a look at what I buy. No, everything has been reviewed, thought upon (cos I ain’t rich) and then maybe bought.
Frightening, isn’t it?
They frame it that way to reenforce the notion that ads are an inevitable thing.
As Netflix and producers of toilet paper know well, people in the end are happy to pay for things they like or need. But Google and its like have discovered that instead of selling stuff to me, it’s much more profitable to sell me to others.
No thanks.
God I wish the days would catch on in america, you just don’t get the same level of clean with toilet paper, seriously I used to have problems with an itchy anus, doctor always said it was normal. Even when it was red from wiping too much just to try to get rid of the itch.
Switching to a bidet cured everything.
If I start to itch back there I just use the bidet, clears it right up
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I support indie/small groups of devs who want some money for their work.
It’s just the rich companies I despise.
Sadly it hasn’t become culture, that was a thing even back in the days when the internet was just gamefaqs, new grounds, and whatever Message Board your mates went to.
They are good on paper
But not in execution
If you’re going to show me ads thag I give a shit about they may be less annoying.
We wouldn’t have gotten this far if they weren’t good in execution. Ads may not work on you or many people in this thread, but it works on enough people to make this worth it.
more choices over ads you see
Who in their right mind want to see ads
People who are used to ads somehow just glaze over them and seem to not actually see them. It’s quite Impressive really
This is why I use Firefox
Please disable firefox telemetry if u care abt ur privacy
I never understood what is so problematic about anonymized telemetry, especially for a open-source product.
It provides a really valuable feedback for developers regarding feature usage, performance and error logs – you get the product for free so give something back.
Exactly! It’s more “Help me help you” than anything nefarious.
While it is mostly helpful, I still do it. To be honest, I would have been alright with it if it was a little more relaxed. What I mean by that is I’m okay with opt out, as long as it’s a product I trust, and I would say I do trust Firefox as a project (Not too sure about the Corporation, the Foundation is fine). What I’m not fine with is the “Data will be deleted within 30 days”. What if someone does not want to give that data in the first place, huh? I’m okay with it, because it’s Firefox, but many people arent, so it’s a matter principle for the people that aren’t. So if someone didn’t want any telemetry collected on them, that telemetry has not only been collected, but is now stored on Mozilla servers for 30 days, which means they can use it for analytics, whether you like it or not. Again, I don’t care, because it’s Firefox, but for the people that do, at the very least, don’t give me or them or anyone else fhat “We will delete within 30 days” thing. Automate it and do it now.
I mean, at least FF allows that. Hardened FF is a blessing.
Plain Jane Firefox ain’t any better than Chrome. Just putting your info in a different database.
Would you rather your data be sent to a browser company or the largest advertising agency in the world?
… Tell me again how these are the same?
That’s a false dichotomy. I’d rather it not be sent to anyone…
Your data isn’t just sent to a browser company. The browser company shares all of it with an ad agency.
You said “isn’t any better” than chrome. Given the choice between the two, there is clearly a better option
In regards to privacy, I disagree.
That ad company is probably just selling your data back to Google anyway.
… the ad company IS Google
Firefox collects diagnostics and some usage data, not browsing history, Google collects absolutely anything and everything.
Their primary, nor secondary, source of revenue is not selling your data. You can also disable it entirely pretty easily. You cannot do that in Chrome.
Given the two options, one is clearly better.
the ad company IS Google
No it’s not. It’s called admarketplace
Firefox collects diagnostics and some usage data, not browsing history,
They collect everything. It’s all spelled out in no uncertain terms in their privacy policy. I’d suggest you have a look.
The browser company in question is primarily funded by the advertising company in question.
Doesn’t really make a difference. Google pays to keep their search engine the default, same as they do for Apple.
“More useful ads” Well the best ads is no ads.
I’ve never, not once in my life, saw an ad which managed to make me buy something.
It doesn’t matter what it’s selling. The fact that it’s disrupting whatever I’m doing or making my experience worst makes me refuse to buy whatever it’s selling, and it doesn’t matter how personalized it’ll get. I will never be influenced to buy something just because I saw it on an ad.
This feature will literally do nothing for me. I’ll still block ads, or if they are unblockable for any reason, I’ll just ignore them until they’re done.
true, but remember the ads are mostly subconcious. you often wont think about buying something after seeing an ad, but in the back of your mind you might have a slightly better opinion, or mental association to the brand. so next time you go to buy a product your more likely to remember that brand and buy from them. as much as i would like to believe otherwise, no-one is immune to propaganda
If you’re the type of person who buys new things often then yes. But if you buy the exact same stuff that you’ve been purchasing for 30 years, ads aren’t going to impact you today.
Or if you’re ADHD and need to do a ton of research for a week on stupid little purchases before you commit to something.
Don’t @ me
fair
If only it worked the other way as well:
Doctor: “Your blood cholesterol is abysmal. Your blood is more similar to maple syrup than blood.”
Subliminal advertising: “Mmm, Coca-Cola means DEATH.”
It’s mostly unsettling and a bit creepy. Like you’ll be doing something during the day and then later you’ll see it on Google. Like someone’s watching you.
At this point I assume everything about me is known to all the corporations. When stuff like that happens, I just go “yeah that tracks”.
I’m just like this too, but you have to remember that for every person like us, there’s a person like my wife, who’s buying garbage that she sees on instagram ads nearly every week.
