In defense of personalized ads (and the free internet)
hashcollision.substack.com
In the last 4 years, it has been trendy for journalists, academics, and some policymakers to criticize personalized digital ads. Recent vehement attacks against digital ads include: Surveillance Capitalism: “[H]ow global tech companies such as Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our privacy for the sake of convenience; how personal information (“data”) gathered by these companies has been used by others not only to predict our behavior but also to influence and modify it; and how this has had disastrous consequences for democracy and freedom.” When asked to name specific harms, authors like Zuboff (who for years lived off-grid in rural Maine, and then lost all her physical possessions to a fire) give a complete wordcel rant about “privacy; dystopia; control; monopoly; manipulation; intrusion; exploitation; democracy; misinformation; fear; freedom; power; rebellion; slavery; resistance.” (
In defense of personalized ads (and the free internet)
In defense of personalized ads (and the free…
In defense of personalized ads (and the free internet)
In the last 4 years, it has been trendy for journalists, academics, and some policymakers to criticize personalized digital ads. Recent vehement attacks against digital ads include: Surveillance Capitalism: “[H]ow global tech companies such as Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our privacy for the sake of convenience; how personal information (“data”) gathered by these companies has been used by others not only to predict our behavior but also to influence and modify it; and how this has had disastrous consequences for democracy and freedom.” When asked to name specific harms, authors like Zuboff (who for years lived off-grid in rural Maine, and then lost all her physical possessions to a fire) give a complete wordcel rant about “privacy; dystopia; control; monopoly; manipulation; intrusion; exploitation; democracy; misinformation; fear; freedom; power; rebellion; slavery; resistance.” (