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by sjfidsfkds 1148 days ago
Measurement of conversions (ie. did somebody make a purchase after clicking the ad) is even more economically significant than targeting, and this is where ad publishers are most afraid of losing revenue due to privacy rules. The popular commentary on this subject is pretty detached from the business. The grandparent commenter’s “ban ad targeting” proposal manages to be both too extreme while also having little effect on data collection.
2 comments
falcolas 1148 days ago
> The popular commentary on this subject is pretty detached from the business.

That’s because personalized ads are hostile in the extreme and shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place. It pits millions of dollars of psychological manipulation against our “self control”.

I’d rather the economy burn than continue this unethical practice.

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sjfidsfkds 1148 days ago
My point is that only a fraction of user data collection is done for the purpose of ad targeting. So whether or not ad targeting should be banned for ethical reasons, such a ban is not a replacement for regulations of user data collection like those proposed in the article we are discussing here.
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bluGill 1148 days ago
What is wrong with the conversion estimates they used in the days of broadcast TV and radio? Or even newspapers?

For that matter conversion metrics are not useful because the real high value purchase are not see ad buy thing. They are more of see many ads for SUV, when current car gets 'old' buy SUV. Many years of advertising are used in that targeting, and you cannot easily measure conversion.

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digging 1148 days ago
> and you cannot easily measure conversion

Easily, no. But you can, at least in theory. With enough data, you can essentially tell if a customer has seen your ads, plus when and where (and not just your online ads - billboards and dealerships could be identified by using the customer's car to track their location). If they buy your car, and you see that they viewed your ads, maybe they even clicked one or otherwise browsed your site at some point, you can get some data from that. With enough aggregate data, you can begin to see correlations between certain ad viewing behavior and certain purchases.

Do they actually do this? Probably not, due to incompetence. But they could and eventually will if they aren't already.

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wnevets 1148 days ago
I believe Google is/was trying to do that using your credit card payment history.
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