I beg her to at least search for the item and buy it directly so that the website she’s on isn’t getting revenue for ads. It’s petty but makes me feel better.
Many friends of mine are like saying why would i care i’d rather see ads that are relevant than ones that arent. Like dude i dont want ads at all and i dont want my data to be used to influence my buying behavior.
I don’t care if I have to see unobtrusive ads (not overlays, not popups, not unskippable videos) ads help keep many web services free, sometimes I even find it helpful when ads are relevant to my recent searches or the page I am looking at. But having companies build up profiles about me and then share that between themselves is bullshit, that kind of behavior would be treated as stalking if done by an individual, why is it ok for a business?
While this is an understandable desire my question is as follow:
If you don’t want ads, and don’t want to pay for every service, how’s all the internet system supposed to be sustainable on the long run? How should things be financed?
Honestly that’s not our problem to solve. If we disagree with a business model we can choose not to use it, the onus isn’t on us to find another one for the business.
If your product isn’t worth paying for that’s a you problem and if your business goes under because it wasn’t sustainable that’s also a you problem.
Is pretty likely that the business offered nothing new or innovative at a price people would part with their money for and just because you want to start a competing business in a market means nothing.
Competition is great but no business is entitled to a piece of the market solely because they want to exist. There’s no point being a carbon copy of an existing service if you expect people to pay when your offering already exists somewhere else and if you want people to pay your business instead of another you need to improve something or create something of benefit for them to at a price point both sides can work with.
You’re absolutely right, but this is a different case I think: It’s freerider problem, people WANT to use internet services, want to use social and so on, the problem is, if possible, they don’t want to pay for it. In the scenario where we make ads completely illegal, companies will look for other ways to monetize the service, because a system which is not in break even on the long term is cursed to bankruptcy.
People want to watch Netflix, but without paying, that means that if everyone do like that, Netflix will find other ways of monetization. That’s why games became full of microtransanction and always online stuff, for example. That’s what made ads popular in the first place, don’t want to pay? No problem, here’s a free sites with ads. should socials be closed community where you can access only paying, like pay tv? Because even right now removing ads on Reddit or YouTube paying is possible.
Even Lemmy growth at a certain point will incur in this, because a platform can’t hold itself on 2 unpaid developers and free labor of volunteers who pay for server costs too.
Would we better off without these sites if we’re not willing to pay for them? Maybe yes. But what certain is that without financial stability a project can’t go far. The problem is both of the producer of the producer, sure, but also its users should wonder how much they want the platform, because it will evolve accordingly.
Honest answer: by op’s friends!
Most people don’t mind the parasites? Great! Let those who wanna be part of the system subsidise those of us in the margins who don’t.
We already paid for the Internet though.
You pay for internet connection, not internet content.
Services don’t get a penny out of what you pay your ISP
Ok then hear me out. Let free content supported by ads die out. Make everything paid.
This is practically impossible because piracy is easy and convenient.
Ads emerged right because they are a simpler way of monetization
Why don’t businesses do away with free and go to a completely paid model?
Let’s continue on this path of thinking: Customers already pay using their data. So if you want to show ads you have to pay customers since you are scrapping their data?
Unfortunately, a majority of the population like the ad based free service model, so here we are.
Wonderful, my day is complete. Thank you Alphabet for providing me a choice in which flavor of dystopian nightmare I’d prefer.
They are good times indeed… Good times…
Cherry vanilla for me! What do you mean, “that’s not an option!?”
Question: if personalized ads are so great, why can’t I just go into my google account’s settings and put there all the info about me? My income, my interests, ages of my children, my favorite food… Since personalized ads are so good every google users will just fill it in to get the best ads possible, right? Why not give people this option instead of implementing all this trackers?
Because everyone in the game is making money off those trackers. Just because you give them your address and general interests doesn’t mean they know you’re shopping for a new fence for your house or different daycares for your kids at a specific given time.
They are also scarily accurate too. To the point where some people were finding out their teenage daughters were secretly pregnant when Target would send them an infant coupon package in the mail that was intercepted by them. That was guessed solely on data Google and other entities sold them, that’s crazy.
I would fill it up with false information.
Then you will not get all those super useful, personalized ads! How will you know what do you need?
On my work devices I try to Google and use as many websites in Spanish as possible. So now when I get Ads I at least get the benefit of learning some new Español
I love how targeting yourself with ads relevant to your interests is presented as something advantageous for us. Sorry, I don’t desire to be constantly prodded to take interest in new gadgets and cat foods.
They do give you that option for a lot of it: https://myadcenter.google.com/
You can set whether information like income, profession, education, etc is used, + or - different topics/brands, as well as see the ads you’ve been shown in the past.
This feature that the OP posted about however is about doing all this in the browser instead of doing the tracking on their servers and across various websites with embedded analytics/tracking code. The end goal is also to get rid of third-party cookies entirely, hopefully shutting down that method of tracking, while still being able to provide targeted advertising.
I’m joking of course but if people really wanted relevant adds they would just set it up like they create playlists in spotify. Spotify doesn’t have to track your browser history to guess what music will you enjoy because people just tell them that. Obviously no one wants personalized ads. Google knows this but they keep pretending that all this tracking is to improve your experience.
You actually can in Google ad settings, not that you should give them more info though.
