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0 pointsjustapassenger5y ago0 comments

>Adtech giants need advertisers to believe they need targeted advertising, because targeted advertising relies on mass data collection only they are capable of getting. If people realized the necessity of using Google and Facebook's mass user data was... a complete lie... any old ad firm could compete with their businesses.

Targeted advertising is as old as advertising. Why do you have cloud companies advertising on the billboards in San Francisco, but not in Beatty, Nevada? Why do you have coupons? Why Cosmopolitan has different ads than Linux Format? Why NBA games have different ads than The Bachelor?

Why do companies spend more and more money with companies that do provide better targeted advertising? Do you really believe that P&G spends billions of dollars on advertising, without understanding which forms of it are effective?

There's a valid discussion to be had about scope, allowed sophistication of targeted advertising that should be allowed, and regulations about it, but claiming it doesn't work just shows lack understanding of the topic.

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ocdtrekkie5y ago

> Why do you have cloud companies advertising on the billboards in San Francisco, but not in Beatty, Nevada?

To be fair, I think I should specify "user-targeted" advertising. Targeting by content/placement location isn't privacy-invading by nature. :)

justapassengerOP5y ago

Targeting by placement and location are just proxy for user targeted ads, due to lack of better abilities. Gives you very broad targeting criteria - like San Francisco is likely to have people interested in cloud. Cosmopolitan is likely to have middle age women readers, etc. User-targeted advertising gives you much higher granularity, which makes ads campaigns more effective for advertisers.

Is privacy invading targeted advertising a concern and something that needs more debate? Yes. Can it be creepy and cause harm in some cases? Yes. Should world be driven by advertisers ROI? No. Are user-targeted ads ineffective? Hell no.

But also, just because something is concerning and bad for some aspects of the life (like privacy), it doesn't mean it should be wiped out of the floor, as cheaper and effective advertising does help to grow any capitalist economy. Trade-offs are needed (same as we don't ban oil, even tho it's bad for environment), and it'll become more regulated (either self-regulated by industry, or by governments), but it's not going to disappear.

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