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Why Web 2.0 Will End Your Privacy
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jun 05, 2006 02:59 PM
from the hot-local-girls-want-to-meet-you dept.
from the hot-local-girls-want-to-meet-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This is a pretty good insight into some of the dangers of social networking and website customisation -- marketing and loss of privacy. When marketeers know who your friends are and what you are all into, it makes their advertising a lot more effective. From the article: "Why are the companies worth so much money? Why is MySpace worth over half a billion dollars without a proper revenue model? Why is Digg allegedly pitched at over $20m (at the last count) without any idea of where money is going to be pulled from? The answer is - data. Information. Marketing. Every detail about you and me. That is where the money is."
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Cheeky... (Score:5, Funny)
Meeeoooowwwww!
IANAJ, but (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not a journalist, but how do these guys get their credentials? Wil forwards an interesting thesis about the advent of loss of privacy as more people jump on the internet, but he forwards this under the aegis of Web 2.0.
Give Wil credit, he actually tries to define Web 2.0, but it's probably the 10th definition I've seen. (For the record, my definition more typically aligns with the advent of more desktop-like and agile web/browser applications that start to look and feel like desktop.)
However, I don't see the increased loss of privacy correlated much at all to Web 2.0, unless you just consider that, over time, people have less privacy, and that, over time, Web 2.0 continues to evolve (whatever that means). For example, Wil cites: "The one thing the Web 2.0 sites have in common is that they are furiously mining information about you and your buddies. What you like." Again, this has little to do with Web 2.0. That "Web 2.0" is the current buzzword is the only relationship to increased data-mining. Data-mining has been available, happening, and increasing in the internet domain for years.
I think privacy has changed and evolved as a result of increased communications networks... Web 2.0 has little to do with that and is only a small part of it. As databases get larger, networks get faster, data-mining gets smarter, computer processors get faster, an end result is there is more data than ever about more people than ever in more places than ever.
Whether that results in loss of privacy is an interesting debate, but in my opinion not an assumption/axiom. For example, the more data out there, the more it becomes environmental noise. Interesting perhaps at first, and maybe for longer to specially interested parties, but something we will adapt to. (As an aside, I do think there's a learning curve for young people and their interaction on sites like MySpace, they need to learn not to put voluntarily so much personal information out there as to make themselves vulnerable to predators, a lesson I think they're learning.
Another result I find useful is that I get much more directly targeted advertising than ever before. It's nice now, no more tampax fliers in my mailbox, but it's handy to know Staples has a new SD 1G card available for my camera at less than $100.
Re:IANAJ, but (Score:4, Funny)
You apparently forget where you are. On Slashdot, advertising of any kind is considered the worst oppression since the holocaust... Uh Oh... Godwin :(
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Let's take it by the numbers: (Score:5, Funny)
Paragraph #1: MySpace, Digg, Flickr
#2: One sentence stating what he believes. Then a lead in to
#3: A "definition". No explanation that was promised in #2.
#4: Back to Digg (see #1).
#5: Back to MySpace (see #1).
#6: Google has ads.
#7: Back to MySpace, again (see #5 & #1)
#8: Why does he belive that Gmail is anything near Outlook in functionality?
#9: Yeah, "neat". Whatever.
#10: Websites don't make money. Welcome to 1999. Don't forget to party.
#11: Companies pay lots of money for popular websites
#12: YouTube. See #11 and #10.
#13: Back to the top of the page. Again, they don't make money. 1999.
#14: Why do companies want to pay so much money for websites that aren't making money? It's like it's 1999 all over again.
#15: The companies paying the money want data.
#16: Even he sees that it's 1999.
#17: Well, it is 1999. But he'll call it "Web 2.0".
#18: All those companies are compiling data on the the people who post pictures of their cats.
#19: Yahoo! knows nothing about me except the news groups I subscribe to through them.
#20: Companies will pay lots of money for "data" on "individuals" and "groups". Even if the "data" is "OMG!!1 U R A QT!!! UR cat is funee"
#21: Web 2.0 has a "bubble" and it will burst. Yeah, whatever.
#22: Free photo hosting.
That's all there is. Toss in "Web 2.0" and name some popular sites and then claim that "privacy" is going away.
Well, "privacy" does not really exist on the 'web and what you did have is vanishing
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It's good to be behind the times? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's good to be behind the times? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:It's good to be behind the times? (Score:4, Insightful)
All joking aside, I also don't "get" the social networking sites, and I avoid them. My blog is sufficient for my friends and family and follow my various goings-on. At the risk of sounding like a snob, I guess I don't see the point of hanging out in chat rooms and social networking sites when there's a ton of people all over the place you could be actually meeting and hanging out with. Then again, I met my wife through the personals, mostly because I rarely find the kind of women I'm interested in at your typical thirtysomething watering hole. I suppose in the end people want a safe and largely anonymous way to say, "hey, here's who I am," and hope to God that people like them. Dunno. I smell a senior thesis in all of this somewhere.
