Google launches YouTube channel to restore privacy illusions
Google is sending a delegation to the Federal Trade Commission's upcoming town hall on behavioral advertising, as privacy concerns grow about targeted ads. There, Google North American sales chief Tim Armstrong and a pair of lawyers will likely give a speech similar to Maile Ohye's in the video above. Then, just as the audience is about to fall asleep: BAM! They'll hit them with a rhetorical doozy like this one, from their, blog:
"Web sites and search engines are able to provide valuable services to consumers for free due in large part to advertiser funding. Like commercials on television and ads in newspapers and magazines, online ads have become staples of the Internet medium. Without them, many web sites would either have to charge subscription fees or would simply cease to exist."
Shit, sorry. Did you actually read that? Bad move!
Here's an idea to wake you up. Imagine what Steve Ballmer would do in this situation if he were Google's CEO.
No boring videos from this guy. No way. Instead, he'd terrify the town hall-goers with horror stories about behavioral targeting.
Why? Because while Google's OpenSocial initiative doesn't look like it's going to dent Facebook, shooting the tires out on SocialAds, the behavioral targeting ad network Facebook is expected to launch next week, would actually do some damage.