[jklinger410]

As someone who works in ads, this is a spot-on summation of the current state of tracking. And that's without getting into how machine learning can use seemingly unrelated data points to learn more about you than you could imagine.

At this point if you have even the most basic connections (US bank account, home owner, gps, insurance, a car) the more sophisticated tracking methods can still learn about you and reach you with a decent success rate. It's just that most companies are using crap ad tech.

[cycomanic]

So how do you morally justify your work? Do you think this work is valuable? I know I sound confrontational, but I'm seriously wondering about this. In particular because the HN crowd in general has been so highly critical of most adtech, but at the same time a significant portion of people here probably works on it or for one of the companies which are behind it.

[marketingtech]

There are many immoral players in the industry, but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising.

I help people discover products and services that they love.

I help thousands of business owners find more customers, so they can support their families and create jobs for others.

There's a lot of bad behavior from marketers and sketchy business owners, but I know the work that I'm personally doing has a tangible, positive impact on the lives of thousands of people.

[y4mi]

> but there's nothing inherently immoral about advertising.

That's debatable or at least strongly depends on your definition of advertising.

moral advertisment could in my opinion only tell a person about something when they actually need that thing.

For example telling the person what kind of options are available if a person needs to travel from x to y.

Any other form eventually ends right where we are right now, with with scientists and psychologists trying to figure out how to manipulate people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise.

[nawgz]

Isn't it basically known that FAANG pays the most because they have the most invasive & powerful adtech, and adtech is actually just a euphemism for outreach and control?

And I hate to say it, but they justify their work really easily: they get paid very well for it and someone else would if they didn't anyways

The real battles were fought and lost long ago in this domain, and the chances of success were never high. Power is an addiction and powerful people are the most addicted, they always have and always will aim to subjugate and control, to be a pawn of such a person is definitely sad but maybe worth the lofty goal of having true financial independence

[jklinger410]

I vote with my conscious, but I work for whoever will pay me the most money.

[chitowneats]

Does this mean that you would vote for a candidate who promised to impose meaningful regulations on your industry? Even if that meant harming a company you work for / may have equity in? Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation?

My question assumes you believe the work your industry is doing is unethical but that seems to be implied by your posts.

[jklinger410]

Absolutely. I'm not an owner and I don't have any equity.

[jklinger410]

> Is there some other solution to this tracking proliferation?

Not in capitalist countries. Serving someone an ad that is actually relevant to them is good business.

The government doesn't need web cookies to find you, they can just call your ISP or your phone carrier, or check surveillance cameras, ask your bank, so-on. No one from these private companies has the time to look at the data, you are just a number to them.

Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense. You are just being profiled, as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to.

Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go, if that kind of thing scares you. But the ads you see online are going to suck.

[fungiblecog]

> But the ads you see online are going to suck.

Even with all the profiling the ads still suck.

It amazes me how little insight all this profiling actually gives advertisers. Sure they advertise stuff to me that I'm already searching for, but advertising is supposed to be about brining in new customers. Not advertising a product to me after I've already decided what I want, searched for it, and bought it (or decided I don't want it).

I get ads for weeks after that are a complete waste of the advertiser's money, LOL. I don't think I've EVER bought something online that I didn't know I wanted until I saw an ad...

[xahrepap]

> Even with all the profiling the ads still suck.

It seems silly to me as well. But when it comes down to it, they serve the ads that pay the most, right? So perhaps all the fancy machine learning and all the other garbage is just a way to say to their customers, "Hey, advertise with us, look at all this fancy stuff!"

and then someone comes along and says, "hey, we'll pay more than any other relevant ad..." and POOF. All of it doesn't matter anymore. At the end of the day, it's about getting the dimes in the right pockets.

[soraminazuki]

> The government doesn't need web cookies to find you

Yet the government collects[1] them [2] in[3] bulk[4].

> Though it might feel like it, you aren't being spied on in any meaningful sense.

Not[5] true[6]. There are real harms done.

> Paid services that don't sell your data are the way to go

It's hard for paid services to compete with free ones, so they're incentivized to sell your data anyways.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism...

[2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...

[3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/12/11/googl...

[4]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/25/tech-su...

[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/catholic-priest-...

[6]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sel...

[jklinger410]

It's possible for someone to buy public data and match that with their first party data from your account on their service in order to anonymize you. But it's unlikely. This same tactic was used in Afghanistan to find terrorists.