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Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Say it ain't so!!!
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
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How much of it is *real* data? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that myspace is a cesspool, but everyone my age has one. I'll give you a hint: They aren't in their mid thirties earning 250k+ a year.
No matter how much data you have, if it isn't true it;s worthless.
Re:How much of it is *real* data? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that myspace is a cesspool, but everyone my age has one. I'll give you a hint: They aren't in their mid thirties earning 250k+ a year.
No matter how much data you have, if it isn't true it;s worthless.
You seem to be stuck in some type of positivist thinking (at least you're not capitalizing the word 'true'); and possibly not all that familiar, actually, with data mining techniques. It would, perhaps, be a better statement to say that 'No matter how much data you have, if it isn't precise, it's worthless.' Precise, inaccurate, skewed data can reveal all sorts of patterns and relationships. Take, for instance, a scale that measures weight which is off by 10lbs. The data it tells you is not 'true', but you can certainly use it to measure if you've gained or lost weight.
Similarly, it doesn't matter at all if people use fake names, fake addresses, or whatever. If teenagers consistently enter in fake data to these websites after midnight, while 30 somethings enter fake data during working hours, you can quite reasonably conclude that the teenager demographic has different sleeping patterns than the 30 something crowd.
And lets not forget all of the statistical and mathematical tools you can use to filter out noise. From chi-square tests and standard deviations to fourier transforms and gaussian analysis... there are an endless supply of tools to filter out noise. (interesting philosophical question: is 'noise' considered true or false?)
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that's easy (Score:5, Insightful)
> is MySpace worth over half a billion dollars
> without a proper revenue model?
Because nobody learned a damn thing from the dot-bomb.
Enough with the web 2.0 nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
The internet doesn't have a version number, get over it people.
Is effective advertising even bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is effective advertising even bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
He and I are both car junkies so he had a clever response. "If, when you saw ads, they were things like new products for your specific car, would you be as mad at them? I mean, if someone makes a new 9lb flywheel for your engine, and we show you that ad, will it be upsetting?"
I had to concede - no. I currently spend my time trying to find what I want when it comes to go-fast parts for my cars.
If I only ever saw ads for performance car parts for cars that I own, deals on new anime releases, and accessories for canon EOS cameras, i'd probably really enjoy advertising.
My naive hope is that eventually, spam-style ads will go away due to market forces. People with legitimate products will understand that more effective ad techniques exist, and shit-peddlers will be marginalized, much luck the current crop of spammers have been.
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It's a bit funny (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have matured and realize you really don't NEED that SUV, or Sony laptop to have a high quality daily life, then targetted marketing won't matter. But if you're letting your 10 year old play on the Internet, you should really wonder what Mattel and Disney/ABC knows about your child by now.
The thesis is wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
The thesis that advertising becomes "more effective" is without evidence. Advertisers might hope it is more effective, but historically, it's only proven to be more annoying (both by being more plentiful, and by making hopelessly silly demographic conclusions). I'm guessing that this sort of targeted advertising will go over like Jalapeno-flavored toilet paper.
Just destroy advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
It's wrong to attach this issue exclusively to the technology called Web 2.0; whatever that term really means anyway - but that's another rant.
The picture is much broader than that, the assault on our privacy is being conducted on many fronts and motivated by the same desire: To waste less money on marketing.
Someone once said: "I know I'm wasting half my money on advertising. The problem is that I don't know which half that is"
The Internet, it seems, is providing a solution to this conundrum. Suddenly, advertisers have the ability to only pay for advertising only when someone responds the advertising. This makes such adverts far more valuable than something that isn't interactive like a billboard or TV advertisement.
But this is just the beginning. In the next few years, we will see the development of schemes where you pay for advertising only when you make a direct sale off the back of it. The scheme will track you from the moment you click, to the moment you get the confirmation e-mail. The problem with this is that in order to audit it properly you need to link that click through to a real person. And there-in lies the privacy problem.
The solution to this problem is fairly easy: Just block all the advertising. People, like the owners of Slashdot might decry this solution because sites such as theirs might not be able to survive without this revenue. I put my money where my mouth was. I like Slashdot so I paid for it directly.Imagine how much higher the standard of Slashdot would be if all it's revenues came from subscribes. Suddenly, quality matters much more than page views. Remember, it took Digg to motivate Slashdot to change, because its cash cow was the advertsing and Digg was starting to threaten that. If we took out this source of revenue, the quality of the web would surely increase.
Only the people who make lucid enough points to attract paying subscribers would be able to sustain a high traffic site. As a result, natural selection would weed out the trash and reward the good. A future without advertising is a future where the user comes first.
Simon.
