Of course it isn't good. This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away. However, that's not going to be the outcome. Antitrust scrutiny in this case means making it more fair to third party advertisers...the people who will be hit most by third party cookie disabling. As much as we want to hate on Google, articles like this won't make them move toward more privacy.
You present a false dichotomy. "Google's Privacy Sandbox" versus Third Party Cookies, as if those are the only alternatives. Now you are following along with another false dichotomy!
> This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away.
Here's a crazy idea. We don't need either Google's monopoly preserving Privacy "Sandbox" or third party cookies... and we don't need to do away with web advertising. We're not in a black and white world.
Google can advertise on their home page and make money without all the crazy tracking bullshit. We know they can, because that's how they funded all the bullshit tracking.
I'll add a third option: neither! Seriously, I've had 3rd party cookies disabled four years and almost nothing breaks. The last time I remember needing to enable them was some online homework system that came with a math textbook.
I feel like there are some misunderstandings in this thread. Let me summarize my understanding:
Safari has effectively disabled third party cookies. Nothing broke. Chrome has announced that they will do the same in 2022. However, unlike Apple, Google doesn't want to cannibalize the ad industry so they decided to introduce this Privacy Sandbox which allows targeted advertising without sending a personal identifier to the server.
The article that we are discussing is saying that this Privacy Sandbox will favor Google Ads. The top comment said that this article is likely astroturfing. It written by people affiliated with other ad networks, whose goal is to water down the Privacy Sandbox proposal so that it enables more tracking.
Some people have said that they don't trust Google to implement Privacy Sandbox in a privacy friendly way, so it shouldn't exist at all. But that was never really on the table.
Fundamentally, Google—A company which has a history of over-reaching and lying about it—is implementing a solution which allows them to continue doing what Google does as best it can given the current atmosphere.
They could do what the other browser makers have done and just eliminate 3rd party cookies. They could make this feature opt in. The fact that people seem determined to assert Google must have this feature and we are all somehow better for it is absurd.
Edit: In retrospect there does seem to be a fundamental mis-understanding of sorts. If you fundamentally trust Google, I suppose this whole thing looks different with rose colored lenses on.
Actually, some things _did_ break and required wonky work-arounds (redirect through three top-level domains to set cookies so you can show the user a page composed from three different systems embedded widgets) and at some point we'll have to make it work better. But while Apple and company are aware of this use case they don't have a solution that can't be _also_ used by ad companies as well as integrators ... so it gets harder to integrate on the front end, unless you trust all the things being integrated implicitly (which you don't)
The issue here is excessively intrusive tracking, not the ads themselves.
Otherwise how are Youtube creators, newspapers, Firefox, etc going to operate with out it?
Companies adding multiple megabytes of JS tools is probably another issue entirely as they often involve a variety of crap like 2-3 ad publishers, content recommendation services (chum), 5 different analytics and automation tools from "marketing", regulatory compliance modals/monitoring, e-commerce tools. And all of this is before the regular JS stuff is added (CNN for ex: adds both jQuery, backbone.js, AND React). Those issues are solved by competent web teams and for certain market segments of mega-firms this likely wont go away any time soon, so the ad blocks (really JS blockers) will remain.
Just like "defund the police" is a stupid self-alienating stance to stake, so is expecting web ads to end.
I haven't see the stats on retargeting, but I wouldn't mind that goes (across 3rd-parties).
But I do see some value in demographic and behavioural ad targeting. If I have to see ads then I'd prefer they be targeted at me. I'm not sure what the solution here is but, outside of pseudo-anonymization.
Because at the end of the day all that matters privacy-wise is identity. I could feed an ad engine locally with my attributes without directly revealing identity, as is largely the case today. But even that is a tradeoff.
> Just like "defund the police" is a stupid self-alienating stance to stake, so is expecting web ads to end.
Don't go there, please. At the very least it reveals you don't understand what "defined the police" means, and at worst you're insulting those who are living in constant fear and daily trauma. There are better analogies to use.
I find attempts of forbidding discussions on certain topics because they are sensitive to specific classes of people offensive and dangerous to free thought and open discourse, two of the pillars of democracy.
Furthermore, I reject the claim that a significant number of people are living in constant fear and daily trauma in any western democracy. Such an extraordinary claim requires solid proof - statistical proof that people are suffering psychological and/or physical trauma.
And according to Wilfred Reilly it's actually happening: "In Los Angeles, similarly, the police budget was reduced by $150,000,000 “following calls to defund the police after George Floyd’s May 25 death.” By November 12th of the past year, these cuts had already resulted in the dissolution of the department’s entire Animal Cruelty Task Force, and more notably of the Sexual Assault/Special Victims unit “that investigated disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein."