My point being most people aren't being hunted by anyone in particular like the US Government or the Catholic Church. It's expensive to set up these honeypot apps, and to buy this data, and spend the time to de-anonymize it. Frankly that church story is kind of insane.

Your second example is not really relevant IMO.

[Nextgrid]

> as a tax to use all of the free services you have access to.

The problem is that the current economics make it more profitable to operate an ad-supported product than a paid product.

Regulation that would make ads less profitable would allow paid products to actually compete on price.

[chitowneats]

Ah, so you don't find it unethical. Makes sense then you have no qualms accepting your paycheck.

For the record, "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry. Unless you consider anything beyond absolute libertarianism to be "not capitalist". I find these semantic arguments often confuse the issue at hand.

I would love to pay for services that don't track me. You mentioned in another comment it's becoming hard to own a car, have a bank account, insurance, without tracking being baked in. I'm interested in ways we can work to change this. I don't subscribe to your belief that there is no solution, or that the level of tracking involved in the status quo is not "meaningful".

[jklinger410]

I am personally very jaded with the United States' version of capitalism and regulation. This is a country with for-profit healthcare who also run ads. To say the least.

Your voting record, vehicle ownership, and household income, depending on what state you live in, are sold by your state government itself! We have a long way to go when it comes to ethical capitalism in the United States. Too far, actually.

[wahnfrieden]

> "capitalist" countries can and do regulate businesses. Those that are democracies do so based on the general interest of the citizenry

You have a strong reading of the level of citizen constituency at play in these neoliberal corporate welfare states

[fortyseven]

Yeah, that's uh... "cool".

[jklinger410]

Not everyone can just "choose" what field they want to be in. If I got to choose what I did every day, I'd be a writer or a musician. No ethical concerns there.

[chitowneats]

You don't have to work in ads or tracking technologies. Unless you are quite junior and needed to accept whoever was willing to take you. But based on your knowledge of the industry it seems you've spent quite a bit of time there.

[dkersten]

Most people who work for eg google s engineers have plenty of other decent paying options, especially right now. Sure, not everyone diodes, but most do.

[freen]

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/0/3357/files/20...

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Note theres a difference between advertising and surveillance. "Adtech" proponents are likely to conflate the two since adtech relies on surveillance.

[OJFord]

Not GP, don't work in ads (actually I think my former colleagues probably think I left because our role pivoted that way) but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc.

It certainly doesn't particularly interest me - maybe there are interesting problems if your big on ML - but I wouldn't turn down the best offer I had just because it was in adtech and I wish it didn't exist to go to anyone.

[tablespoon]

> but I'm of the view that 'if I don't someone else will', and so in a way I'd rather learn more about it, maybe be the inside voice to say No this is way too far etc.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I once read a rather convincing article that made the case that's the exact attitude the allows immoral things to happen, especially at scale. Basically "participate, but try to change it from the inside" pretty much simplifies into just "participate." You give them your talent, and either your attempts at change fail or are so small to be pointless (e.g. winning the fight to not pack Jews in so tightly in the boxcars that are still going to the concentration camp).

[OJFord]

I'm not saying I'd be actively trying to blow things up from inside, my job wouldn't last long, and my whole point was that I'm not an activist about it: someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer).

In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'.

[tablespoon]

> someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me (if I don't have a better offer).

And maybe that person is worse at it than you, or without you they don't have enough people with the right skills to succeed.

> In your horrible analogy, I suppose what I mean is something like (but come on, not remotely close to!) 'why are we burning books and looting art, this is terrible, oh well someone else will if not me, and hey, I like art', but then 'you want to do a holocaust?! No, that is absurdly too far, whistle blow'.

Fat lot of good whistle-blowing would do in that example.

There's also the aspect where the last step was too far for you, but you helped take every step before that which enabled that last step to be taken without you.

If your attitude is "someone's getting paid for it and it may as well be me," you probably should just drop idea that you could change things from the inside, since it amounts to a BS rationalization to take the money.

[DrBazza]

Since I've been "reassured" that we're not being listened to by smart speakers, I can only assume that familial links i.e. the 'facebook graph', are also exploited by ad companies now as well.

Anec-data: visiting the in-laws in a different part of the country, so my device and location is 'known' to have geographically moved by tracking, they searched for garages and glazing. We return home, and every advert is for garages and glazing.

