How can we set user expectations correctly?

[benjaminsavage]

@johnwilander mentioned today at the Privacy CG that if these preferences are "cross-site" (that is, they are communicated to sites other than the one open when feedback was provided) that we should endeavor to set this expectation with the user. This makes sense.

Brian May had a similar point, which was that we should endeavor to correctly set user expectations that not all sites will use this API, and thus the ads they see may not in any way be affected by their configured preferences.

It seems like the proposed "Confirmation Dialogue" is one place where we can try to set these expectations. Perhaps language along the lines of:

"Your preferences will be relayed to all websites you visit, which may or may not utilize them when selecting ads".

[bmayd]

I think it needs to be more than telling users their preferences "may or may not" be used by websites they visit. When I worked on the AdChoices effort a decade ago, we included a portal through which a user could request to be opted out of "customized ads". Because participation within ad tech was limited, we regularly heard from users that the opt-out wasn’t working and found it quickly became regarded as a waste of time or worse, an annoyance. I think ad-topics is vulnerable to the same issue: user’s are going to find it isn’t worth the effort to engage, particularly if they’re offered the option of seeing “Less of this” and don’t perceive a reduction in “this”.

I also think there is a strong possibility that user’s expressing negative preferences will backfire, as bidding algorithms from companies that choose not to participate learn to take advantage of the lack of competition from companies that do participate, resulting in cases where users expressing negative preferences end up seeing more of the ads they’ve asked for less of.