Did you really think that such a clear statement supported by politicians and mass media will not have any effects in the real world?
> I find attempts of forbidding discussions on certain topics because they are sensitive to specific classes of people offensive and dangerous to free thought and open discourse, two of the pillars of democracy.
Note that the topic of this discussion is Internet advertising. I would love to hear your opinion on how comparing the Internet advertising industry to the struggle for racial justice is promoting free thought and open discourse. Actually, I wouldn't, because any such comparison is absurd and is not initiating the conversation in good faith.
> Furthermore, I reject the claim that a significant number of people are living in constant fear and daily trauma in any western democracy
Note that I made no such claim. I would, however, love to hear your experience as a BIPOC in America.
« The issue here is excessively intrusive tracking, not the ads themselves.»
I use privacy badger as an ad blocker, even though it does not target ads. It somehow block privacy intrusive domains, which happen to be related to ads.
> This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away.
Not go away. Just have their ability to invade privacy spayed and neutered. If it makes the industry smaller in aggregate, I'll take that as a beneficial side effect.
I’d think you’d find a broader consensus around “tracking must die” than “advertising must die”. Though advertising itself is often obnoxious and motivation for large-scale fraud.
Any evidence of that? Also, anti-advertising is not anti-business. And the good thing with a nightmare is that it disappears once you open your eyes and see what the reality actually is like.
> HN's anti-business consensus is a disturbing nightmare.
I see this tact in almost every thread about Google and Facebook. Right along with "HN (users) are against any advertising". This sort of ad-hominem approach to debate is non-constructive and frankly bullshit.
HN advertises. It's owned and operated by an actual profit making business. Nobody complains about that. People don't mind because fundamentally we know when we leave HackerNews, YCombinator isn't following us.
The consensus is largely not anti-business, it is against tracking.
If I'm anti-business, does that make you a Google shill? Let's try to talk about the topic and not the attitude of the people here.
> This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away.
Sure let's go back to the ol' day where business would reach out to their clientele only on bill boards and news papers. Oh wait, I guess I should apply for a physical newspaper subscription too!
If advertisers can't violate one's privacy, that simply means they will pay less to the websites one uses, and that will lead to its quality deteriorating, or even more extreme content filters to appease advertisers and remain afloat.
If advertisers can't violate one's privacy, that simply means they will pay less to the websites one uses..
Why? Businesses ad spend budgets aren't going to be reduced simply because ads no longer track people. The same amount of money will go to advertisers. So long as ad companies can deliver a better return than other forms of advertising that competes for those budgets the online ad companies will be fine.
Or, alternatively, they will spend more (input) to produce the same amount of leads (output)? Practically, their margins shrink while the websites maintain revenue.
To be clear, I'm not saying the above effect will definitely happen, only pointing out that other outcomes are possible. In practice it will be some combination of the two.
The amount of money one can sell an advert for to the advertiser is of course related to expected return value for the advertiser of that ad.
The value something provides is relative to other things you might buy instead. If I have an ad budget of $1m, and I can't spend it on targeted ads then I'm going to spend it on the next best thing - if that's non-targeted ads then websites will still get my $1m.
You strangely assume that the advertisement budget will remain constant in a world where advertisement is less effective.
The very reason that adverts are then worth less, is because advertisement budgets will go down, given that advertisements provide less return for their money.
You strangely assume that the advertisement budget will remain constant in a world where advertisement is less effective.
It's not an assumption. I've worked in web stuff, including a lot of ad-driven businesses and businesses that buy ads, for a little over two decades. If one technology is removed businesses will spend the money on a different one. They will never step back and say "Oh well, I guess we'll have to spend less on advertising now."
It's even reasonable to believe a reduction in the effectiveness of ads would get companies to spend more on adverts in order to maintain the same level of growth.
> They will never step back and say "Oh well, I guess we'll have to spend less on advertising now."
Of course they do, what weird assumption is this?
If we lived in a world where advertisement was twice as effective at generating new revenue, far more money would be spent on it; if we lived in a world where it did nothing, no money would be spent on it and companies would search for other means to get new customers than advertisement.
It is certainly not as though the advertisement budged that companies have simply be a number they cling to on religious principle, rather than a number they have decided upon based on their perceived value of advertisement.
There’s a close enough to fixed amount of money people have to spend. Advertising doesn’t make them spend more (or less) of their budget, it just trys to convince people to buy your widgets instead of mine. When I need a phone, or a pair of sneakers, or a bottle of vodka - I’m going to buy one. Your flashy ad may convince me to buy your brand, but it’s not like I’d choose to not buy anything just because nobody advertised it to me. That even works of discretionary spending and impulse buys - I have a limited “uncommitted budget”, so maybe your ads could convince me to buy a new set of golf clubs instead of taking a trip to Vegas, but it’s all the same money that gets spent.
