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European Commission fines Google €2.95B over abusive ad tech practices

(ec.europa.eu)
398 points ChrisArchitect | 8 comments | 05 Sep 25 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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isodev ◴[05 Sep 25 17:50 UTC] No.45141438[source]▶
Oh nice. I hope other countries follow suit. It’s quite a shame Google didn’t get Chrome divested from them in the US, would’ve been a “nature is healing” moment for the web.
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roscas ◴[05 Sep 25 17:59 UTC] No.45141539[source]▶
"would’ve been a “nature is healing” moment for the web". I wish this was true.

The healing will be when all ads and marketing will be down to zero. This companies like Facebook and Google make their billions putting on your face what you don't want or need and someone else pays them good money for that.

You may think it's too radical but we must make marketing illegal. Then fix the web.

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1. eldenring ◴[05 Sep 25 18:29 UTC] No.45141935[source]▶
So what do you do if you have a better product and a "name brand" disadvantage? Advertising commodifies information flow instead of letting it pool with the people who already have access to it. Think of all the products that got big nowadays because they could convince VCs to fund ad spend, and saw a return for it.

I think advertising has a huge, positive, 2nd order effect on the world.

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2. scotty79 ◴[05 Sep 25 20:28 UTC] No.45143243[source]▶
Entire advertising industry could be replaced by one database of products and services at a fraction of the cost to the consumer.
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3. chermi ◴[05 Sep 25 21:46 UTC] No.45144018[source]▶
Please expound. Are we going to fill in yearly surveys explaining what we like and don't like? Where does the information come from? Who determines the algorithm for placement? Will there now be no way to opt-out of ads at all, there's now a national quota on how many ads were exposed to a year or something?
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4. scotty79 ◴[06 Sep 25 02:40 UTC] No.45146156{3}[source]▶
There's no algorithm. Just a query language. Nothing is pushed to consumer. You want to buy something. You search. Companies can't pay anyone for any kind of publishing. Anyone is free to build tools and content that helps with the search. However companies can publish information about their products and services only through the database.
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5. blackqueeriroh ◴[06 Sep 25 03:22 UTC] No.45146340{4}[source]▶
lol you don’t understand people
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6. scotty79 ◴[06 Sep 25 03:29 UTC] No.45146365{5}[source]▶
I think you have trouble understanding. People happily use similar things already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_shopping_website
7. Timwi ◴[06 Sep 25 12:58 UTC] No.45148900{4}[source]▶
> However companies can publish information about their products and services only through the database.

Since we're already dreaming, I'd modify this to say companies can publish information about their products and services only on their own website, and the database just links to it.

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8. scotty79 ◴[07 Sep 25 00:30 UTC] No.45154182{5}[source]▶
I wouldn't go that route just in case companies has incentive to obfuscate the information. Forcing them to publish through the database makes them confirm their information to one structure so consumers have easier time searching comparing and deciding. I'd also make publishing of some information mandatory before you can sell to customers.