[faizanbhat]

As someone who worked in ad tech for half a decade, I fail to understand the fuss about cookie based targeting. We're speaking of databases mapping data to random numbers stored in a file that can easily be deleted. The real issue is ad targeting by a handful of large companies that have personally identifiable information.

It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either. It's very difficult to get cookie based ad targeting right – you have to make significant investments into product, technical integrations and data buys. Given the fact that the cookies to which you are tying these investments can vanish at any time (and a large % do so regularly), it rarely makes business sense to make the right sort of investments. Instead most companies do the bare minimum and try to make a guess that is slightly better than a coin flip. I actually remember seeing a deck from a data company boasting how their gender data was ~ 60% accurate.

Why are we worried about this? Contextual targeting is far more effective. As an example, targeting an ad on Elle.com is more than 60% likely to reach women than an ad targeted based on cookie data.

Genuinely curious so would appreciate calm, non-aggressive responses. I'm wondering whether this is due to a generally poor understanding of cookie targeting effectiveness or if I'm missing something.

[zwaps]

You probably would be well advised to read up on the economics of consumer differentiation and price discrimination.

All of today's ad-tech is set up and developed for that purpose. Whether overtly or covertly, it is the singular purpose, because the case is so clear cut: We are distributing the share of the pie between companies and consumers.

It is therefore clear why people aware of basic economics consider agressive tracking and privacy violations hostile, because they ultimately are or will be.

I am not worried about actually showing ads that are personalized in some way. But as others have pointed out, cookies are not for that. You can target based on the site's content and you are probably showing me a much more relevant ad anyway.

I am worried that every offsite ressource and every ad is used to track me across hundreds or thousands of shady services that operate under zero regulation or control, the combination of which allows market actors to determine how much of my consumer surplus they can extract in every sense, and thus actively devaluing the internet for me, in excess of what happens in the real world!

And the responses of the ad industry lobby groups pretty much prove to me what they think about choice and what they expect to get from consumers.

At this stage, it is entirely rational and ethical to consider the entire ad industry as hostile. As a group, with all side-effects, the notion of just "showing an interesting ad" simply does not exist anymore. At least for the collective industry. Any effort you took to track users, no matter how noble, will ultimately be hostile to me in the future.

[Mirioron]

>All of today's ad-tech is set up and developed for that purpose. Whether overtly or covertly, it is the singular purpose, because the case is so clear cut: We are distributing the share of the pie between companies and consumers.

That's not entirely true though. Better ad targeting increases the "size of the pie" by increasing the chances that a consumer will find something that's useful to them.

>At this stage, it is entirely rational and ethical to consider the entire ad industry as hostile.

At that point, why not consider the entire software industry as hostile? They're the ones that enable this, so clearly they are also the devil. Life is not this black and white. Ads do serve a useful purpose, to which degree cookie based ads do that, I'm unsure, but it would be very difficult to start a business without any kind of advertisement.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

>That's not entirely true though. Better ad targeting increases the "size of the pie" by increasing the chances that a consumer will find something that's useful to them.

Most ads people see are not for novel products solving problems. The ads are just fighting for brand recognition and space in peoples brains. This parasitic and wasteful industry is squandering some of the brightest minds of several generations to dare. Ad cos are also wasting untold billions of dollars suffocating development of infrastructure and industries that increase quality of life.

The house of cards needs to come down.

[jcfrei]

> [...] the combination of which allows market actors to determine how much of my consumer surplus they can extract in every sense

That would only be possible if the online stores could perfectly discriminate users based on price. Which happens to some extent (booking flights is a popular example) but is difficult to pull off and also illegal in most countries. You are not allowed to make personal discounts for each customer for example. Better and stricter legislation to prevent these kinds of personalized discounts would be pretty straightforward to implement if it were a major concern.

[zwaps]

One need not perfectly discriminate. Any discrimination eats consumer surplus.

It is a major concern. It is used in booking sites, and it will be used in other sites. We can not rely on regulation.

My point stands: User targeting is a threat and we, the users, are entirely justified in not liking it.