Even if you fully believe that privacy invasive targeted advertising is “the most effective” advertising, if it goes away the second best form of advertising will then become “the most effective” and will eat the lions share of the advertising spend. Or perhaps the market will dictate that instead of “targeted ads”, the most effective strategy will be to split the old google/Facebook ad spend across a combination of older (or newer) ad forms.
Toyota still want to sell Corollas. TAG still want to sell watches. So long as there’s a form of advertising that’s better than not advertising at all, the aggregate of all competitive sales teams will work out how to soak up all my budget somehow. Something will still me the most effective advertising. They’ll still spend their money to get more of that.
(If it turns out to be billboards or movie product placements or something, that’ll suck for web people who’s only possible way to sell advertising is banner ads, but that’s a different argue,ent...)
You strangely assume that advertising overall budget is related to the effectiveness of advertising.
The reason non-privacy invasive advertising is worth less is that tracking is more effective, so it changes the balance. If tracking becomes less effective, advertising money is more likely to go elsewhere than disappear.
You're assuming people won't create great things without ad profit. I submit Open Source and Wikipedia as evidence to the contrary. Not making a profit on the original creative act might lead to larger profits for society overall and indirect advantages to the original creators.
And usually content created for profit is quite untrustworthy, I prefer content created out of passion. It's the ad based content creators who are lacking in diversity, not the passionate creators who go in deep the rabbit hole.
Also, there's nothing wrong with ads, but they need to be topical to the content at hand, not targeted to users.
> You're assuming people won't create great things without ad profit. I submit Open Source and Wikipedia as evidence to the contrary. Not making a profit on the original creative act might lead to larger profits for society overall and indirect advantages to the original creators.
Both examples you listed are products that are feasibly created by the many small contributors. Many products cannot feasibly be created in such a manner and rely on some manner of income to remain feasible.
There are quite a few content creators that are capable of producing content because their efforts are supported by advertisement. It would be hard for them to operate on the many small contributions-model.
> And usually content created for profit is quite untrustworthy, I prefer content created out of passion.
Few men enjoy the luxury to devote so much time to their passions when other parts of their time are allocated to securing the income they need to feed themselves.
> Also, there's nothing wrong with ads, but they need to be topical to the content at hand, not targeted to users.
This situation would indeed benefit the visitor more; it would not benefit the advertiser, nor the middleman, nor the space where the advertisement stands.
> securing the income they need to feed themselves.
I have a feeling that to some extent this part is made unnecessarily hard due to how the capitalistic economy insists on employing all available resources in “productive” pursuits of producing even more content...
Perhaps not “content” all the time. But surely a lot of resources are spent towards wasteful, if not directly anti-productive, ends. Trading those for more leisure time might very well be a boon for economy
Ad spend is not going down. Yet publisher revenue is stagnant or worse. Look at every media outlet scaling back and/or crying poverty. This is the gateway to most of the worst of the advertising ecosystem. Nobody WANTS sleazy/creepy/loud/excessive ads on their sites, because it's their brand being ran down in the end. But it's seen as the only way to keep their heads above water.
I suspect the real story here is the growth of the middlemen and platforms. In 1990, when you called up your local newspaper and ordered a quarter-page ad for $50, the publisher got every cent of it. Now, you buy $50 of PPC ads, it gets routed through several layers of cross-selling and arbitrage, and $5 is actually distributed to publishers.
I'm surprised nobody's built a mutually owned co-op ad network. That would allow the participants to recapture most of the value lost to third party intermediaries. With so much less revenue leakage, they could offer tamer adds that paid as well as the current 82 banners, full tracking, and a chumbox design.
I don’t want the web advertising industry to go away. It’s benign. If you don’t want advertisers to track you you have the option to default browse without cookies. Even better, default browse without cookies and JavaScript. Yes, I do this.
If you understand how cookies work then this is a perfectly viable option for you. If you don’t, you likely don’t care about advertisers tracking you.
Well I just think that if you aren’t aware you are being tracked, you probably don’t really care too much.
People who care they are being tracked will take the time to learn how stop being tracked. That’s why I learned about cookies etc.
I think this is probably a way for google to assert further control over the advertising industry, using the guise of improving user privacy. Like I said, most users don’t really care because if they did they would just disable cookies, so I think they are solving a problem no one is actually having and that seems suspicious.
Sort of like saying: "I hope no one is saying having a tracker in your car is worse than having a guy following you around."
Sure, it's better. But it's not good either.