I think recommendation algorithms and advertising are separate things, however think with defaults and when it comes to what specific data is collected, where do you draw the line? Absolutely no recommendations at all based on an algorithm? Would you say using your ‘like’ history to recommend you more videos is okay? What about watch history, or save history?
Same question can also be asked about where you draw the line on advertising. Just say Youtube showed ads purely based on your video like history, would that be creepy?
I think we can all draw the line at location history, how long you linger on a post, etc. I’d like to know your thoughts on where you’d draw the line for both advertising and content recommendations. (This is two questions)
Sorry that this post is horribly formatted. I’m tired, acoustic and had a shower thought 😝
Personally, I don’t like the idea of any recommendation or advertising algorithm using personal information of any kind. Though I can understand why location would be needed for advertising: in order to ensure ads for regional services are not shown outside of that region.
The kinds of data that I think should be used:
-Recommendations:
-Like history
-Watch (or view) history - specifically (and only) if I click on a post or watch more than some reasonable percentage of a video that would indicate I watched the entirety of the video.
-Advertisements:
-Location (based solely on IP)
-The content currently being viewed, based on a general categorization of the content. If I’m watching a video about technology I don’t need to be seeing ads for financial services.
I just would like to see the results of a recommendation algorithm that gives you something that it thinks you definitely won’t like, say, 20 percent of the time.
Because a lot of times in my endless scrolling I just end up with the same old drivel. Throw me something challenging occasionally, jeeeez.
I draw the line right behind them. Where the real search results start.
Recommendation is part of the service. If they know I like something, then it’s reasonable they recommend me something that’s similar. It’s like going to a restaurant and asking for recommendations.
Advertising is when things are promoted outside the service. It’s like going to a restaurant and they tell me about Raid Shadow Legends. I don’t want that.
I think recommendation should be linked to usage data like watch history on that particular service. Location and other external information shouldn’t be used. I don’t want my recommendations depend on which friends I have or recent activity on a different service.
comic by Nyazche
For something I’m paying for, I want no ads, recommended or otherwise.
For something I get for free, if it’s easily skippable/ignorable, I don’t really care, I’ll skip it or mute the tab or whatever. If I can’t, I’d rather have a like sniper level targeted ad (use all the data!), really try to show me something I’ll care about (there was some like 10 minutes ad about the science behing glass by one of the guys from MythBusters, I watched the whole ad, it was great). The demographic level targeted ads are my 2nd least favorite, mostly because it feels like I usually need to suffer through what is a targeted ad but if they bothered to exclude some of the audience based on some data points (looking at you luxury car ads, it’s just never going to happen), they’d know I’m a bad target, I’d rather some generic add over those. My least favorite ad though, when I get an ad in a language I don’t even understand, like at least match my primary language, wasting everyone’s time…