News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive. Parent comment

Re:Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site le... by ptudan on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @02:22PM (#23314627)
Online advertising as a concept is fundamentally unethical? I think you're speaking in hyperbole here. Stealing user data without consent (or with fake here read this 500 pg legalise consent) is unethical for certain.

But a bike blog putting ads for bike saddles on the bottom of their page to pay for their server costs and writing staff? Hard to see how that's unethical unless you think selling anything is unethical.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site le... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @03:03PM (#23315152)
> Online advertising as a concept is fundamentally unethical?

No, I meant "online advertising as an industry". It's unethical to the extent that it depends on stealing user data, which presumably is the overwhelming majority of the industry by value (i.e., I'm assuming your privacy-respecting bike saddles ads don't account for even 1% of the industry's value).

[ Parent | on HN ]