[dorgo]

> You are not allowed to make personal discounts for each customer for example

It is surprising. Couldn't find anything about it in a quick search. It would also make flea markets illegal, wouldn't it?

I think that some forms of price discrimination are forbidden (but still practiced). Women pay no entrace in clubs, young students pay less etc.

[jcfrei]

Here's a recent example from the EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/302/oj It addresses geo-blocking customers of online shops (and redirecting them to national versions of the shop with different prices).

[zwaps]

Price discrimination itself is not illegal (for example in the EU), it is only so if it is based on certain parameters. And this you'd need to prove in court, which makes it unlikely that regulation will solve this issue any time soon.

Beyond the legality of the issue, the point remains: Here, companies and consumers are strategically at odds.

[dorgo]

Why is price discrimination bad? It is about charging the highest price the customer is still ok with. Sure, if a merchant knows how badly you want his product he can increase the price. But, on the other hand, he will decrease the price for somebody who wouldn't pay the high price.

It's like bargaining on a fair. A method to determine a price suitable for both sides - instead of charging every customer the same price.

And it's not (only) about how much money the customer has. A rich customer can still be price sensitive and would get a low price based on price discrimination.

Also, in my opinion, ads and tracking are (mostly) orthogonal concepts. A website can track or show ads or both or do nothing. Tracking is often used for ads but not exclusively so.

[labawi]

Sometimes price discrimination may be overall good, but it easily leads to price gouging and I believe there a laws against it, for a good reason.

Should I pay 1.2x, 3x or 100x as much today, just because you know I desperately need the product/service today vs. yesterday?

What happens when I get (wrongly) classified as rich and now can't afford a normal life?

Should medication cost <som of your savings> if it is for life threatening issues? Should basic necessities cost more because my house burned down/got robbed/lost my luggage/whatever and you know I have money?

[adgasf]

The argument against that is that if sellers cannot increase prices in times of crisis they have no incentive to stockpile for such events. This leads to shortages and even higher prices on an unregulated black-market.

I'm not saying that I buy this line of reasoning, but there's the counter-argument.

[labawi]

It's not really an applicable argument here. That's a general time/availability/word situation discrimination, which I think I would be ok with, to a limited degree.

I was arguing against people based discrimination, without any meaningful relevance on availability. Again, I think reasonable and reasonably qualified discounts are ok, but not increasing prices for the same product and service.

[anoncake]

At best, price discrimination is a waste of time and resources. The buyer loses as much as the seller gains, making it a zero-sum game. But since price discrimination requires more effort than setting a single fixed price, the sum is actually negative.

Aside from that, "charging the highest price the customer is still ok with" means to eliminate the consumer surplus. Which is bad for consumers, i.e. everyone.

And aren't prices supposed to be signals? How are customers supposed to compare the costs of each good if you don't tell them? All you tell them is how much they're willing to spend.

They already know that. But you (probably) don't. If you did, congratulations: you've solved the economic calculation problem. This should raise red flags.

[thecatspaw]

> But, on the other hand, he will decrease the price for somebody who wouldn't pay the high price.

I highly doubt that they would actually decrease the price. They maybe wouldnt increase it, but unlike the bargaining on a fair, the seller can not see that the prospective buyer is really struggling to make ends meet, and sell it at a loss to help them out.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Isn't charging different prices for the exact same product online -- i.e. price testing -- illegal, at least in California?

I'm interested how this works. Car dealerships do this all the time in person. I wonder why they can do it, but websites can't.

[girvo]

They don’t normally decrease the price below what the original baseline was. Would be nice if they did, but that’s not how it appears to be used by today’s companies

[ramphastidae]

> Genuinely curious so would appreciate calm, non-aggressive responses.

My browser history is none of your business. That’s it.

I don’t take care if violating my privacy by stealing my browser history is less effective than the newest way of violating my privacy.

Doesn’t make it any better.

[_eht]

>My browser history is none of your business. That’s it.

Your browser was made to handle cookie data. It is publicly known. If it bothers you, you can turn it off. I do not see what all this sort of huffing is about.

[onion2k]

If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data[1]. People believe the web works the same way - when they visit someDomain.com they, entirely reasonably, accept they're sharing their data with someDomain but don't realise they're also sharing their data with whichever tracking/surveillance services someDomain has installed.

