this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Information is harvested from ads displayed as well, whether they're clicked or not, how long it takes for a person to skip them on a youtube video or how much of it is watched. All useful user data to try and personalize more ads for you. Are YOU okay? One shouldn't be trying to defend a horrible practice that tries to psychologically manipulate people.
The information harvested from ads is "did they have them displayed? For how long? Did they click", and that's it. It's benign. The malicious stuff that we don't want harvested is alllll the other shit that leads Google Ads to display ads for sneakers right after you looked at some sneakers on Amazon.
I still don't know where you're getting the notion that I'm defending anything here from. It's weird. Stop being weird.
Because you ARE defending by arguing against the points people make. Good lord... So you moved the goal post again because if I remember from what I read you were saying no data harvesting comes from the ads themselves. And that "benign" data harvesting is the same harvesting that goes into showing you ads about something you just talked about or looked at. It's all interconnected.
If they're shit points, yeah, I'm arguing against them. Doesn't mean I'm defending ads in their current form. And, if you read my original comment without getting angry at some tribalist bullshit, you'd see that I already mentioned what's wrong with ads there.
That's not user data. I thought we were concerned about user data, not telemetry in its entirety. If it's the former - my point stands. If it's the latter - please stop being silly and learn what telemetry is.
It's not.
It's not.
So that means there's no bearing on the advertising based on what you view because it's wholly independent of you. Despite it's been shown that they are collecting data of accounts you're signed into for the service, ISP information, and even down to individual computer information that's transmitted. Sure, uh huh, we're done here...
What...?
OK, one more time.
Ad telemetry (largely anonymous data related to what kind of ad is displayed, for how long, is it clicked, is it skipped, etc) gives them information about the ad's effectiveness. For example, if someone loads the website, a massive ad obscuring the entire content shows up, and they close the tab with the website without clicking the ad, they get information that such form of an ad is not only ineffective, it's actually harmful to the website.
User data (absolutely 100% not anonymous, although the "identity" is often your browser, not you yourself - until, that is - they get extra identifiable information, such as Facebook cookies) gives them information about what content should be shown in the ad. For example, if you viewed sneakers on Amazon, you get sneaker ads. If you talked to someone about tampons on Facebook Messenger, you'll get tampon ads.
Two completely different sets of information. If you're incapable of grasping this difference, then yeah, we're done here.