ftc.gov
ftc.gov
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.
advertising
Washington Post
Washington Post"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.
The Verge
The Verge"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.
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com"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?
ProPublica
ProPublica"'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.
conradakunga.com
conradakunga.com"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).
Daring Fireball
Daring Fireball"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.
BuzzFeed News
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.
The Guardian
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?
Vox
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.
ps. Corn, maybe.
pi-hole.net
I'm a big fan of goofing around with a Raspberry Pi. At times I've used mine as a game emulator, media center, and caller ID server. Recently it has been sitting in a box, but now it's a DNS server that blocks ads on my home network thanks to Pi-hole. Pi-hole is software you install on a raspberry pi that filters the addresses you or your devices request through shared lists of known advertisers. It's simple to set up and it just works. I'm seeing 98% fewer ads across the web—no browser ad-blocker required. Once installed it has a nice web admin interface and it gives you statistics about which domains have been blocked. (8.7% of all my DNS queries have been blocked as I write this.) It was also easy to add my favorite ad-supported sites to a whitelist so they'll still get paid. It does bother me that this kind of tool leads to a nerds vs. everyone else experience (great interview, btw) but tracking, malware, and general browsing performance has gotten so bad due to ads that we need these tools. If you already have a tiny computer, Pi-hole plus an hour to set it up on a weekend will improve your web experience.
click-vanishing ads idea
The past week or so on Metafilter, Matt has had a note about registering to vote at the top of every comments page. You can disable the notice by clicking a link saying you're already registered—this sets a cookie to let the MeFi server know the note shouldn't be displayed for you anymore. It's very simple, and if ads are going to fund the web (grumble) why not try commercial click-vanishing ads like this? I bet people would be willing to click on ads at sites they frequent if they know that doing so will make the ad disappear for a limited time. It would be easier for readers than blocking the image server, or using other technical tricks to defeat ads, advertisers could get more click-throughs, and both sides could acknowledge openly that ads are annoying. With click-vanishing ads I'd see them and think, "hmm, there's another ad. Better click it to get rid of it."