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The answer for banner ads is that they should simply be removed, because despite living in the boundless digital space all they can really do within the format

The answer for banner ads is that they should simply be removed, because despite living in the boundless digital space all they can really do within the format is show an oddly shaped image. As is clear by now, the only way for ad networks to provide any sort of extra value to the service is by choosing the exact image very carefully. To choose the ad carefully, the person browsed must somehow be differentiated, and there really isn't anything to do but tracking. So ad networks must by logical necessity turn into unregulated surveillance networks and try to soak up as much data about every visitor, collect and collate this data for the express purpose of tracking individual behaviour and then use this information to choose the image. This creation of a private surveillance network for tracking of individuals is basically the minimum level of sinister an ad network needs to have any sort of "dynamic" product. Yet, at the end of the day, banner ads don't amount to more than very basic content, so it hardly seems justified to create an invasive surveillance apparatus just to serve slightly less irrelevant content. And there doesn't seem to be much at the other end of sophistication: paid sub sites with dynamic recommendations for the visitor based on stated preferences. Banner ads can never amount to more than those small ads crammed into the edges of the newspaper, despite being in a domain where companies can talk to users directly and dynamically. The reason for this is that you don't have a conversation with someone trough a small hole in a newspaper and as long as that is how you serve your ads, spying on the user is the best you can do.

danieldk 11y ago
To choose the ad carefully, the person browsed must somehow be differentiated, and there really isn't anything to do but tracking. Why? If I am reading reviews of phones, place offers for phones. If I am reading up on how to set up X on an Y phone, offer accessoires for Y.
csydas 11y ago
I've re-read your comment several times and I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at in regards to what ads should be. Advertising for decades has worked without the ability of advertisers to track their viewers or interact with them directly and dynamically, and it relied on exactly what you described in the opening sentence; showing an oddly shaped image in whatever newspaper, magazine, publication, or whatever they could stick the image on. With television, ads became minor productions in and of themselves, and while you could get some statistics as to who actually was putting eyes on your advertisement and when, there still wasn't really a need for a spy network to allow the advertisements to function. As an outsider to the industry looking in, I'm sure there are steps I'm missing and not able to fill in myself, but I'm just not sure why it's essential to spy on people. Targeted advertising, in my anecdotal and admittedly very limited experience, is often little more than just shotgunning ads vaguely related to search results or things I purchased or looked at for whatever reason in the past. There's nothing dynamic or progressive about it beyond just spamming slightly less irrelevant information at me, though I really don't ever recall ever taking the time to actually follow through an ad link prior to adblockers. Ad-sponsored search results very often just get in the way of actual search results. The idea of dynamic and relevant advertising seems completely foreign to me in that I can't really imagine how such a thing would actually look/work. Current advertising online seems to be very little more than a game that ad developers play to see who can trick people into clicking on their ad the most and who can collect the most data. Often times, the purpose seems to be less about the advertisement and more about the data collected via the click, or at the very least just generating the click or follow-through more than anything. It's particularly egregious in mobile spaces and apps where ads almost seem to be built around the imprecision of navigation. In Safari on iOS, I can't think of too many sites that doesn't place their banner of ads right along the bottom where you tap to summon the Safari controls, and it's even worse within apps with random pop-ups and ever-changing locations for the dismissal, which isn't much better in my mind than the pop-up warnings in browsers asking "do you really want to navigate away from this great deal?" Advertising in the digital age, in my opinion, has just gone too far in the interest of what it can do instead of what is actually effectual advertising. The dynamic and progressive evolution of the ads seems less about actually providing and informing about a product and instead about gaming the online advertising market, and the fallout of such a battle is harming users.
usrusr 11y ago
In a world of perfect ad-targeting surveillance, it should be simple and cheap enough to simply bid up blank banners for your browser, just your browser and on every site (maybe with some clever scripting to reject accidental clicks that would cost you a heavy premium). Unfortunately, this would do absolutely nothing about the actual point of the article: that GUIDs introduced for harmless ad targeting are the light by which government spying systems are seeing persons in the otherwise quite anonymous data streams.
criddell 11y ago
> As is clear by now, the only way for ad networks to provide any sort of extra value to the service is by choosing the exact image very carefully. To choose the ad carefully, the person browsed must somehow be differentiated, and there really isn't anything to do but tracking. I don't think that's true. People magazine is filled with ads that mostly pay for the magazine. The ad buyers know nothing about individual readers. Why do online ad buyers need to know more?
- _greim_ 11y ago
  > Why do online ad buyers need to know more? Because they can, so whoever doesn't, won't be competitive. With paper magazines, they can't in the first place.
  - criddell 11y ago
    I think a lot of ad-blocker users use the same justification. They block ads because they can. Readers put up with ads in paper magazines because there's little alternative.