No loss of my privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as if you clear your cookies every time you're done surfing the marketers will always treat you as a new visitor even if you visit every day. In other words, the sites statistics are skewed and will burn money because of inflated figures.
Yeah sure, most people don't care about privacy. Witness the reaction to people when you tell them that their phone messages might be recorded by the government or that the police can search their home without a warrant; "I have nothing to hide so what's the big deal?"
Yet, amazingly, people are paranoid about identity theft. Um folks, just how do you think some of you lost your identity? Naw, it couldn't have been that long winded, detailed bio you posted on MySpace now could it? You know, the one where you posted your first and last name, your hometown, what school you went/go to, where you hang out and all the other useless cruft that people just have to know about you.
While the author does have a point, data mining is the new wave in online transactions, if people don't participate the advertisers will just be burning money for little reward.
Kind of like commercials. I don't watch/listen/read them so the money that is spent to get me to buy a product or service is wasted.
Don't want to lose your privacy? Don't participate in things that could affect you in that way. It's that simple.
Advertising != Evil, Just Bad Advertising Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one, am really looking forward to "better" advertising. Advertising isn't a bad thing, it can be an informative help to find the projects/services I'm looking for. It's shitty advertising that just fires shotgun marketing in the dark hoping for a hit that sucks. I've actually clicked on a number of Google advertisements when searching for products/services, because they were relevant to what I was looking for and I wanted more information.
It's the huge pop-over, pop-under, flashy, sound making (grraah!) advertisements trying to sell a 24 year old college student home owners insurance or pull me into a pyramid scheme that are the bane of internet existance. (yes, I use firefox, flashblock, etc to lower my exposure, but still.)
If the information that I have voluntarily made public on social networks leads to advertisements for things that I'm actually interested in or even actively searching, I'm all for it. As long as I'm making all the information public myself, I'm not involuntarily losing any privacy either.
It's kind of a bummer, I think, that all the horrible advertising through time has created so many people that just knee-jerk hate the stuff. Maybe in time with relevent advertisements they could turn that around so that they seem useful instead of annoying.
Not just marketers (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that these online communities work because of personal information: dynamically connecting people with similar interest and opinions is what Web 2.0 is all about (inasmuch as a buzzword can be "all about" something). If we can't trust that the information and content we put online can't be used against us, then Web 2.0 will eventually fail, once enough people get burned.
FUD (Score:5, Informative)
Do "Web 2.0" sites give marketers more information about users? Yes.
Is this an invasion of your privacy? Absolutely not.
You are WILLINGLY entering this data into these sites and if you read their privacy policies they clearly state how it will be used. Don't want to share this info about yourself? Don't use the site. There is no invasion going on here. They are not hiding spy cameras in your room watching what you do on the computer.
Also, better targeted advertising != more advertising. Unfortunately, what happens is that many of these Web 2.0 sites rely on advertising revenue for their business model, thus why sites with large subscriber bases are worth a lot.
Lots of eyeballs = $$$$
So the owners of the sites then realize, "hmmm...I can make more money if I put more ads on the site!" and thus you have ad creep. However advertising that is more narrowly targeted is actually a good thing. Unless you have adblockers running, you WILL see ads on the internet, and rather than bitch and moan about how you want nothing to do with those sites that are being advertised, ads that are more highly targeted will have a better chance of showing something relevant to you that you might actually appreciate an ad for.
And for those of you who claim advertising is useless and it never affects you....you are liars. Period. Next time you make ANY purchase, take a moment to think back to the last time you saw an ad for that product. If you can remember seeing an ad for it, then you were subconsciously influenced by that ad (even if it was by a tiny amount) and your brand awareness increased when you saw the ad. This isn't something that is debateable, it is a logical fact.
Bottom line? If you don't want advertisers to show you more relevant ads, don't use Web 2.0 sites that collect and share this data. If you don't want more ads install an adblocker or blame the owners of the sites whose business models rely on advertising and thus fall victim to ad creep.
The answer is "wrong question"... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you buy a bottle of milk in a supermarket, you diminish your privacy by letting the retailer know, that you need a bottle of milk. When you hire a maid to clean up your flat, you let her know a lot about your dirty laundry (literally and otherwise). And when you buy a book at a bookstore (or a video), the proprietor could offer you another one on your next visit (like Amazon does).
That's how it all begins — computers, WEB-2.0, and other technological advances simply enable us to trade even more privacy for convenience.
When the choice is volunteer, that's perfectly Ok. At least, MySpace and others don't force you to reveal your real name on the site. If the solicitations get too much, all you need is to do is close the account. Government-imposed things, however, are much worse. EZ-Pass — increasingly mandated at toll plazas — is not anonymous at all.
Sadly, nobody seems to care... The worst a marketeer can do to you is spam. Government has much bigger abuse potential.
Re:Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, that can be edited anonymously, without ads. So few are interested in buying it at an insane price.
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