Re: [projectvrm] AI and personal data piece on Mashable

[Doc Searls < >]

On Sep 16, 2014, at 4:12 PM, StJohn Deakins 
<
 >
 wrote:

> Hi Don, as it's a quote from me, I'll answer :) 
> 
> The current digital Ad ecosystem is very messy - the most advanced it gets 
> is retargeting us (spamming).   Meanwhile advertisers waste billions on ads 
> that are badly targeted or badly placed. The audit trail is pretty much 
> non-existent (so bizarrely, Ghostery help block ads and make money from 
> marketers who pay for the audit info - i.e. where the ad would have 
> appeared if hadn't been blocked).

I can't begin to count the number of companies I know that want to do Good 
Things (and to some degree do those Things), but still make their money 
selling data to the ad business. Ghostery, for example.

> Meanwhile, we all get crappy ads - which 120m+ of us block with adblockers 
> - killing the open web model of free and ubiquitous access to most content 
> and services.

I don't think it's killing a damn thing. First, people running ad blockers 
for the most part are not ad clickers anyway. Second, the most popular ad 
blocker, AdBlock Plus, white-labels "acceptable" (mostly brand) advertising, 
by default: it's opt-out. <https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads> Third, 
the open Web was invented without advertising, and has no business model. 
Fourth, I doubt "most content and services" are advertising supported. Google 
search, Facebook and click-bait news sites are ad supported. But straight-up 
e-commerce is not. Wikipedia is not. Academic and government sites are not.  
What's more, a lot of sites supported by advertising might do better with the 
non-creepy sort than they do with the current mix of creepy and non-creepy. 
That's the case Don Marti has been making. Here's his latest: 
<http://zgp.org/~dmarti/business/fresh-start/>.

What's the difference? Okay, here's one whack at it...

Google placing an ad for fly fishing advertisers next to results for a fly 
fishing search is not creepy. Google placing an ad for fly fishing on some 
other site right after I searched for fly fishing is creepy. (BTW, I don't 
even know if Google does that. Hmm... Yep, looks like they do, at least they 
support it: <http://googleretargeting.com>.) 

> And worse still, our personal data gets harvested and exploited for profit 
> without our consent.  
> 
> This obviously needs to be fixed.  

Yep.

> For me, "100% effective" will be when "ads" disappear and are replaced with 
> useful, contextual information - on our terms.

Forgive me, but that still sounds like personalized advertising — especially 
if companies wanting to sell us something pay for it. Maybe you can clarify 
that a bit.

Doc

> VRM is part of this solution.
> 
> StJ


> 
> citizenme
> 
> StJohn Deakins
> email: 
> 
 
>   mobile: +44 7500 802020
> skype: stjohndeakins  twitter: @stjohndeakins / @ctznme
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Marti 
> [mailto:
 ]
>  
> Sent: 16 September 2014 15:25
> To: John Havens
> Cc: ProjectVRM list
> Subject: Re: [projectvrm] AI and personal data piece on Mashable
> 
> begin John Havens quotation of Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 07:48:39AM -0400:
> 
>> Wrote a piece for Mashable about AI and the need for more control of 
>> personal data. FYI:
>> 
>> http://mashable.com/2014/09/16/artificial-intelligence-failure/
> 
> What is "100% effective" advertising?
> 
>  "I just bought a Toyota Highlander."
> 
>  "A what?  Is that a car or something?"
> 
> ...
> 
>  "I've been watching TV for four hours, here comes
>  the one commercial break.  Hope it's not for a new
>  fridge, that compressor has been sounding funny for
>  a while.  Whew, toilet paper."
> 
> ...
> 
>  "A beer ad, that's funny, I don't even....mmmmm,
>  beer."
> 
> -- 
> Don Marti                    
> http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
> 
 
> 
> 
>