onfocus

"The Federal Trade Commission has issued a proposed order banning online counseling service BetterHelp, Inc. from sharing consumers’ health data, including sensitive information about mental health challenges, for advertising. The proposed order also requires the company to pay $7.8 million to consumers to settle charges that it revealed consumers’ sensitive data with third parties such as Facebook and Snapchat for advertising after promising to keep such data private."

Targeted advertising money makes people behave in awful ways. We need more government intervention like this because companies have shown over and over and over that they don’t respect privacy.

"In another example, an ad for the streaming service Peacock appeared next to a tweet from Anthime Gionet, an influencer known as Baked Alaska, who was recently sentenced for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The ad appeared next to a tweet where Gionet asked his followers whether he should “say the n-word.”"

Twitter is toxic for people so it's a toxic place to build brands.

"Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform that many are turning to as a Twitter alternative, saw its userbase skyrocket from about 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between October and November, Mastodon’s CEO, founder, and lead developer Eugen Rochko said in a new blog post."

Heh, flocked. That's a lot of people who are suddenly active on an ad-free network. They might get used to that! I'm volunteering a monthly amount to my Mastodon instance admins and I hope enough of that kind of direct support can keep the alternative social media lights on.

"The law allows financial penalties of $10,000 per violation, which can be tripled when violations are deemed intentional. The Attorney General’s Office asserted Facebook has committed several hundred violations since 2018."

This is a new one: a corporation intentionally breaking the law over and over again might have consequences?

"'For most advertisers, having an ad placed on a Steve Bannon-affiliated outlet is the stuff of nightmares,' said Nandini Jammi, the co-founder of Check My Ads, an ad industry watchdog. 'The fact that ad exchanges are still serving ads should tell brands that their vendors are not vetting their inventory, and I wouldn’t be surprised if advertisers who have found themselves on War Room request refunds.'"

Alternate title: how Google profits from online hate.

"So today I set out to actually see what it is one agrees to when they accept all."

Peeling back the layers on those cookie agreement dialogs helps us learn about how web advertising works (and how massive the industry is).

"Apple’s tracking permission dialog is something no sane person would agree to because this sort of tracking is something no sane person would agree to."

We agree to it every time we use the Internet with default settings. Changing defaults will cause some pain but it’s necessary.

It’s heartening to hear these Ogilvy employees push back against their company’s work for CBP. Wayfair employees walked out last month to protest border contracts. And today Microsoft announced it would temporarily suspend its PAC giving because of internal pressure. I’m not sure if these are anomalies that businesses will adapt to or a more lasting movement that will get companies to act on their stated values.

Wow, this is some awful antisocial behavior from a company (and marketing firm) that should know better. Can we have one or two ad-free spaces?

How those annoying ad blocks at the bottom of every article you read online work. Chumbox is the perfect name for them. I think the more we learn about how these things prey on our psyche the more immune we become.

ps. Corn, maybe.