You Say Privacy Invasion, We Say Behavioral Advertising AOL, Google, look to pre-empt privacy regulation and ease your worried mind... This week the FTC held a two-day meeting on behavioral advertising. Such get-togethers are frequently sparse when it comes to consumer advocates, but yesterday a group of them urged the FTC to create a "do not track" list aimed at protecting your privacy. In the hopes of keeping any new privacy regulation at bay (aka protecting their advertising revenue), both AOL and Google announced new efforts aimed at "educating" users on the benefits of targeted advertising. Google has launched a new YouTube privacy channel aimed at explaining their data collection methods and privacy practices (with some really nice stick figures). AOL, meanwhile, says they'll be using technology from recently acquired Tacoda to allow users to opt out of targeted ads based on their Web surfing habits. Of course, the company's new system will first inform customers why they shouldn't. From a press release: "Our goal with this program is to engender greater trust for targeted advertising by communicating with consumers in a more visible way, and by providing them more information about their choices," said Curt Viebranz, President of Platform-A. "AOL believes that doing more to explain to users the choices they have over the way their data is used, and helping them exercise those preferences will help them feel more in control." You're in control. You can trust AOL and Google. Feel better now?
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  ztmikeMark for moderationPremium
join:2001-08-02
Michigan City, IN
1 edit | Googlebad Looks like i might need to get a new homepage and search site.
I don't like the idea of some huge corp. saving my IP and cookie information.
What about Gmail?
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"I am the worst president in US history, I'm either stupid or dumb most of the time, but people still believe me." George W. Bush | |
|  | | | | Madmick
join:2002-12-12
East Northport, NY | Re: Googlebad If Google wants to track me, PAY ME MOTHERFOCKERS! | |
| | | |  cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:5
 ·Frontier FiOS
| Re: Googlebad said by Madmick:If Google wants to track me, PAY ME MOTHERFOCKERS! They are. They are providing you a service at no cost to you. If you don't like them tracking you, don't use their service. You are free to start your own search service that crawls the internet and indexes just about everything. Probably won't be as good but at least it will be private. You are also able to get your own e-mail service. If you don't want them targeting ads to you based on the content, then pay for your own. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Googlebad said by cdru:said by Madmick:If Google wants to track me, PAY ME MOTHERFOCKERS! They are. They are providing you a service at no cost to you. If you don't like them tracking you, don't use their service. You are free to start your own search service that crawls the internet and indexes just about everything. Probably won't be as good but at least it will be private. You are also able to get your own e-mail service. If you don't want them targeting ads to you based on the content, then pay for your own. Very nice reply. Too many people want something for nothing nowadays. It's refreshing to see people who actually understand how our system of commerce works. | |
| | | | | | | But it's another thing to provide free, no-frills service for an extended period of time (building up the reputation of an ad-free, dependable multi-service provider), and then suddenly shift gears in the aforementioned manner once your customer base is large enough (as if they're doing so poorly financially, to begin with: »ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3f7···8SKFQJ00). Sounds more like an effective bait maneuver than anything else. | |
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1 edit | Re: Googlebad said by GeneStarwind:But it's another thing to provide free, no-frills service for an extended period of time (building up the reputation of an ad-free, dependable multi-service provider), and then suddenly shift gears in the aforementioned manner once your customer base is large enough (as if they're doing so poorly financially, to begin with: » ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3f7···8SKFQJ00). Sounds more like an effective bait maneuver than anything else. A well planned one at that, huh? Just took a little time and a ton of fanboys spreading the word on how great they are!! Never have cared for Google/Gmail and we all KNOW about AOL! There's a couple other items that have a ton of fanboys spreading things I've never cared for to begin with also.
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| | | | | | cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:5 Reviews:
·Frontier FiOS
| said by GeneStarwind:But it's another thing to provide free, no-frills service for an extended period of time (building up the reputation of an ad-free, dependable multi-service provider), and then suddenly shift gears in the aforementioned manner once your customer base is large enough I have only used gamil a few times in the past but hasn't GMail always had some type of text ads along the side? Google search has long had ads either at the top of the search listing or along the side. In both cases they are easily removed (well, at least hidden) using ad blocking software or a extension like Google Customize.
Even if they provided the service gratis without even ads and suddenly started showing ads, it still costs you nothing monetarily. It costs you some privacy theoretically, but even then I think the privacy you have "lost" wasn't there to begin with; it was just presumed to be there.