You're right that this is just how browsers and websites and the internet as a whole works, but what tech workers and tech companies are just recently discovering is that people don't actually like or trust how it works and aren't always willing to accept it. In Apple's case they can leverage that distrust to market their products.

[1] Today facial recognition and phone tracking means that you are 'sharing' that data with tracking companies, obviously.

[thomaskcr]

> If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data

You can literally buy that data. Either by targeting credit card transactions of people who shopped at a walmart via a broker or you can get more direct data (albeit probably more limited) from them directly here: https://www.walmartmedia.com.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

That's the entire problem! Every store doing this should have a mandatory seminar before every shopping visit that outlines every single data point they collect, names every company, intermediary, and consumer of the data they collect directly and clearly, one. by one. These parasitic and disturbing methods only thrive because they have not been brought into the light of day so every consumer can consciously choose what data they want to share at every point. Any other methods except complete informed consent are fraudulent, invasive, and should be illegal. The sheer greed and lack of any morals in ad tech is sickening.

[Mirioron]

>If you walk in to Walmart you don't automatically think you're sharing your shopping habits with thousands of other companies who pay for that data.[1]

Isn't that exactly what membership cards for stores are for? Isn't credit card data also sold in a similar way? I find the credit card one to be a much bigger problem.

[TeMPOraL]

And cookies were meant to be used to provide value to the visitor, not to extract value from the visitor (especially without their consent).

[raverbashing]

And your email box is built to handle email. Doesn't mean you want hundreds of emails selling you crap everyday

[1propionyl]

Consider this: the vast majority of people you targeted more than likely didn't understand the terms of the deal (buried in ToS, hidden behind flowery language like "personalization", didn't understand the scope of such cookies, etc).

That is not informed consent.

What you were doing was exploiting people by going beyond the scope of their knowledge of the world and rationalizing it by working backwards from "well, they must understand what's going on" to "they must like it or get something out of it."

Problem is that's not true.

The reality is, even today barely any of them likely have the faintest clue what you did to them.

If they knew they would likely be far less than thrilled.

~ another ex-adtech worker

[oliwarner]

> It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either. It's very difficult to get cookie based ad targeting right

Tell that to the likes of Amazon and Ebay. Their cookie-based advertising is extremely effective. They not only get to advertise things at you that they already know you like, they also learn about other things you like by knowing what websites and content you're viewing.

Why are we worried about this? Because megacorps learning everything about us isn't desirable. It only serves to intensify the advantage they have over individual sellers, and in doing so, lessening competition over many layers of business (all the way from manufacture to delivery).

I'll agree these things apply much less at smaller scale, but that's also why this is so important. Handing the biggest marketing advantage to the biggest players isn't good for anybody but them.

[faizanbhat]

Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, etc. have persistent cookies. They are mapped to your profile in their database. If you delete the cookie, it reappears the next time you sign in. These companies can collect vast amounts of data on you, which allows their targeting to become highly effective over time.

But these companies are few and far between. Most ad tech companies have nowhere near this quality of data or access to users.

[LoSboccacc]

> they also learn about other things you like

if they do that it's very, very subtle. I get mostly product that I bought, with a handful of product that I saw recently, and zero original suggestions, even if I'm open to impulse buy, I am driven by new impulses, showing me something I haven't bought once is not going to tip me over as that decision was already rationalized.

[oliwarner]

You're thinking too linearly.

In the adverts they show you what is most likely to convert today. Stuff you've been looking at recently. But every adview is another blob of data to profile you with for future recommendations.

We talk about Facebook knowing too much about us but they really only have a social handle on us. Amazon knows where we live, what we buy, how much money we have, when we're going on holiday, when we're pregnant, how many children we have, what pets we have, what cars we drive, what we like to watch, what we like to listen to, when we're home.

Every new B2C service they launch is another intrusion. Advertising is just one ring in a long chain. It gives them reach over everything you view online.