[jahewson]

That’s most likely because your device used their wifi and ended up behind their nat using the same ip as them. The anonymous tracking cookie ids on your device get associated with searches from that ip. (i.e. “cookie 1234 is in-market for glazing”) and you take those cookies back home with you. This is actually a massive failure because you’re not likely to purchase glazing at all.

[Nextgrid]

I'm not sure it's a failure. You could argue that showing him ads for glazing could be beneficial in case he spots a good deal and decides to talk to them about it.

Now I don't think the ad network is that smart and explicitly intended for this, but presumably in aggregate they're seeing better results by merging targeting buckets by IP than not, so they continue doing it.

[deeblering4]

What reassurances have you had about not being listened to?

I keep cam/mic access switched off a lot for this reason, and I've only seen generic denials/refusals that it is or could happen but nothing concrete, much like the pre-snowden outlook towards internet surveillance.

[_jal]

If someone wants to convince me FB, et al are doing this, they can show me packet traces of audio being uploaded for analysis, or in the alternative (if the theory is on-phone analysis) resource consumption data from the phone doing it.

There's been so much discussion of this theory that we'd have seen one of those by now. I have zero love for the surveillance shops, but there's just no real evidence this happens.

[fouric]

Resource consumption for low-accuracy voice transcription is trivial - think in the single-digit milliwatt range[1] for custom hardware. It would also be really easy to hide the resulting small amount of textual data in routine communications with the service's server.

You can't rule out audio transcription on the technical basis that "it's too hard" alone, because it's not too hard.

(for Google, that is - Facebook is constrained by the Android sandbox, but Google has their opaque Google Play services blob on almost every Android phone)

That's obviously not a reason to believe that it does exist - we'd only know that if a Google whistleblower stepped forward, or if someone reverse-engineered Play Services - but we can't rule it out on a technical basis alone.

[1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/sls/publications/2018/Price_IEE...

[not2b]

Better to focus on the things that we have evidence that they are doing (and there is plenty of abusive behavior we know about) than to speculate about unlikely attack angles and say "we can't rule it out" (proving a negative is nearly impossible). Working that way just leads to focus on the wrong threats.

[Y_Y]

I'd be satisfied with a "beyond a reasonable doubt"-type argument. Somebody pre-registers some hypotheses, like "I've never thought about beanie babies in my life, but I'm going to talk about them in front of my phone. I expect I'll start seeing ads for them at a noticably higher rate then before.". Such an experiment wouldn't be difficult to conduct, but I've never heard of it being done methodically, only noticed after the fact.

I'd be very pleased to see it done though. Complications will certainly arise, so N should be large, and there should be several independent replications.

Maybe it's overly cynical, but this also makes me think of the Volkswagen emissions kerfuffle. Would it be so surprising if the ad software was sophisticated enough to know when it was being tested, and try to play dumb?

[brightball]

My wife and I did this. We don’t watch pro baseball at all and we live in the southeast. Had a 10 minute conversation about the Cincinnati Reds and within a few minutes we were seeing MLB ads on Facebook.

I don’t know how they are doing it…but it happens.

[justapassenger]

> What reassurances have you had about not being listened to?

I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible. And no one showed anything even reassembling any form of breadcrumb pointing towards it, not even a proof.

[fouric]

> I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible.

This gets repeatedly asserted, and it's false. Low-accuracy voice transcription is a solved problem, and is relatively easy to hide, as long as you have API access[1]. (so, Facebook is probably in the clear, as neither Apple nor Google are crazy enough to let them have invisible microphone access, but it would be relatively easy for Google (Play Services hook anyone?))

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27142812

[justapassenger]

I'm very well aware that low accuracy voice transcription is possible.

But it's naive thinking that having an algorithm equals solving a technical problem. That's not even the problem. Problem is how to deploy it, at scale, without anyone leaking it (both employees and vendors). And hiding it so well, that none of the security researchers will be able to find it. And doing all of that in a way, that they can use it and get value out of it.

And then compare risks of doing with risks and ROI of, for example, improving search accuracy, so people will just come and tell you more about stuff they want.

[umeshunni]

Have you considered that they might be tracking your thoughts and speech through microchips they implanted in your during your Covid vaccination? /s

[alpha_squared]

> It's just that most companies are using crap ad tech.

