Re:Privacy Badger is a free browser extension made by EFF to...
by whatshisface on Sunday September 28, 2025 @02:47PM
(#45406811)
There seems like there would be a pretty simple fix for this: first, collect statistics relating demographics to websites. This can be done in an anonymized way. Next, publish this research and use Bayes' theorem to invert the relationship for serving ads.
Re:Privacy Badger is a free browser extension made by EFF to...
by rafram on Monday September 29, 2025 @08:14PM
(#45420464)
Boss, it seems our audience is made up of 51% female 38.7-year-olds who live in Daviess County, Indiana. Let’s get our best team on this. We need to figure out what they’ll be interested in buying!
Advertisers have an idea who they want to sell to but they don't know their browsing habits.
The ad industry collects data about you to see whether you are like the person particular advertisers want to sell to and what sites you visit. With this information it can display ads relevant to you on the sites you visit.
You propose that ads shown should be conditioned just on the content of a website, but you are missing out on the fact that the content on any one website alone is a poor proxy for the type of customer that the advertiser is targeting.