danieldk 11y ago

To choose the ad carefully, the person browsed must somehow be differentiated, and there really isn't anything to do but tracking. Why? If I am reading reviews of phones, place offers for phones. If I am reading up on how to set up X on an Y phone, offer accessoires for Y.

csydas 11y ago

I've re-read your comment several times and I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at in regards to what ads should be. Advertising for decades has worked without the ability of advertisers to track their viewers or interact with them directly and dynamically, and it relied on exactly what you described in the opening sentence; showing an oddly shaped image in whatever newspaper, magazine, publication, or whatever they could stick the image on. With television, ads became minor productions in and of themselves, and while you could get some statistics as to who actually was putting eyes on your advertisement and when, there still wasn't really a need for a spy network to allow the advertisements to function. As an outsider to the industry looking in, I'm sure there are steps I'm missing and not able to fill in myself, but I'm just not sure why it's essential to spy on people. Targeted advertising, in my anecdotal and admittedly very limited experience, is often little more than just shotgunning ads vaguely related to search results or things I purchased or looked at for whatever reason in the past. There's nothing dynamic or progressive about it beyond just spamming slightly less irrelevant information at me, though I really don't ever recall ever taking the time to actually follow through an ad link prior to adblockers. Ad-sponsored search results very often just get in the way of actual search results. The idea of dynamic and relevant advertising seems completely foreign to me in that I can't really imagine how such a thing would actually look/work. Current advertising online seems to be very little more than a game that ad developers play to see who can trick people into clicking on their ad the most and who can collect the most data. Often times, the purpose seems to be less about the advertisement and more about the data collected via the click, or at the very least just generating the click or follow-through more than anything. It's particularly egregious in mobile spaces and apps where ads almost seem to be built around the imprecision of navigation. In Safari on iOS, I can't think of too many sites that doesn't place their banner of ads right along the bottom where you tap to summon the Safari controls, and it's even worse within apps with random pop-ups and ever-changing locations for the dismissal, which isn't much better in my mind than the pop-up warnings in browsers asking "do you really want to navigate away from this great deal?" Advertising in the digital age, in my opinion, has just gone too far in the interest of what it can do instead of what is actually effectual advertising. The dynamic and progressive evolution of the ads seems less about actually providing and informing about a product and instead about gaming the online advertising market, and the fallout of such a battle is harming users.

usrusr 11y ago

In a world of perfect ad-targeting surveillance, it should be simple and cheap enough to simply bid up blank banners for your browser, just your browser and on every site (maybe with some clever scripting to reject accidental clicks that would cost you a heavy premium). Unfortunately, this would do absolutely nothing about the actual point of the article: that GUIDs introduced for harmless ad targeting are the light by which government spying systems are seeing persons in the otherwise quite anonymous data streams.

criddell 11y ago

> As is clear by now, the only way for ad networks to provide any sort of extra value to the service is by choosing the exact image very carefully. To choose the ad carefully, the person browsed must somehow be differentiated, and there really isn't anything to do but tracking. I don't think that's true. People magazine is filled with ads that mostly pay for the magazine. The ad buyers know nothing about individual readers. Why do online ad buyers need to know more?

_greim_ 11y ago
> Why do online ad buyers need to know more? Because they can, so whoever doesn't, won't be competitive. With paper magazines, they can't in the first place.
- criddell 11y ago
  I think a lot of ad-blocker users use the same justification. They block ads because they can. Readers put up with ads in paper magazines because there's little alternative.