[zaphirplane]

Good point, for me it’s linking my cyberspace identity to my physical identity and having that sold on, stolen aggregated. Increasing my security vulnerability to phishing and identity theft

[dorgo]

So you would agree if I store a cookie with a (randomly generated) ID in your browser to remember what you liked, what you bought, how you interacted with my website etc.? Also, I can sell this data to third parties and show personalized ads - all without knowing who you are outside of the web..

[buboard]

> a generally poor understanding

Probably this. Adtech (ironically) do not advertise what they do. Most people read and think that e.g. google literally sells personal files on themselves.

[guareber]

Another 5 year adtech worker here (and I'm still in it): it doesn't matter that it's a handful of large companies that have PII, it's that those companies keep getting more and more of adbudgets, and continue to build more and more products towards continuing to build real profiles.

Third party cookies should've never existed.

[tempguy9999]

Let's rephrase that

> I fail to understand the fuss about cookie based targeting

...because he...

> worked in ad tech for half a decade,

To continue

> It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either

Then why's it being done? Because it doesn't work, or because it does?

> Instead most companies do the bare minimum and try to make a guess that is slightly better than a coin flip

Uh huh. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising

"In 2016, Internet advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable television and broadcast television. In 2017, Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $83.0 billion, a 14% increase over the $72.50 billion in revenues in 2016"

That's the bare minimum. Right.

[faizanbhat]

The fact that I worked in ad tech doesn't automatically make an advocate for ad targeting. I don't like being tracked either.

As to your question on why it's being done if it isn't effective, I believe there are two reasons for it:

1. A vast % of digital ad spend goes to a few companies that have personally identifiable information and very effective tracking. Google, FB. I did point of this exception in my comment. Frankly, these companies don't need to target you to be effective. They gather their richest data from your usage on their service.

2. As for the rest of ad tech: Media buyers at agencies tend to be fresh out of college grads. They don't fully grasp the capabilities/limitations of ad tech products, targeting effectiveness, etc. Agencies want to spend their digital budgets and not exclusively on FB, Google. They want to show that they're diversifying, innovating, etc. This IMO is how the rest of ad tech stays afloat.

[buboard]

> That's the bare minimum. Right.

That's not addressing the argument. Advertising follows eyeballs, so naturally it went online. There is no evidence that its effectiveness has increased however, despite all the claims about high ad tech.

[tempguy9999]

> There is no evidence that its effectiveness has increased however

If you're right, those who commission ads are idiots because they aren't doing the most basic cost/benefit analysis.

And this in an area where doing so is very easy (don't run the ad then do run the ad, then see the immediate and longer-term difference).

Also, from the same wiki link I gave

"The EU limitations restrict targeting by online advertisers; researchers have estimated online advertising effectiveness decreases on average by around 65% in Europe relative to the rest of the world."

Further, by "There is no evidence that its effectiveness has increased" are you saying no studies have been done, or studies have been done but show no such evidence? In the latter case please post a few links, thanks.

[buboard]

> those who commission ads are idiots because they aren't doing the most basic cost/benefit analysis

i should clarify i meant the effectiveness of ads overall, not just targetting. there is no doubt that online ads work, and that tracking ads perform better than display ads. However despite the shift to online ads, advertising spending overall is similar and it doesnt seem to have increased consumption. So i dont understand if the rise in online ad spending means anything (imho it's purely because online audience is bigger now).

[choppaface]

It used to be that Flash-based cookies were pretty solid, but now there’s no more flash...

What matters to ad campaigns is lift and not accuracy. What about conversion attribution? Don’t you need cookies for Amazon/etc to figure out what website led you to a purchase?

What the article lacks is a breakdown of who the ad buyers are. In particular, there’s probably a big difference between today’s Facebook vs display ad buyers (especially vs 5 years ago).

[dorgo]

> It used to be that Flash-based cookies were pretty solid, but now there’s no more flash...

But there is so much more available today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evercookie

[belorn]

Cookie based targeting is relative easy to remove. It is an early and easy vulnerability that can be quickly addressed before the big ones that takes more engineering and fundamental changes.

Contextual targeting is a bigg problem, and the fix will require a fundamental change. It is almost impossible to use technology to prevent contextual targeting in areas like email service and social media as long as the data is in clear text and available to the server. The current best bet is to use laws like GDPR but it is slow and not something a browser can dictate with a software update.

