Does Google scan yt videos to know what products appear in them?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Ok, so. Earlier today I was watching the Technology Connections video about how Power is energy over time. In the video he shows a picture of an Anker Solix powerbank to illustrate the concept of energy storage. I’ve never seen or heard of this product before.

An hour later I’m reading an article on Lemmy, and there is an ad for that same powerbank.

What explains this? Some explanations I can think of:

Random chance.
Google scans YouTube videos for information about what products appear in them, and knows that I watched the video, and that I’m the same person now reading the article. It then gives this information to everyone in the ad-selling marketplace, so the Anker ad company can bid high to show me an ad.
Google is observing what appears on my screen in order to sell this info to advertisers.

I think 2 is most likely given Occam’s Razor, but I didn’t think Google scanned yt videos like this.

Is there something I’m missing?

I was watching on an Android phone, on Tubular. My browser is IronFox. I’m surprised that Google can follow my activity from one app to the other… this is probably based on IP address, but I wonder what other device fingerprinting tubular and IronFox expose…

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

Toes@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It does digest what’s being said in the video and compare it to the other videos you watch. To better personalize your experience.

source
- sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s definitely personalized, even though I had turned all of that off, since tubular interacts with YouTube without logging in.
  
  source
Ideonek@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
There is simpler explanation. People who watched this video acvtualy buy the product more often then people who didn’t.

So it flaged you as someone potentially interested and selected you when advertisers chose to target people similar to their actuall historical clients.

(I’m not saying they don’t scan videos. I’m saying they don’t have to do it to achieve effect like this)

source
- sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I doubt this because it is not a product people would buy in any volume, and was just used to illustrate a random point. Also the video has been out less than 24 hours. I don’t think it’s likely in this case.
  
  source
  - dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    YouTube doesn’t share exact user info. But, google ads platform does have the metrics and can show the Amazon seller statistics of interest when buying ad prints on YouTube videos. Like search terms and referral links click right after or before the video played.
    
    This happens automatically and virtually without human intervention though. It’s just bots talking to bots talking to bots. It all happens in milliseconds after you click play. By the time your web browser has started loading the player, yt opened a bid for the ad spot, thousands of companies chose to bid on that video based on a myriad of parameters and statistics, a winner was chosen based on pledged money, then a video ad is loaded to the server ready to play.
    
    GAds assigns every video several keywords, based on information from the uploader, then watches user behavior to assign meta tags. Videos are scanned, to search for curse words, nudity, copyright and other offending material automatically. I don’t think they scan for objects shown in the video to assign tags about the kind of product, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
jeffw@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The words in the video are certainly captured. The guy didn’t say what is was or put it in the video’s description?

source
- sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  No, but there was text on screen in the video saying what it was, and that it wasn’t an endorsement.
  
  Here’s the section in question: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOK5xkFijPc&t=2999
  
  He doesn’t speak its name, it’s just visible on screen.
  
  source
  - jeffw@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    One thought would be comments. People could have talked about the product there
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Is it an Anker? Because I see an Anker on that timestamp. If so, seems it’s the same for everyone? So just a coincidence as I suspected. Let me know if I’m misunderstanding.
    
    source
kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Google scans YouTube videos for information about what products appear in them

Yes, but not specifically looking for products. They’re scanning to try to learn everything about the video with the goal of better matching suggestions to the interests (as determined by watch history) of viewers.

The intention is (as always) to increase viewer session time because the more time viewers spend on the platform, the more ads they see and ultimately the more money YouTube makes.

Of course, that scanning and view history can also be used to target ads with the goal of increasing ad click-thru and conversion (ultimately also driving the profit goal)

source
- sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I guess it’s in the same category as those automatic ads that say “cop this look” and offer to sell you products that appear in a photo on a website.
  
  source
FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My guess is it’s coincidence and that the powerbank company has just paid for a lot of ad space recently for similar topics. See if you can confidently reproduce it a few times. If so, I’ll change my opinion.

I’m only saying this because ai have never once had this happen.

source
stsquad@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Do you think there is information YouTube wouldn’t collect about you even if they could be better at selling ads to people based on it?

Do you live somewhere with data protection laws? If so you could request a dump of all personally identifying data they hold on you.

source
vxx@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
There’s a fourth Option.

It could be a marketing campaign. Post and push a video on Lemmy that involves a power bank, and advertise said power bank also on Lemmy.

source
- sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The ad was not on Lemmy, it was an automated ad on a random article I found on Lemmy. The kind where behind the scenes, the ad vendor auctions off the space and your information to the bot that’s the highest bidder
  
  source