[ggg3]

which is the "workaround" to the gdpr the article badly describes (probably because brave upcoming ad network will do the same but more workaroundily)

now those are used to match a 3rd party id. you just need a gdpr_workaround schema in your data base with two columns user-id, google-random-id with N-1 records indexed both ways.

gdpr has restrictions on pin pointing a single person. this is effectively doing that, but claim it is not, because random ids. apple is just a little better with how device-advertiser-id works.

[halr9000]

Well, the “right” workaround is an opt-in system. But that would drastically reduce the number of qualified ad prospects, reducing their wholesale value, killing the online ad business, drying up the websites themselves who exist for this revenue (some/many of which are trash, but not nearly all).

I don’t think we can have it both ways, or at least it is very difficult and we don’t have a great compromise solution.

[frenchyatwork]

I don't think the EU, or consumers in general, are terribly interested in "compromising" with the ad-tech industry.

[JohnFen]

I know that I'm not interested in "compromising" with the ad-tech industry. They've been spending too much time and money attacking my defenses against their terrible practices for me to treat them as anything but an attacker.

[filoleg]

Not that I support the ad-tech industry, but those consumers probably are interested in having their favorite websites being kept alive. Which implies that they might indeed be interested in "compromising" with ad-tech industry.

[girvo]

Why should we give ad-tech their one millionth chance to "do the right thing"? They've proven time and time again they cannot be trusted.

[filoleg]

it isn't about giving ad-tech any chance of anything, it is about websites that are liked and used by people (most of whom have either no means or no desire to support those websites with money directly) being able to sustain themselves in order to exist.

[msbarnett]

If only there were other models for ad sales, say ones that were successfully used for decades prior to the advent of the internet and ubiquitous surveillance, that could be used instead of said ubiquitous surveillance...

But no. The internet enabled vast, invasive user tracking, therefore vast, invasive user tracking is the only conceivable way to sell advertising.

[CodeMage]

That's pretty much a false dichotomy: a site must either support itself via ads, or cease to exist.

There are other ways to get money to support your work, and if those ways are too painful right now, that's just an opportunity for disruption. Even better, it's an opportunity to prove that disruption doesn't have to be exploitative.

[JohnFen]

To be honest, that doesn't matter to me. I think that websites who inflict the ad-slingers on their readers are showing great disrespect to and disregard for their readers.

[eitland]

> but those consumers probably are interested in having their favorite websites being kept alive.

I'm one of "those consumers" and I'm actively looking for sustainable ways to pay content producers.

Here's what I do currently:

- subscribe to two newspapers in addition to the mandatory payments to the national news broadcaster.

- donate to the Guardian

- buy on Blendle

If there was a way to pay for single pay-walled stories I would probably use it a few times a week in addition to my current subscriptions.

I'm not interested in any more subscriptions (unless they are all inclusive like Spotify so I can cancel my current subscriptions, and even then I'm not sure since I actually want to support those two papers and think I do so better through direct payments than through revenue sharing through a huge international tech company. )

[wbl]

If consumers want it they will pay money, plus ads don't necessarily need to be targeted to readers.

[gregknicholson]

More generally, if enough people (including the author) think the content has merit, they will choose to support it (by which I mean “collectively supply all the resources it needs to continue”).

The cost of running a basic website to publish text is modest. Tools like [dat][] and [scuttlebutt][] make it completely free (once you have a computer and any internet connection) to distribute content to people who actually want it.

[dat]: https://dat.foundation/

[scuttlebutt]: https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/

On the other hand, if you want to make a living out of producing content (rather than wanting to publish the content purely for its merit), that is harder — the content has to be that much more valuable to enough people.

As long as individuals can publish stuff, and others can see it and choose whether to support it financially (all without 3rd parties mediating/filtering), then I'm content. Our distributed tools make that possible; we just need to make them easier and more ubiquitous.

[kevingadd]

Given the popularity of ad-blockers these days I'm not sure they're as interested as you think they are.

[takeda]

With current ad industry it's more about whether you are ok with being bullied or not.

[jancsika]

> probably because brave upcoming ad network will do the same but more workaroundily

AFAICT Brave's plan is to send a block of potential ads to the client and use a client-side machine learning algorithm to choose specific ads. So the claim is that none of client events, inferences from the algo, nor ad choices travel from the client to the ad networks. (But ad networks retain their crazy microtargetting which I guess is the selling point.)

Even if Brave were to choose the blocks of ads based on geolocation and other install-time/runtime data which they then sell to third parties, it's still significantly less data leaking from the client's browser compared to, say, a default Chrome install. But them storing/selling that would be a clear GDPR violation as well as going directly against all their explicit public claims so far.

What is your understanding of Brave's upcoming ad network that leads you to believe it requires a surreptitious GDPR violation?