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Mozilla Welcomes Anonym: Privacy Preserving Digital Advertising (blog.mozilla.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The whole point of targeted advertising is that you get to bid on people you want. You want a old fat guy in Oklahoma? Done You want to advertise gambling apps to people who have a history of gambling? Done.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

That's certainly true from Google's or Meta's perspective, but it wasn't always that way.

I get ads in my mailbox that are completely irrelevant to me, like Medicare ads (probably for the previous owner). As a kid, I watched lots of ads on TV that definitely weren't applicable to me (e.g. cutco knives, when I wasn't old enough to use a knife). I see billboards on my way to work for debt relief (not in any debt, aside from mortgage) and addiction recovery (no addictions here). Companies pay quite a bit for those ads even if they won't be relevant for most people because of the sheer reach of those ads.

I'm proposing a middleground. Ad companies don't get as accurate of targeting for ads, but in exchange they get seen by people who would otherwise block them.