Alex Balgavy

Just some stuff about me.

Here's my dotfiles repository.

Check out my blog.

My keys: PGP, SSH

My crypto wallets (BTC, XMR)

To Save the News, We Must Ban Surveillance Advertising

To Save the News, We Must Ban Surveillance Advertising

Commercial surveillance is a three-step process:

  1. Track: A person uses technology, and that technology quietly collects

information about who they are and what they do. Most critically, trackers gather online behavioral information, like app interactions and browsing history. This information is shared with ad tech companies and data brokers.

  1. Profile: Ad tech companies and data brokers that receive

this information try to link it to what they already know about the user in question. These observers draw inferences about their target: what they like, what kind of person they are (including demographics like age and gender), and what they might be interested in buying, attending, or voting for.

  1. Target: Ad tech companies use the profiles they’ve

assembled, or obtained from data brokers, to target advertisements. Through websites, apps, TVs, and social media, advertisers use data to show tailored messages to particular people, types of people, or groups.

Getting rid of surveillance ads doesn’t mean getting rid of ads altogether.

they’ll have to return to contextual ads. A contextual ad is targeted based on the context in which it appears: what article it appears alongside of, or which publication. Rather than following users around to target them with ads contextual advertisers seek out content that is relevant to their messages, and place ads alongside that content.