Anyways, it's their service and they can do as they wish. While there may be a policy shift after a long period of having their service one way, the service is still continuing to be free (as in money). It's not like they gave away the service for free for years and then one day locked down everything and demanded actual money in order to get access back holding everyone in hostage in the process. | |
| | | | | |  ZaberWhen all are gone, there shall be none
join:2000-06-08
Cleveland, OH | said by GeneStarwind:But it's another thing to provide free, no-frills service for an extended period of time (building up the reputation of an ad-free, dependable multi-service provider), and then suddenly shift gears in the aforementioned manner once your customer base is large enough (as if they're doing so poorly financially, to begin with: » ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3f7···8SKFQJ00). Sounds more like an effective bait maneuver than anything else. Sounds more like good business. You let them use your services for no cost to them, then when you decide you need to make some money you add targeted advertising. The best part is Google made no attempt to hide this.
On a somewhat related note, I was watching an old VHS tape and it had a NetZero ad on it stating that NZ will NEVER charge for internet access.
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|  swhx7Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia | Whenever you interact with a website, you are giving data such as your IP address and browser info, and maybe picking up some cookies if you haven't turned off this feature. All this is hard to avoid but harmless.
You can opt out of advertising, targeted or not, by using software that blocks unwanted servers, such as Adblock Plus or a customized hosts file.
Gmail and similar services are a special case. You have to register, login and accept cookies to use the service. If you use the same company's sites for searches or other services (e.g. Yahoo search and Yahoo mail), they will probably together all the data on your actions on the sites, and mail contents etc., into a profile. | |
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1 edit | Irrelevant I use No Script and AdBlock Plus, which combined together, works so that I don't see any "behavioral advertising" nor do any web pages I read participate in google analytics. And when the browser is closed down the cookies/cache are flushed. Boo hoo. | |
| | ZaberWhen all are gone, there shall be none
join:2000-06-08
Cleveland, OH | Re: Irrelevant said by SilverSurfer1: nor do any web pages I read participate in google analytics. Does that include this site?
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Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he will feed himself for a lifetime | |
| | | | said by SilverSurfer1:I use No Script and AdBlock Plus, which combined together, works so that I don't see any "behavioral advertising" nor do any web pages I read participate in google analytics. And when the browser is closed down the cookies/cache are flushed. Boo hoo. Same here. | |
| | swhx7Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia | I don't believe in blocking ads indiscriminately. It is a good thing for sites to make money with ads, and I don't mind seeing them, when they aren't obnoxious.
I do block servers that don't meet my standards for privacy and non-intrusiveness. This includes companies that track users from site to site; third-party Javascript; and anything that flashes, blinks, zooms or is otherwise animated.
If everyone followed this kind of policy, we could have nice advertising on the web, sites could be supported, without the annoyances. | |
| | | | | Re: Irrelevant said by swhx7:I don't believe in blocking ads indiscriminately. It is a good thing for sites to make money with ads, and I don't mind seeing them, when they aren't obnoxious. I do block servers that don't meet my standards for privacy and non-intrusiveness. This includes companies that track users from site to site; third-party Javascript; and anything that flashes, blinks, zooms or is otherwise animated. If everyone followed this kind of policy, we could have nice advertising on the web, sites could be supported, without the annoyances. You hit the nail on the head right there with the obnoxious flashing ads that are enough to put someone into an epileptic seizure. If all ads were as serene and calm as the kind found on the Gmail page, I wouldn't feel the need to "indiscriminately block," to use your terminology. But unfortunately, my threshold for obnoxious, pop under/pop over/pop above ads has been breached and now I just block everything. | |
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swhx7Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia | Opt out of tracking means being tracked as opt-out person Think about how it would work if you asked not to be tracked across the web. How would ad services know which users not to track? Presumably you would pick up a special cookie, and the ad servers would then be instructed to disregard your data.
Who would trust this? And doesn't it seem ripe for mistakes, abuse and inconvenience?
Obviously you're better off with your own technical countermeasures, but this opt-out list may be the next best thing for technically naive users who don't know the tricks.
What this doesn't address is internet providers collecting and selling customers' data. It's harder to avoid that, and an opt-out is especially needed - or better yet a prohibition of the practice. | |
| TheMGPremium
join:2007-09-04
Canada
kudos:1
1 edit | They say "targeted advertising"? I say "AdBlock Plus ftw"!!! | |
| | | Learn to block adds from your router. Adblock is fine for 1 computer.
I run a network with 5+
Blocking sites with a host file at the ROUTER is way better.
I am running add block+ for 1 week after the host file filter was applied I have blocked 4 adds with ABP. I have not seen 1 add in that week just "cannot connect" errors in the spot where adds should have been  | |
| | TheMGPremium
join:2007-09-04
Canada
kudos:1 Reviews:
 ·TekSavvy DSL
| Re: Learn to block adds from your router. IMHO AdBlock Plus is better since instead of getting errors where ads should be all you get is a blank space, much more pleasing to look at.
The way it works it does not actually load the ads, removes them right from the html source, so the bandwidth savings are pretty much the same as router filtering assuming the same amount of ads are blocked/filtered. | |
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