• dan@upvote.au
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Their whole business models are to gather as much as possible to sell.

    I wish people would stop repeating this, since that’s not how any of this works. It’s a common misconception that way too many people believe to be true. Logically it doesn’t make sense - having data that other companies don’t have is what makes the company valuable, so why would they sell that? Google would just buy Facebook’s data and vice versa, and then neither of them would have a competitive advantage.

    Data is used for ad targeting. Advertisers specify the audience to show their ads to, and Google/FB/etc deliver the ads to the specified audience. The advertisers never actually see the data, nor do they see the exact users that saw their ad.

    • michikade@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      How do you think Meta and other similar companies attract advertisers? They sell ad space to them with the ability to highly target ads to their users.

      That’s what I mean by sell - they are literally letting advertisers buy ads to target to all of the people who they’ve gotten information about that would most likely click on and convert to buyers. Non-targeted ads are significantly less valuable from an advertising standpoint because if they don’t apply to you, you’re more likely to ignore it and the advertiser is getting less money back on their ad purchase investment.

      • dan@upvote.au
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        They sell ad space to them with the ability to highly target ads to their users.

        Yes, but that’s different to directly selling the data, which is why gets said (or implied) a lot.

    • forrgott@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      They are focused on the immediate profit, not long term; no publicly traded corporation focuses on long term, not anymore. If it increases their bottom line to sell my data, they will.

      What they have that’s unique is their particular algorithm for targeting. They don’t need to keep my info to themselves to profit off said algorithm.

      In short, I don’t believe you. shrug Nothing personal…

      • Tangent5280@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        But if they sell the data, then isn’t their ads delivery system less effective and therefore less valuable? If two people have the same data sets, they can undercut each other when selling it/access to it. Makes more business sense to hold onto the data, and just sell ad delivery to businesses that want to show ads to the users that that data is about.

      • dan@upvote.au
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        If it increases their bottom line to sell my data, they will.

        It doesn’t though, since the data (having unique targeting attributes that otter ad networks don’t have) is what makes the company valuable.

        What they have that’s unique is their particular algorithm for targeting. They don’t need to keep my info to themselves to profit off said algorithm.

        Targeting is mostly about having good data. The algorithms are all based on having the data. If other companies have the same data, they’d be able to use it in similar ways.