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by alain94040 3903 days ago
Everything is debatable of course, but pretty much on page 1 of Google's privacy page, I see:

We collect information to provide better services to all of our users – from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful

I object to "ads you'll find most useful" being ok under the category "provide better services to our users". If you accept the premise that better ads are useful, then pretty much everything Google does is for your own good.
1 comments
hahainternet 3903 days ago
This is not misleading in any way, your only disagreement with it is on principle.

Even given that, I must say, the idea that better ads are not useful is probably fallacious

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rchmura 3903 days ago
What are better ads? Are they ads that really connect with you? Do they change your behavior in some significant way? What makes ads better for the consumer? What makes ads better for the marketer? My answer is that what's good for the marketer is not good for the consumer. Google is optimizing for the marketer (getting better ROI). As long as consumers are told the ads are "unintrusive" they must be good too right? When marketers have a really strong ROI, they can get their ads out there and influence customer behavior. That type of influence is not good - and does not make it better for consumers.
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hahainternet 3903 days ago
They explicitly state 'more useful'. That is the metric they are using, better ads are ads which are more useful.

For example. Until a day or two I did not know the 'MX Master' mouse existed. An advert for this would have been useful.

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rchmura 3903 days ago
Useful and obtrusive are not mutually exclusive. Is it useful to have only large companies with large ad budgets peddle a slight iteration to their product line as "the next best thing", while smaller companies with a really great (superior) product don't get the exposure. The smaller company would have lower margins because they invest much more in superior materials, QA, R&D, etc. Where the larger company has an advantage because they invest more of their margin on ads. Note: I have an "MX Performance" and I would not recommend that line of mice no matter what the ads originally said.
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