I wonder if they could survive off of search page ads and website contextual ads? No user targeted ads. If they could, they could squash the invasive marketing advertisers with lobbying for privacy policy and then regain a total monopoly as no other tracking adtech is viable anymore.
I personally believe fingerprinting should be illegal, and that any company that relies on it is inherently unethical. I think Google could survive without it.
I am by no means a Google fan either, just recognizing they have some power here and that fighting for ethical policy might actually be a good business move.
Contextual ads would be perfectly fine and unlikely to be any less relevant than user targeted ads. However, any ad company can easily offer this. Google's raisin-d'etre is that they track everyone on the Internet, and that they claim by doing so, can offer the best ads. If they admit that's not true, you might as well go with any other ad company.
In my read of the situation, Google's ads dominate because of their network. Other ad suppliers can't put their ads into Google search results, and it would be hard to build a network of display advertisers as big as Google's.
I wouldn't mind a shake up in the display network side of things. "Carbon" ad network is a great example of what can come out of a niche, well managed ad network and people choose them because they are present where the eyeballs for their demographic are. Like putting motor oil adverts on a racetrack. You don't have to track people around for those types of networks to work.
Oh yeah, there were multiple networks like Carbon, The Deck, etc. The only kind that doesn't suck.
It's weird that tracking-based ads have taken over. Logically, contextual makes a lot more sense. But apparently statistical data is telling ad companies that tracking is worth it :(
I personally believe fingerprinting should be illegal, and that any company that relies on it is inherently unethical. I think Google could survive without it.
I am by no means a Google fan either, just recognizing they have some power here and that fighting for ethical policy might actually be a good business move.