Philosophy discussion: online ads and the info that drives them

[Pessimism]

I can see the majority of Google's switch-footing on both censorship and net-neutrality as a natural response from not only the pressures of international business models, but from the pressures and methods of capital acquisition from the capitalist system itself. Frankly I don't think any company whose sole goal is to be a positive force in the world can exist for very long in such a system.

What I find really interesting is how many of the things people worry about (hosted information, parsing emails for data, etc) are labeled as non-essential. Initially, this was true, but there came a point where the model we lived in adapted and changed to the new technologies at hand, and when businesses picked up these nifty little extras, the whole of society began to become dependent on these technological perks. For some reason however, most people still treat these things as just perks/non-essential services.

As for the whole privacy issue... god what an awful can of worms. One the one hand your information is open to scanning by an impersonal algorithm that just wants to pick up keywords you use in order to shove advertisements in your face. On the other hand, there is no alternative to the worlds number one insecure method of communication that can never be made perfectly safe (you can always hack a fucking email, the coding is shit). I mean what the fuck?

What we now have is a standard communication/business model that can always be broken into, and yet we have no alternatives (nothing commercially viable that is). On top of it, this model is still thought of as inessential and impersonal to many, even though it is the means by which the world has become even more connected than before. Frankly there is no going back, and we desperately need a better coded system - until then the whole discussion about privacy is just a moot point (because there is no such thing right now).

 

[Zephyrus]

This doesn't really address what i brought up with my question. It's well within the realm of possibility that the U.S. government could one day invent some excuse for subpoenaing some(/most?/all?) of Google's data for "national security reasons", at which point Google's legal obligations (and how well they eventually manage to escape them) could be of great interest to many.

The thing about online communication is that, while it is essentially a voluntary activity, it's still an important part of all of our lives, and it would be much preferable to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in one's personal correspondences (i.e. email) rather than to live in constant paranoia of whose hands those correspondences could fall into.

All that has changed is the rate of data exchange and the democratization of data transfer. I cannot abide by an argument that says just because data exchange is more frequent, that it should be more protected.

You are making unnecessary value judgments.

I'm not assigning any values. I have no personal philosophy to justify the restriction or protection of information willfully publicized by rational animals such as human beings are. Since I'm on the side of not justifying regulation, it is not my burden to prove a negative.

The rapidity of data exchange in the modern day is new to our species, and we are handling it according to our nature as always.

Edit: Pessimism words it well. Privacy is a non-issue. Once it's on the internet, it's fair game as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Einherjar86]

If privacy is a non-issue, it's a non-issue that flaunts itself as some kind of liberal, democratic ideal.

Here's my take: the notions of "public" and "private" are ideological products of a language-game that plays into the human desire for narrative and interiority (the fact that people have private, secret lives). As social constructs, they're the results of a system that thrives on an illusory (I won't say artificial, because these binaries are very much present in our lives) dichotomy between security/surveillance and privacy; illusory because it creates the false notion that there is somehow inherent value to information that needs to be kept private.

That said, ethical implications are still important to consider; since we live in a capitalist society, after all, and money is endowed with intrinsic value that enables people to function in society, information such as social security numbers and bank accounts become materially valuable.

 

[MasterOLightning]

I actually work for a search engine now. I'll add more to this later, but I can say that the way search engines use your searches and emails in order to target advertisers isn't sinister. Those are just anonymous data points that help make the extremely valuable services being offered free.

If this loss of privacy is the social cost of having basically all the information in the world available instantly and for free, I think I'll deal with it.

The project I'm working on is pretty exciting actually. I'm working with a team to chart basically every (remotely sellable) search that's ever been made on the internet, categorizing it into a big tree of everything, and then using a long tail approach to sell an extremely high volume of very cheap ads on the fringes of the internet.

 

[Cronopio]

Here's my take: the notions of "public" and "private" are ideological products of a language-game that plays into the human desire for narrative and interiority (the fact that people have private, secret lives). As social constructs, they're the results of a system that thrives on an illusory (I won't say artificial, because these binaries are very much present in our lives) dichotomy between security/surveillance and privacy; illusory because it creates the false notion that there is somehow inherent value to information that needs to be kept private.

Could you be any more obvious in your smacking-us-over-the-head-with-your-education? I have a Certificate in Advanced English from Cambridge, and I still got a fucking headache reading your post.

 

[Zephyrus]

I think he hit the nail on the head epistemologically.

 

[Dak]

and money is endowed with intrinsic value

This is basically a contradictory statement.

 

[skeptik]

I understand what Einherjar was saying, although I don't find it particularly prudent to this discussion.

 

[Blind Guardian]

A term like "language-game" is very esoteric. You can't help but wonder if it is an established term within some certain science, or if you are supposed to take it for what it is in the context of Einherjar's text.

 

[Zephyrus]

He got it from Theodor Adorno.

 

[Pessimism]

"Language game" to me automatically points to the public vs private debate that Wittgenstein brought to the table. More than likely he might be referencing something from Zizek though.

 

[Einherjar86]

This is basically a contradictory statement.

Endowed with supposedly intrinsic value. Sorry.

Or, we could say, in a capitalist system money actually possesses intrinsic value (for all intents and purposes, it does). In order for it not to, we would have to step beyond the limitations of such a system.

I understand what Einherjar was saying, although I don't find it particularly prudent to this discussion.

I was sort of bouncing off Pessimism's post. The whole middle paragraph isn't that relevant; I was just expounding on the vague nature of "public" and "private."

He got it from Theodor Adorno.

"Language game" to me automatically points to the public vs private debate that Wittgenstein brought to the table. More than likely he might be referencing something from Zizek though.

I had Wittgenstein in mind when I used it. The text that I actually found most helpful in understanding the concept is Walter Benn Michaels' book The Shape of the Signifier. He uses it in the Wittgensteinian sense of ideological disagreement being replaced by simply speaking a different language (playing different "language-games"). I was trying to suggest that "public" and "private" are largely words instituted by a capitalist ideology/language-game.

 

[Dak]

Endowed with supposedly intrinsic value. Sorry.

Or, we could say, in a capitalist system money actually possesses intrinsic value (for all intents and purposes, it does). In order for it not to, we would have to step beyond the limitations of such a system.

The intrinsic value of paper currency is the measurement of the ink/paper(wood)/man hours used in it's making.

Society endows it with a completely arbitrary value which is entirely removed from its base properties.

What makes a 100$ bill any more valuable than a 1$ bill or than 100 in monopoly money? Certainly not any intrinsic value.

 

[Zephyrus]

Faith....which is something you seem to have in other things.

 

[Dak]

Well I am not attacking paper currency as money (although debt based fiat currency in a fractional reserve system is as bad as bad gets), just pointing out it only has an arbitrary ascribed value.

 

[Blind Guardian]

The intrinsic value of paper currency is the measurement of the ink/paper(wood)/man hours used in it's making.

Society endows it with a completely arbitrary value which is entirely removed from its base properties.

What makes a 100$ bill any more valuable than a 1$ bill or than 100 in monopoly money? Certainly not any intrinsic value.

To remove all ambiguity: in a certain period of human history, money was endowed with an arbitrary value, and that value has subsequently been intrinsic to money up until this day. I don't think you can find any logical fallacies there (except if you look at how specific kinds of money change in degree of value, but that's not the point).

 

[Dak]

Physical money (such as "precious metals") were denominated in weight. This was not arbitrary (edit: methods of denominating weight were arbitrary, but actual "heaviness" is not). As precious metals had inherent uses based on the level of technology, they were valuable for other purposes than just exchange value.

Commodities are generally worth what they are based on a societies need. Paper currency is worth what it is depending on how much faith the users have in the stability of the supporting power structure, and how much is in circulation.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I'll just find a place where the telescreen is slightly obscured by a wall from the place where I sit, then I can maybe take a few notes down on my day.

 

[Einherjar86]

The intrinsic value of paper currency is the measurement of the ink/paper(wood)/man hours used in it's making.

Society endows it with a completely arbitrary value which is entirely removed from its base properties.

What makes a 100$ bill any more valuable than a 1$ bill or than 100 in monopoly money? Certainly not any intrinsic value.

I agree with all this, Dak. I'm simply suggesting that in a capitalist system, money has to possess apparently intrinsic value in order to work. Thus, for all intents and purposes, it possesses intrinsic value. In actuality (objectivity removed from the constraints of any social system) of course it doesn't (a really poignant image relating to this is the scene in Philip K. Dick's Dr. Bloodmoney when Stuart McConchie goes around picking up monetary bills after a nuclear apocalypse, as though those are the items he should be collecting instead of food or supplies).

But all this aside, I was merely expanding on Pessimism's post about the vague definitions of terms such as public and private; because money is endowed with value, it becomes an item of privacy. People must keep their money close to their chest; the same goes for social security numbers, account statements, and, for some reason, non-economic things like gender, religion, and other facts.

I don't think it's information such as gender and religion that Google wants access to. We're concerned here with financial information (correct me if I'm wrong). A viral entity such as Google should have a duty (I think most of us would agree) to protect the information it secures. If the government demands that information from Google, it's Google's responsibility to withhold. After all, the government can just start adding new questions to the census if they really want more personal information in the name of national security.

EDIT: online ads seem to be something different. Websites track who visits them, and that information gets sent out so that other websites like Facebook can advertise according to a user's interests. This form of information sharing is interesting as well, and I have a friend who actually works for a company called Nielson (sp?) that handles the statistics on this sort of thing.