Including Facebook, apparently. About 90% of Instagram ads were irrelevant to me for about two years. Then I mentioned an interest in photography in a private conversation, now 75% of ads are photography-related.

[mitchitized]

I once let my then 13yo borrow my laptop to do some research as he wanted to start experimenting with modded minecraft. I sat next to him while he researched minecraft plugins - no opportunity for him to hit some cough other websites, it was totally legit browsing session. Let's just say the advertising bubbles that Google rammed me into literally forced me to install adblockers just to make my web browsing experiences SFW again (also saw a huge spike in hostile ads with malware, and suspect it was too drastic and immediate a change to be mere coincidence).

Saying "crap ad tech" is giving way, way too much credit to ad tech. I'd argue current ad tech IS crap, because the overall methodology and approach is fundamentally crap.

[KingMachiavelli]

Might not be that strange. The Minecraft plugins community is the perfect group to trick into installing malware. There are shaders and extensions that are hosted on very shady website and people just act like it is no big deal.

[Nextgrid]

A teenager searching for video game plugins is the perfect target for all kinds of scams - it is absolutely not strange, the system is working as intended within the constraints it's given. Change the constraints by introducing regulation (such as advertising networks being liable for the ads they display) and the problem will go away.

[Nextgrid]

The methodology is not completely crap. The role of the ad network is to get paid to display an ad. They aren't incentivised to ensure the ad is actually relevant - as long as they find some sucker to pay them to display the ad, they'll happily display it. Whether the mark then "converts" is not their problem.

The problem is that the entire advertising industry is crap and has successfully contaminated and taken over the tech industry. The only way out is regulation so that 1) advertisers are liable for what they display (to discourage scam or illegal ads - and in some countries NSFW content would fall into this category as you're supposed to ask or verify the user's age) and 2) privacy regulations that make targeted advertising opt-in so that overall the cost of advertising becomes too great and starts allowing alternative monetization models (such as actually asking the user to pay for the service) to compete.

[justapassenger]

Let's apply occam's razor.

What's more likely?

1. You mentioned thousands of other things in your private conversations. They suddenly start to narrow down on one specific one. 2. You're interested in photography, and are using service made to share photos. You follow photography accounts/search on the internet for photography related content, this signal got picked up, you clicked on some ad (by mistake most likely), and signal got amplified.

[alpha_squared]

To address your breakdown:

1. I distinctly hadn't mentioned photography in private or public messages. Ever. Nor had I tagged any of my camera equipment in any of my posts. Hard to believe, I know, but I created and manage the account with explicit intent and action, preferring to move personal conversations off-platform.

2. I don't follow photographers, and prefer to only follow certain friends. While I don't go to that great an extent of concealing my browsing history, I also make some effort to segregate information flow. Plus, the low-hanging fruit of Firefox + DuckDuckGo + uBlock usually does a decent job of helping with that.

3. In the two years I've had an account, I hadn't seen a single photography-related ad prior to the conversation on photography. Ads typically revolved around random tech products (many of which were irrelevant) and ads for TikTok (zero interest in it).

4. There was a dramatic shift in the content of ads within 24 hours of the conversation on photography. It's conservative to estimate 75% of ads are photo-related. I have a hard time remembering any other ad (a sign of their irrelevancy, in my opinion).

5. Given the demographics of this site, I'd appreciate (for myself and others) if you'd give at least a little bit of benefit of doubt on technical comprehension.

[drdebug]

If you are interested, you should know that it's possible to not be seeing any ads at all on a computer (phones are a different beast). It's a bit of a chore but it takes 3 things: firefox with ublock origin + noscript + delete cookies and history on exit. I haven't seen ads in years. You can go a step further and create startup profiles. It's a bit chore because you have to selectively allow domains for content to display (reader mode can help), but that's the price to pay to minimize tracking and remove annoying ads.

[alpha_squared]

Thanks! I rarely see ads on desktop because I use Firefox + ublock + Pi Hole. I do, unfortunately, have to whitelist the occasional domain because some sites that I need to access don't play well with that setup.

[kindle-dev]

What’s more likely? A service that vacuums up every piece of data vacuuming up microphone data, or the same service intentionally excluding this one random piece of data? Every time this comes up, people jump up and say “they’re definitely not listening!” But why do people think that? Facebook gathers as much data as possible, including buying a VPN to inspect supposedly private traffic. Why wouldn’t they listen to a microphone? As an anecdote, I know someone who worked on smart TVs. Part of what they implemented was a system to turn on the tv’s microphone to get an audio fingerprint of the content being watched.

