Tag: Cory Doctorow

traditional flea market at Brick Lane. Brick Lane flea market op

^{Type
post

Gary Smith
Date
March 20, 2024

Categorized
Business and Finance

Tagged
Cory Doctorow}

The Flea Market of the Internet: Breaking the Addiction

_{When, after a bad experience, I called Amazon the “Walmart of the Internet,” a friend pointed out that Amazon is, in fact, much worse than Walmart} _{Gary Smith
March 20, 2024

6

Business and Finance}

Internet-based businesses tend to follow a life cycle in which quality deteriorates over time. Writer Cory Doctorow calls the process “enshittification.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

News
Date
November 24, 2020

Categorized
Data Privacy, Social Media

Tagged
Cory Doctorow, Data scraping, Facebook}

Facebook Goes After Research Group Studying Its Ad Policies

_{The researchers received information from volunteers in order to study apparent violations of ad policies during the recent U.S. election} _{News
November 24, 2020

4

Data Privacy, Social Media}

Facebook, one of the most ambitious companies in modern history—it is, after all, contemplating its own currency—is also trying to shut down an academic research group it doesn’t Like. The Ad Observatory, a project of NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, monitors ads on Facebook. In the most recent American election, they studied “Which candidates, super PACS, and dark money groups are spending most on Facebook advertising nationwide? What topics do they emphasize and what objectives do they seek to achieve with ads?” The project asked volunteers to install a plugin, Ad Observer, that automatically scrapes ads presented on Facebook and sends them in. Why does it matter? Because most of us see only a small proportion of the ads that Read More ›