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                Microtargeted Ads Abuse Your Privacy for Nothing

   Adam Engst

   Privacy is a huge topic in today's world, and justifiably so. The worst
   part is that many of the companies abusing our privacy are doing so
   with the goal of enabling ever more targeted ads. The claim is, of
   course, that those targeted ads perform so much better that they're
   worth both the extra cost to the advertiser and the ill-defined cost of
   living in such a society. But is that even true?

   [1]A Wired article by Gilad Edelman about former Google employee Tim
   Hwang's forthcoming book, [2]Subprime Attention Crisis, suggests not,
   citing a study that showed that ad platforms targeting Australian men
   between the ages of 25 and 44 performed worse than random guessing.
   Another researcher says that it's common for platforms and media
   agencies to credit ads for purchases that consumers would have made
   anyway. It's bad enough that we're losing our privacy to advertisers;
   it's even worse that it's not even effective. Not that this should be
   that much of a surprise. Have you ever thought, 'Wow! This highly
   targeted ad has just convinced me to purchase this product that I
   totally wasn't planning to buy otherwise.'

   Hwang has plenty of other criticisms of digital advertising, pointing
   out that many ads load out of sight and are thus never seen, that ad
   blockers eliminate billions of dollars of potential revenue, and that
   the combination of poor placement and systemic click fraud resulted in
   over 50% of all display ad dollars being lost. The larger issue for
   Hwang is what happens when it's discovered that the ad industry is
   wearing no clothes, given that Google, Facebook, and Amazon play such
   an outsized role in the total value of the US stock market.

   [3]Read original article

References

   Visible links
   1. https://www.wired.com/story/ad-tech-could-be-the-next-internet-bubble/
   2. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374538654/?tag=tidbitselectro00
   3. https://www.wired.com/story/ad-tech-could-be-the-next-internet-bubble/

   Hidden links:
   4. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2020/10/Subprime-Attention-Crisis.jpg

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