[phkahler]

Yeah, I swear they are listening. But if you think about ALL avenues including the people around you then maybe not. But yeah there are still cases where audio monitoring seems to be the only explanation.

[NoGravitas]

> As someone who works in ads

Perhaps you should consider a career change?

[jklinger410]

I think anyone who works at an ad agency can tell you that they think about a career change all the time.

[gibs0ns]

Either ethical or otherwise, what are some not-crap ad tech companies, that sell their services?

[lilsoso]

So this means privacy on the internet is now gone?

Can you recommend methods to avoid the tracking?

[jklinger410]

This is a bit old, but to answer your question.

You need a pi-hole hooked to your open source router that runs traffic through a VPN. You need to use cash or stay at a credit union that doesn't sell your information (if anyone has found one of these please let me know).

You need to not use a cell phone and stay off of most social media.

You need to not utilize credit. You need to use single-use email addresses for everything you sign up for, and furthermore to trust the system you use to create those addresses.

You need to use an OS like TAILS or QUBES and never stay logged in to any platform, reject all optional cookies and flush non-optional ones. There are going to be services that won't let you operate this way.

You need to get stuff shipped to a PO Box. You somehow need to stay out of the healthcare system.

There are some stuff that's out of my expertise like having a good lawyer to make sure records of your activity are expunged and that you are aggressively wiping your credit score if anything does pop up.

A good way to achieve some of this would be to found an LLC and buy your house and car through it instead of your personal name.

It also would be a good idea to live somewhere where you can obstruct wifi and cell signals from your house without getting into a bunch of trouble, and make sure your guests simply don't bring their devices into your home.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"At this point if you have even the most basic connections (US bank account, home owner, gps, insurance, a car) the more sophisticated tracking methods can still learn about you and reach you with a decent success rate."

Lots of younger people do not have all of the above. If everyone had all the above, then the statment would not contain "if", it would be a given. But lets assume every living person can be "learned about" and "reached". That does not necessarily mean every person is worth learning about or reaching. This sounds very much like a person with a heap of surveillance data trying to make it sound valuable.

"It's just that most companies are using crap ad tech."

As an unwise HN commenter once said, "The market has spoken." :)

"... and reach you with a decent success rate."

How effective is "decent".

Why should I pay for this.

No doubt people are working hard trying to improve surveillance and are making progress against users who havent a clue whats going on, nor any interest in getting one. Kudos for the easy victory. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

But whats the point in trying to surveil someone like Mr Peguero. Hes not hiding his identity or location, or his preferences (Silicon Valley is garbage).

If "adtech" surveillance succeeds against someone blocking Google IPs, then what. Whats the end game.

Anyone who is willing to take the time to block Big Tech with a firewall is, IMHO, unlikely to be a very profitable ad target.

Advertisers should only care about people who are likely to spend money on their products/services. However people conducting blanket surveillance trying to pitch to advertisers ("adtech"), they are the ones who have an interest in arguing, honestly or dishonestly, that every last "identified" individual is a worthy ad target. If I am an advertiser, I am not going to be particularly interested in trying to advertise online to someone who is running OpenBSD or blocking Google IPs with nftables.

Individuals like the OP are proactively saying, "No, thank you." (The OP is actually saying "FU".)

Personally I find its quite easy to control/limit/stop data transfer initiated by websites/popular_browsers using a forward proxy. And I can use AI, too.

However I think blocking 8.8.8.8 and other Google IPs at the firewall is also good practice, not necessarily to stop ads/tracking by websites but to limit the users resources available to Google. Given their incentives and the fact we as users do not pay them like advertisers do, I think its naive to trust Google's employees will, for example, always honour the system DNS settings.

Unrelated but its possible that many OpenWRT users using default settings are actually pinging 8.8.8.8

https://github.com/openwrt/packages/blob/master/net/mwan3/fi...

[jklinger410]

Do you have a car registered with the state, a debit card, and a cell phone? A credit score perhaps?

Do you run every single connection to the internet through a VPN service that keeps no records? Do you use TAILS or Qubes OS? Do you actually own your router?

It's a leaky boat.