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I've been a hold out on ad blocking. It always seemed a grey area between the evils of psychological manipulation, tracking and increasing cognitive load and t

I've been a hold out on ad blocking. It always seemed a grey area between the evils of psychological manipulation, tracking and increasing cognitive load and the good of paying for content delivery. As it becomes increasingly impossible to live in modern society without the internet and the ad networks become more intrusive and the negative consequences increase, it becomes more and more difficult to full justify the pro-ad stance. This week I got a cold. I'm not sure which social network I mentioned it on or what search I made, but the ads I see everywhere now are for NyQuil. That first NyQuil ad was a real dousing in cold water. This isn't the ad network knowing I'm actively searching the web for a web monitoring product and showing me pingdom ads. The ad network knows I'm sick and what my illness is. I'm actively investigating ad blocking now, enemy mine.

parenthephobia 11y ago
> This week I got a cold. I'm not sure which social network I mentioned it on or what search I made, but the ads I see everywhere now are for NyQuil. This isn't the ad network knowing I'm actively searching the web for a web monitoring product and showing me pingdom ads. The ad network knows I'm sick and what my illness is. The ad network knows you searched for, or included in a status update, "cold", or "sneeze" or some other combination of keywords that Proctor & Gamble paid to have associated with NyQuil. Genuine question: Why is this a problem? I prefer to receive adverts that are about something I might actually want. When I've been browsing things on Amazon and then, for some reason, browse without ad-blocking, I start to receive adverts about things I was looking at but didn't purchase. I think that's much better than, say, receiving a page full of obnoxious animated adverts for some Clash of Clans rip-off.
soared 11y ago
Well its the same thing. You have an unfulfilled need and did something online to try and solve it, so a company targeted you and are displaying their solution in ads. Illness or any other product, the process doesn't change.
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  Yes, that's actually the point. What I'm saying is that seemed well and good when it was actually helping me find a product I was looking for. It seems less well and good now that I know it's tracking when I have an illness and selling ads based upon that "demographic". Think about the repercussions if I googling for cancer treatments or HIV infection symptoms and not just cold cures.
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
    Your eyeballs are being programmatically sold to the highest bidder, and cancer treatments can be very expensive.
ktRolster 11y ago
It's irresponsible right now to browse without ad blocking, because all the major ad networks have at times served malware. Otherwise, I would not block ads.

parenthephobia 11y ago

> This week I got a cold. I'm not sure which social network I mentioned it on or what search I made, but the ads I see everywhere now are for NyQuil. This isn't the ad network knowing I'm actively searching the web for a web monitoring product and showing me pingdom ads. The ad network knows I'm sick and what my illness is. The ad network knows you searched for, or included in a status update, "cold", or "sneeze" or some other combination of keywords that Proctor & Gamble paid to have associated with NyQuil. Genuine question: Why is this a problem? I prefer to receive adverts that are about something I might actually want. When I've been browsing things on Amazon and then, for some reason, browse without ad-blocking, I start to receive adverts about things I was looking at but didn't purchase. I think that's much better than, say, receiving a page full of obnoxious animated adverts for some Clash of Clans rip-off.

soared 11y ago

Well its the same thing. You have an unfulfilled need and did something online to try and solve it, so a company targeted you and are displaying their solution in ads. Illness or any other product, the process doesn't change.

Ensorceled 11y ago
Yes, that's actually the point. What I'm saying is that seemed well and good when it was actually helping me find a product I was looking for. It seems less well and good now that I know it's tracking when I have an illness and selling ads based upon that "demographic". Think about the repercussions if I googling for cancer treatments or HIV infection symptoms and not just cold cures.
- seanp2k2 11y ago
  Your eyeballs are being programmatically sold to the highest bidder, and cancer treatments can be very expensive.

ktRolster 11y ago

It's irresponsible right now to browse without ad blocking, because all the major ad networks have at times served malware. Otherwise, I would not block ads.