There are a number of good threads already in the forum which discuss this online advertising:
- Humane advertising - ethical and mutual-beneficial: It is possible !
- A Bigger, Greedier Dog: Greed may be a solution to move towards Humane Technology
- “Tech and advertising are not evil.” - thoughts?
What can we do about a system which absolutely relies on invading people’s privacy? Any surveillance-based tech, not just advertising, must be dishonest and purvey that false sense of security. Nobody is saying, “we spy on people’s most private moments, and distribute your private life to anyone who’s willing to pay”. But that is what the industry is all about. How could advertisers possibly acknowledge this?
Very well said. But how can an industry which spies on people be reformed? I was thinking, it probably can’t. And if you think I’m pessimistic, just look at the present. While there are reforms to things like web browsers, overall do we see people enjoying more or less privacy? I see less and less privacy.
That’s why I think the system needs an overhaul. And a big one. There’s a huge opportunity for the next big technology to be systems which are built with privacy at the core. A new operating system could easily crush Android, because given the choice users would choose their own privacy.
Both the world’s most popular operating system and most poplar web browser are actually funded by spying on the people that use them. Both Android and Chrome were created specifically for this purpose, as surveillance systems first and what users think they are for second. Google spent billions on these, not out of generosity but out of the interest of spying on people and also to prevent people from even having the choice of privacy with Google in full control to shape the system to their advantage. As we know both operating systems and browsers are what enable this espionage in the first place. And these systems are built in a way that firstly gives Google as well as often Baidu (Chinese branded phones and even Samsung phones) a access to seeing everything we do, not to mention uncountable other companies, governments, criminals and more who all look in as well.
On to recreating online ads. I guess the way to do it would be for people to have completely secure, untraceable devices and internet connections, and then to spy on themselves! If people were to collect information about themselves, they could keep this information on their devices in a secure area and use it to request the most appropriate ads for themselves. In this system, all personal information and data from espionage would never leave that person’s own device.
Also another idea I had is that all ads impressions should be recorded in an open public database, including who is paying for the ad (the final payer, plus all intermediaries), the ad content, the page URL, the user location and time. This would cause advertisers to manually review all ads, have higher quality ads and would prevent many problems with scams and manipulation.
The best outcome is that people will be able to enjoy ad-supported services for free, no matter the ability or desire to pay, however at the cost of more and more spying on people, and also ever increasing distribution of personal information about us, our actions and of our secrets. We are already at the point where most things people do online are distributed to thousands of parties, to anyone willing to pay, and it is only getting worse.
I don’t see any possible solution except to stop all espionage at the user device / operating system / software level, which would require an recreation of all systems. In addition people would need to use proxies or some kind of system that jumbles their online activity with other people in order to stop espionage.
I’m sure this new system is a great business opportunity for anyone who wants to start the next tech unicorn with the main product: privacy. People with money would choose privacy over the current mess if they had a choice, and eventually advertisers and publishers (app and web) would be forced to accept the new private system in order to gain access to people with money.