<story><title>Twitter confesses to more adtech leaks</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/07/twitter-fesses-up-to-more-adtech-leaks/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DarwinMailApp</author><text>So there are essentially remnants of our browsing history linked to our devices shared among numerous ad companies.&lt;p&gt;They then serve relevant ads for us all over the web depending on where they are being paid to display relevant ads.&lt;p&gt;Twitter is at it. We&amp;#x27;ve experienced the same behavior from Google &amp;amp; God knows Facebook is at it too.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve even had conversations where the only connection we had to the web was our locally running Alexa only to see ads relating to our specific conversation 10 minutes later on the web.&lt;p&gt;Can anybody think of a technological approach to flagging this behavior?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mruts</author><text>The difference between targeted ads and untargeted is like the difference between alpha and beta, or index funds and hedge funds. It’s not that a hedge fund doesn’t have better risk adjusted returns than an index (they usually do), it’s that the fees are so high it’s usually worse net of fees.&lt;p&gt;There was a study posted on hacker news that targeted ads have something like a 5% higher conversion rate than untargeted ones. The problem is that you end up paying 30% more compared to the commodity service. So unless the fees  go down or the efficacy goes up, it’s not worth it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter confesses to more adtech leaks</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/07/twitter-fesses-up-to-more-adtech-leaks/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DarwinMailApp</author><text>So there are essentially remnants of our browsing history linked to our devices shared among numerous ad companies.&lt;p&gt;They then serve relevant ads for us all over the web depending on where they are being paid to display relevant ads.&lt;p&gt;Twitter is at it. We&amp;#x27;ve experienced the same behavior from Google &amp;amp; God knows Facebook is at it too.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve even had conversations where the only connection we had to the web was our locally running Alexa only to see ads relating to our specific conversation 10 minutes later on the web.&lt;p&gt;Can anybody think of a technological approach to flagging this behavior?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skocznymroczny</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m confused. If this technology is so pervasive and supposedly efficient, why do I always get such terrible ads, completely irrelevant to my interests? Usually the only targeted ads I get are ads for products I was searching for to buy, but usually they show up after I bought the product, so, no, I am not going to buy a new fridge within few years anyway.</text></comment>