adi romański
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while trying to find information about data privacy on google, i have found a service
called google takeout, that simply collects the data the company has gathered about
its users. this service allowed me to download my data and review it. it was over 33
gigabytes of data (mostly text-based). while digesting the information, i have stumbled
upon couple of problems that felt important to dive and explore further, for example
how easy was the data to access (log in on a google account is enough), how
companies start owning and using data for their own personal growth. with this though
i wanted to explore the realm of ads. commercials are displayed in public spaces
(based on target group research), but nowadays most of it happens online (based on
users’ behaviour and actions). it leaves the collective and enters the era of hyper-
personalisation. there’s plenty of laws regarding privacy being already implemented
(for example, before entering a page, a company is obliged to ask for the users’
permission to use their data. if they happen to decline it, however, many times, they
won’t be able to use said service/web app. more and more times, companies have
been using users’ data for their gain to train ai models, or simply sell/exchange it to
other institutions. with data collected, it’s only the matter of understanding and
interpretation to learn persons interests, and behaviour schematics but also their
address, payment details, citizens number, passwords, etc. having digested this data can
lead to cyber-theft, identity fraud and of course very spot-on commercials.
adi’s data on google takeout (after classification)
FLIGHT HISTORY
one of the datasets found in google takeout is users flight search/history, from my
understanding google classifies a travel, when two points are relatively far away from
each other in a search bar or looked up in google flights. graphics below showcase two
cases: white lines represent flights google believes i have looked up/taken from 2018 until
‘now’ (april 2024) and yellow lines are actual flights i have taken during that period. what
is strange for me is that some flights i have taken were not shown in my flight search,
even though they should (they were looked up on the browser i usually use on my laptop)
flights missing:
poznań-tel aviv (purchased by family member)
budapest-istanbul
vienna-athens (bought on the wizzair app)
athens-kavala
WATCH HISTORY
how did my interests change through my upbringing? was there anything in my watch
history that could indicate my interests, any occurring life events, something that could
be used to influence or control my behaviour? i collected a 10 second long audio cuts
from my watch history (from 2018) and compiled them together to see, if someone could
get to know me through my watch history. I have only used several pieces, since i decided
not to continue with this idea.
TRANSLATION HISTORY
a collection of all translated phases from 2019-2023 (changed a phone with different
privacy settings)
view translation history
WHAT IS CLASSIFIED AS SENSITIVE ADVERTISING?
by exploring privacy regulations of google, i stumbled upon a sub-page related which types
of topics are considered sensitive in google ads. it most probably related to specific laws in
the country a person is logged in. it’s very interesting for me that certain subjects are not
listed, like illnesses, sadness, depression, and all the commercials presenting ‘the ideal body
type’. commercials are already personalised, my stand would involve personalising the
sensitivity in it to reduce possible trauma a commercial could bring back (for example it
possibly be triggering for a person who has lost a parent to see commercials involving
‘a family’ involving parental roles ). i personally believe that commercials can be very neutral,
sometimes having even a positive impact, however in a lot of cases it might be viewed as
boring, very direct, perceived as ‘in your face’.
THIRD PARTIES
while converting a video for the purpose of placing it in my portfolio for this class, i have
stumbled upon a service that allows users to convert the videos only if they accept terms
and conditions (which gives owners of this service permission to share users data to over
1500 companies). most of them had ‘justified causes/limited access’ while some had
‘full access’ in the box. i have no idea what is meant by limited or full access, however
the amount of data that potentially could be shared with others forced me to be more
curious about the hidden gems in t&c.
INSTAGRAM ALGORYTHM TEST
since i moved to the netherlands, i have heard a lot of interesting cases on how social media
manages and uses data to (for example) very accurately recommend products in commercials.
i wanted to check, how accurate and how powerful certain algorithms could be. to do it, i
visited instagram. one of the tests i’ve done a long time ago was to talk out loud about
something and later on expect reels targeting a specific phrase, but what i did for the sake
of this experiment was to send a phrase in a private message and see if an algorithm would
pick it up. and it did. what was surprising for me, was the time in which the algorithm
worked. i did 3 tryouts by texting 3 very different subjects to my friend and started scrolling
through the feed (stories and reels). all three of these had a reaction in under 1.5 minutes.
the fact that what seemed to be private was not and the efficiency in which system worked
was extremely surprising.
AR ADVERTS
one of my first tryouts in advertising taking over the public space was involving a 3d scanned
room in scaniverse and placing its render into the same space using ar engine (also one from
scaniverse), by doing so, it created a glitchy effect of the doubled space. using ultra key
function, a green colour was removed and another video layer (potential commercial) would
be placed underneath.
brandon rogers - used adult toys commercial
ULTRA KEY
after using ar in previous tryout, i really enjoyed the result of the ‘green screen effect’ and
decided to explore it more. i have tried to record several clips with contrasting colors to
later on cut out and place a layer underneath with a videoclip. thanks to that, i got a chance
to play with video effects, use different components, to either make transitions more glitchy,
softer or simply weirder.
MIDTERM PRESENTATION EFFECT
below’s video showcases my tryout that i have showcased during the midterm presentation.
RECEIPT PRINTING
i have purchased a receipt printer to visualise the my dowloaded data. the length of the receipts
is estimated to be around half of the kilometre. midway, the mechanism to move the receipts
broke and made them shorter / unreadable. this was unfortunate but it still the volume of the
receipts is big enough to show the scale of data being digested.
VINYL STICKER PRINTING
to showcase the code of conduct, i have tried on printing stickers on vinyl. i faced multiple
issues, starting at wrong file types, ending at letters not peeling or not sticking properly. in
the end, i managed to stick the text on the ground before the entrance to the space of
privacy.
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