Does anyone know where to find more info on the surveilance economy online? I was looking for an update on the unfortunate Debora Silvestri who crashed so badly yesterday, and of course, was met with "We value your privacy" banner where I could consent to giving away… something?

The Privacy Policy talks about two cookies - both Google Analytics, and two partners for gaining "audience insights". The actual cookie pop-up list 1.709 (!) so-called "partners", many with "legitimate interest". Basically all these are companies nobody has ever heard of.

I know I'm leaking info like IP-address, browser and device details. What I can't understand is how all these 1.709 little leeches can possibly deliver enough value and generate revenue based on this information. Who pays them, and for what?

Thanks!

#advertisements #surveillance #cookies

@airwhale My gut tells me most of these are in fact stand-ins for large adtech companies like Meta and Google.

@buherator

Yeah, might be… still, the economic model eludes me.

Of course, if these are just few-person companies, running mainly automated operations, it's a possibility that the sheer number of "partners" is just a smoke-screen to distract from the fact they are all owned by Google or Meta.

@airwhale I still don't get how the market of "telling people about things" can be more profitable than the market for "things" (G and Meta being the largest companies in the world) in the first place.

@buherator @airwhale

Because no one wants to pay for any digital products any more. Take email: how many people do you know that pay for it? I'm the odd one in my circle of friends...

WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,.... Pay with your data, yay!

And you're right that a lot are letterbox companies (in my opinion) who do shady stuff. I once got spam via letter and GDPR'ed my way through it. I hit a dead end at: daughter marketing company sold my data but got closed already by mother company, so no one could tell me where my data came from or where they sold it to. I reported them to the authorities and no one cared. We have GDPR but it's not enforced or controlled. It's a joke.

@13reak @airwhale Oh GDPR avoidance is a great reason to operate like this!

I think we are talking about different things re: company revenues: as I understand these companies use data to do marketing - this can be translated to money, sure. But how is it possible that these marketing companies work with finances comparable to e.g. Exxon?

Ultimatly the US government pay’s for it with printed money. It’s a race to co-opt the internet / Epstein everyone.
Buy Bitcoin, defund the totalitarian state

@buherator @airwhale

Data rules the world? I mean if one can use data to manipulate votes (which we already have seen), Exxon etc likely use it to manipulate people into buying their stuff somehow?

Was that what you meant?

(I mean I agree with you that it's surprising but somehow I can imagine shady companies doing shady market manipulation)

@13reak @airwhale Yes, this is what I mean.

You are right that these are extremely powerful tools, still I feel like most customers (by count, not invoices) are just burning their money on adtech, because that's what everybody does, while you don't have to be Nassim Taleb to see that the numbers justifying the spend are rigged.

@buherator @13reak

We’re pretty far into online ad-markets by now, so hopefully companies spending money with the adtech companies do see returns that can justify the cost.

However, in the case of a news outlet, the tracking installed by them also need to generate a steady payout FROM the same adtech ”partners” right?

This all seems like a mostly invisible part of the economy, but the constant growth do indicate that real money is flowing. I often wonder how significant this revenue stream is, as it comes at zero cost to the news outlet. They are simply selling their visitor’s data, because we ”accept”.

@airwhale @13reak

"companies spending money with the adtech companies do see returns" - Not necessarily, as measuring conversion rates is not easy. If you see that without G your visits plummet (as measured by G) you go back to G. Recommended:

https://thecorrespondent.com/125/the-non-sense-of-online-advertising-when-the-numbers-dont-add-up

I'm not familiar with news specifically, but I assume they don't partner with advertisers directly, but through an ad network, which is in the end owned by Meta or G, who can ~arbitrarily set their prices/payouts?

@buherator @airwhale

Great article! Thanks!

@buherator @13reak

I did like the term ”adtech mafia” 😁

Well done of them to keep the scam going for so long, but a sad state of affairs overall.

(The article was from 2019 I believe, but probably still relevant and mostly correct today.)

@airwhale @13reak Ironically, the publisher went out of business shortly after this article (and its follow-up) came out because the no-ads, optional subscription model didn't work out for them...

@airwhale Your screenshot includes Adforms, so I looked them up: their ”legitimate interest” is based on their right to conduct a business (within the boundaries of the law). Effectively a declaration that they will do anything and everything to make money, right up to the very boundaries of the law, ethics be damned.

And this is one of the more serious actors. They have been around for a while. Now imagine the rest of them.

@airwhale They make it a point to state that their tech is accurate enough that they can show you different ads in a predefined sequence - yet NOT accurate enough that they can comply with a Right To Be Informed request. Clearly a violation of what the GDPR intended, yet (apparently) just about enough that they can get away with it.

Same principle should apply to of the other ”Legitimate Interest” claims. All fake, IMO, but nobody has slapped them hard enough yet.

@airwhale Obviously, their original ”Legitimate Interest” claim doesn’t hold up, because those claims must be weighed against the subject’s relationship to their organisation, the subject’s fundamental rights, …

I don’t have any relationship with a Danish adserving company. The rest is just legalese bullshit. But of course, they will keep claiming that they do have an interest because otherwise they would be forced out of business. Which - in my opinion - they should.

End of rant 😅

@gufo

Yeah, another of the companies in the list was based in Adelaide, Australia, so no prior relationship there, for sure. (Exactly like every other company on the list…)

I have been fighting adtech since we added doubleclick.com to our hosts-file and redirected to localhost, so I am in a good position myself, but less technical users must have a horrible time online.

@airwhale
(Footnote: I used to work in that sector, long before GDPR, so I do have some insight in how they operate. Possibly very outdated.)