this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Google Pulls the Plug: The End of Third-Party Cookies and What it Means | TWiT.TV (twit.tv)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by redfox@infosec.pub to c/technology@lemmy.world
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This episode of Security Now covered Google's plan to deprecate third party cookies and the reaction from advertising organizations and websites.

The articles and the opinions of the show hosts are that it may have negative or unintended consequences as rather than relying on Google's proposed ad selection scheme being run on the client side (hiding information from the advertiser), instead they are demanding first party information from the sites regarding their user's identification.

The article predicts that rather than privacy increasing, a majority of websites may demand user registration so they can collect personal details and force user consent to provide that data to advertisers.

What's your opinion of website advertising, privacy, and data collection?

  • Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?
  • What's all the fuss about, you don't care?
  • Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?
  • Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?
  • Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?
  • Is this no different from using any other technology platform that's free (If it's free, you're the product)?
  • Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?
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[–] orclev@lemmy.world 168 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

Yes, I already do. I don't visit Instagram because you need to login to view posts.

What's all the fuss about, you don't care?

I definitely care.

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support "free" content, although personally in many cases I prefer to pay a subscription to support content rather than being subjected to ads.

Really though this is kind of a red herring because it's predisposing that violating your privacy and collecting personal information is a prerequisite to serving ads. It's required for individually targeted ads, yes, but they don't need to traget ads to the individual, they could target the ad by site or the contents of the page hosting the ad.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

I would not visit any site that sold my details to an advertiser.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

Yes, this is very bad.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that's free (If it's free, you're the product)?

There's a reason I don't use most "social media" sites.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from a privacy invasive practices of the past?

Yes, or find a different revenue model that doesn't invade people's privacy.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 85 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support "free" content

I understand the need for ads, but having lived through popups, bonzi buddy, and "punch the monkey", advertisers blew any chance of me not using an ad-blocker.

[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ads don’t bother me as much as their invasiveness. I block ads because…

  1. if a business is dirty enough to resort to interference with popups to get attention, I’m not spending money there. Period.
  2. I don’t want to support mass surveillance perpetrated by the industry.

Give me simple tech ads on tech sites, grocery ads on store fronts, travel ads on travel articles, etc.

[–] ard@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

i would be fine with a 5 second brand mention, like "this youtube video is paid for by SoapTM", quietly. And I'd probably think "thanks." But it's like they're trying to overtake the content. Like you can't enjoy your show because they're worried you're not thinking about their brand for the largest possible % of time.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE WON A FREE APPLE IPOD! as it wakes up half the neighborhood.

[–] Maven@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support “free” content, although personally in many cases I prefer to pay a subscription to support content rather than being subjected to ads.

On the other hand, not everyone can afford a subscription, so offering a both ad-supported and paid-for options is ideal, imo. Well, at least as ideal as it gets in a "grind your hustle or you'll starve" economy.

[–] orclev@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, having a free ad supported option and a paid ad-free option is best, although I would say only if the ad supported option isn't using individually targeted ads. You should be able to see the content with ads without needing to login or provide personal data.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Plus all of those subscription transactions have individual costs. 3% just to the credit card companies alone. We either need to actually make low-cost microtransactions an actual thing - no Bitcoin is not that thing - or we need to publicly subsidize artists for the sake of art.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

yall have no cheap/free bank transfers? is that some american problem i'm too european to understand?

[–] Steve@communick.news 3 points 9 months ago

Yes, exactly.

[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 9 months ago

Yes, or find a different revenue model that doesn’t invade people’s privacy

Agreed. The business model is unsustainable, and toxic. As much as I hate paywalls, it's better than the alternative.

Nobody could seriously believe that the viability of journalism should be dependent on the public's malleability and willingness to buy McDonalds burgers. And yet that's the status quo, more or less.

[–] redfox@infosec.pub 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I would also like to avoid ads, and pay streaming services rather than cable or anything with ads. Oddly, this hasn't been the case for any online news sites. The Indy Star is begging and pay walling for subscribers and for some reason, I don't want to. But I don't want ads. I admit it's unreasonable to have neither. They need to pay people like anyone else.

[–] orclev@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think it boils down to the difference in how we consume these things. You typically go directly to a streaming service with the intent to browse and consume its content, but few people directly consume news sites. More often you'll either end up on a particular site from a web search or from a link from an existing content aggregator like facebook, reddit, or lemmy. Since you don't seek out a particular news platform for regular consumption you feel less inclined to pay an ongoing subscription.

That does raise an interesting idea to me though. What if instead of a normal month to month subscription a news service offered a pre-paid per article account. So, say 25 cents an article say and you can purchase 40 articles for $10, then each article you view deducts from your account. When you get low on remaining articles it can prompt you to top up your account or you can have it auto-renew. Personally I think I'd be far more inclined to something like that because the cost would scale based on how much I actually used the service rather than being an ongoing monthly cost for something I use very sporadically.

[–] redfox@infosec.pub 3 points 9 months ago

This is great problem solving and a creative idea. I would support this concept for sure. I mentioned in another reply how I keep resisting paying a local news agency a subscription, mostly because of what you said. Frequency.

[–] Osa-Eris-Xero512@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This is why I wish those micropayment systems took off. I would be happy to pay 20 bucks a month for 'ad free' browsing if most of it actually supported the creators of the content i'm accessing.

10x their cpm is still fractions of a cent for me as a user on a per page view basis, there's space for winning here if one of the big ~~tech~~ ad companies gets behind it and pushes.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago

Micropayments would scale at a ridiculous rate like microtransactions in games have, so your $20 example would be at least $200 in reality by now.

[–] Zozano@lemy.lol 3 points 9 months ago

*presupposing

(Predisposed means you're more susceptible to something, normally used in medical contexts)

[–] ard@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

i can't comprehend how both the advertiser and the platform agree that ruining the content is even good for either the advertiser or the platform.

[–] nevernevermore@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

I use imginn, nitter and redlib to view Instagram, x and reddit info, respectively. I refuse to engage with any of them using a login or having to turn off my VPN.