[AznHisoka]

What if I want to target women who recently bought Chanel perfume? How would I go about doing that unless I do cookie targeting?

[dev_tty01]

Is this a serious question? Just because you want to target something doesn't mean it is ok to do it. Geez, the arrogance. You want to do X, so the rest of us have to give up our privacy? Technical feasibility is not the same thing as ethical, courteous, or just plain being respectful of other people. The whole industry seems to have done some sort of massive mob rationalization of inappropriate behavior. It's not ok.

If I am on a tech site reading about disk drive failure rates, feed me an ad about an SSD sale. If I am reading about mountain climbing, show me ads about climbing equipment. Fine. But don't start following me around the web with adds about ascenders for the rest of the afternoon. Or travel insurance. Or ... It is none of your business what I browsed half an hour earlier.

Thank goodness at least one business (Apple) has enough customer focus left to try to address some of this nonsense. All the better that it helps them against some of their competitors. That just makes them more motivated. Bully for that. At least we are still the customers rather than the products with Apple.

[matheusmoreira]

Couldn't agree more. I hate it when people respond to concerns with "I make money that way, how could I possibly go on otherwise" as if it somehow legitimitized their unscrupulous activity. Their profits are nobody's problem but theirs and there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting them out of business if that's what it takes to stop their abusive surveillance capitalism. If people's use of privacy-focused software and products reduces their revenue, so be it.

[AznHisoka]

You got too emotional when reading my response.

I was just asking the question because I was genuinely curious whether there was technically a way to do so w/o cookie targeting. I have no interest in doing such targeting. I was interested in whether a HNer had a creative workaround.

[matheusmoreira]

The way you asked the question suggested you were trying to find alternative methods to track people. That implies the method of tracking (cookies) was the problem rather than the tracking itself. My response to that is tracking people isn't something that should be done to begin with. People should not want to track others. It should not be possible to track people in any way, let alone make any money from the practice.

[AznHisoka]

Ok I understand. Thanks.

[ubermonkey]

>You got too emotional when reading my response.

I read a dispassionate rebuttal of your point. Calling the reply "too emotional" is not an okay tactic.

[AznHisoka]

“Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[AznHisoka]

You are arguing with a straw man.

I actually agree with your point. I was just asking the question because I was genuinely curious whether there was technically a way to do so w/o cookie targeting. I have no interest in doing such targeting. I was interested in whether a HNer had a creative workaround.

[dorgo]

> I was interested in whether a HNer had a creative workaround

There is still fingerprinting. If you take that away also then it gets trickier and fuzzier. But hey, if I can recognize you by the way how you walk then it should be even easier to do so by the way how you move the cursor or how you scroll. Or the time you usually visit my website. IP-address? Ping-times, animation delays.. And if somebody pays me good money I will find even more opportunities :-P

[sincerely]

What if I'm a women who recently bought Chanel perfume and I want you to fuck off?

[gwd]

Let's translate this to brick-and-mortar:

> What if I want to target women who recently bought Chanel perfume? How would I go about doing that unless I do video surveillance and face-recognition targeting?

Suppose a woman walked into a dress shop, and the clerk said, "We find that our $LINE line of dresses over there works really well with the Chanel perfume you just bought."

Do I have to explain why 1) people think it's creepy, and 2) why people think you don't have a right to do that?

[briandear]

If those women gave you permission to contact them, that’s how. If someone bought Chanel, you don’t have a right to that information unless they explicitly gave you that right.

[mertd]

What about the retailer that sold the perfume? They'll usually auto sign up the customer to their product emails and/or adapt their landing page to customer's interests (like Amazon).

[TeMPOraL]

> They'll usually auto sign up the customer to their product emails

Fortunately, at least in the EU that's illegal.

[tpxl]

Under GDPR this kind of self advertising falls under legitimate use of an email address, so if you inform the user you'll send them the emails, it's legal to do so without explicit opt-in. (AFAIK IANAL)

[guareber]

Get them to sign up to your mailing list and send them an email ad. Anything else should be off limits.