72
submitted 9 months ago by esaru@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

For nearly two years now, Google has been gradually rolling out a feature to all Chrome users that analyzes their browsing history within the browser itself. This feature aims to replace third-party cookies and individual tracking by categorizing you into an interest category and sharing that category with advertisers. It's like having a function in your credit card account that evaluates your activities to pass on your spending habits to the advertising industry, so they can send you tailored ads. Ironically, it's called "Privacy Sandbox". To check if this is enabled in your Chrome or Chromium browser, simply enter chrome://settings/adPrivacy into the address bar (yes, the configuration page is called "Ad Privacy"). However, I wouldn't even want to have this built into my browser, no matter if activated or not. If you're not a fan of this, you might want to consider switching to Firefox.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

maybe the ads should be relevant to the content

Back in the old days, that used to be how it worked... but soon ad networks learned that showing ads "relevant to the user" had better click-through rates than showing ads "relevant to the content", with the content becoming only a data point to classify the user for the best ads that might sway them.

Soon after, advertisers caught on the trend, started blindly paying for ads targeted at user profiles, then ad networks stopped showing stats about whether content-targeted or user-targeted ads were getting better conversion rates, and everyone has been coasting on blind faith in "the algorithm" ever since.

this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
72 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37750 readers
251 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS