Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

This reads like a tragic story. Once you've collected enough data on every internet user out there to group them into different advertising cohorts, the remaining ungrouped users, by process of elimination (due to privacy or targeted advertising laws), are children; and now they can be targeted just as easily.

> “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.”

Useful would be a chronology of when:

* Individuals learned/knew about the rule violations.

* Individuals were arguably rewarded.

* Individuals were disciplined.

That might give a sense of how bad the infection is, and whether their immune system is on top of it.

So this was about ads for Instagram on YouTube, targeting people under 18?

I am surprised that this is something that has to be kept secret. What is the main problem with it?

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

– Banksy

If the executives figure out a way to actually guarantee no ads targeting children, Mr Beast will be crushed.

Wait... Nintendo and Disney targets children, including those too young to know what Ads are.

Why are these different ethics?

(They are not, both of those companies have created literal fanatics by adulthood. Even I cannot avoid beating each Zelda game despite not enjoying a single Zelda game since WW)

  The Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, these people said. Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised.
   The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based on demographics. It also has policies against the circumvention of its own guidelines, or “proxy targeting”.
  …However, Google did not deny using the “unknown” loophole, adding: “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.”

Yup, those crafty sales reps orchestrated a multimillion dollar agreement between a chief competitor. While also adapting the code to find the gaps and target the desired under 18s.

Market data science is tragically fascinating. It's a superpower, capable of being used for eithger good or bad.

Funnily enough, this is one case where contextual advertising would actually work better than what we have now.

With contextual advertising, you could very easily target children with very specific interests and/or in specific age groups by targeting the ads at the videos they most often watch.

unpaywalled: https://archive.ph/20240808040427/https://www.ft.com/content...

Works where archive.ph is blocked:

https://on.ft.com/3WyKE85

When I was a child, the conspiracy theory among kids was that Coca-Cola inserted subliminal ads by interlacing a can of Coke within TV series or movies. I cannot believe reality surpasses all those fantasies without scrutiny.

Even political propaganda between left and right wings, 1984, and other similar scenarios sound like satire.

"We're sorry."

This is not surprising. Google has a history violating the privacy of and targetting ads to not only teenagers, but children:

- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/youtube-ads-kids...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/business/media/youtube-ki...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/media/google-you...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/technology/youtube-google...

When will governments wake up and put a stop to this? Their inaction is simply a sign of complicity. Absolutely disgraceful and criminal behavior.

Everyone working at these companies: you're partly to blame, whether you're directly involved or not. Reconsider the behavior you're supporting, and quit.

I think that nowadays industry flavored joke of “you either die a hero or live long enough to become…” should end with Google/Meta.

What a dirtbags.

Since I got kids I realized how they are the weakest link in the chain and are targeted by everyone. From tobacco (at the end nobody starts smoking at 30), to "free" cartoons (peppa pig backpack is not free, though), school book sellers. Heck, even the school this year pressured to put my kid in their social media.

There is a whole world of people making their living out of your kids.

Sorry for the rant. This is just another two. Does not surprise me.

Nothing will change as long as C-suite roles keep breaking the law and walking away scott free. Also goes for the investors promoting this behavior at startup level.

Teenage mental health crisis is web scale!

Still waiting for cookies to be removed

Let's call the practice "pedomarketing". Half of the US, you know which half, would be soon voting for a ban on it.