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WICG / shared-storage

Explainer for proposed web platform Shared Storage API
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Transparency of data sources versus data usage #35

Open kdeqc opened 2 years ago

kdeqc commented 2 years ago

I'm adding this comment in response to the conversation today in the Improving Web Advertising BG about transparency for users. I support being as transparent as possible with users - and also giving them a way to act upon the information given to them. However, I think we should consider whether the transparency would be more useful if it was more about the source of the data than it is about how it's used. In other words, more "data was collected about you when you visited site X" and less trying to say "you got this ad because you visited site X". My reason is that the logic for how particular data is used isn't necessarily going to be straight forward enough to make much sense on the surface.

For example, I know of an ad campaign for probiotic supplements that was being targeted to people who bought breakfast cereals, soups, canned fruits, or non-diet sodas. Telling a user they're receiving an ad for probiotics because they bought a bottle of coke or lucky charms might not make much sense to them. The logic, btw, is that people who eat foods with high-fructose corn syrup in them likely have a greater need for probiotics. When things like KNN clustering is used, the logic can seem even more mysterious - since it's more about correlation than causation.

In that case, it might be more useful to users if this type of disclosure followed what Amazon does with their recommendations. On the recommendations page, they don't tell you why a particular product is being listed (but you can stop the item from being recommended). Instead, they let you improve the recommendations by letting you decide which products should be used or not. That might be a better user experience than trying to tell users you were recommended this movie because you bought this particular shirt last month.

Anyway, just something to consider.

pythagoraskitty commented 1 year ago

You raise a very interesting issue. I'm sorry that it got missed earlier.

I wasn't in the Improving Web Advertising BG, so I don't know what the specific proposal(s) discussed there were. I agree with you that the source is likely more useful in the cases you mention. We will certainly keep this idea in mind as we think about how to implement transparency.