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As a user,I am most offended by ads that target me. I would rather see a completely unrelatable ad. It feels like learning new information that way,as opposed t

As a user,I am most offended by ads that target me. I would rather see a completely unrelatable ad. It feels like learning new information that way,as opposed to being stalked and preyed upon.

kzrdude 9y ago
I would love to see more ads that instead target the content of the page. When I'm reading about machine learning, it should be books close to that topic, and other related things. I can't believe little that happens.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Considering the sprawl of sponsored content, maybe because it's cheaper/easier to just buy the author?
- pault 9y ago
  It has the added benefit of having a high probability that you'll be interested in the product, since you wouldn't be on the page if you didn't find the topic interesting. Instead we get tracking networks showing you ads for TVs because you bought a TV last week.
  - human 9y ago
    I think the problem with that is that most browsing is done on pages that do not target a valuable topic: news, weather, memes, etc. For that reason, it's better to remind you about that Amazon product still in your cart while you're browsing for random stuff.
- spc476 9y ago
  I used to to that with Amazon. About a decade ago, I added an Amazon banner, and the link included a search term. So I would add an appropriate search term (related to the top blog entry on the page, which is where the Amazon banner appeared). Sometime in the past few months, Amazon removed that and only allows generic sales banners to be presented.
tikhonj 9y ago
The other option is to target the ads to the publication. As long as the publication is on a niche topic or geographically localized, you can choose ads that will likely interest people (local restaurants) without needing to track them. Tracking is only necessary when the ad venue is incredibly broad across topics and geography.
- badrabbit 9y ago
  I have been wondering why that isn't done more often myself. I mean,it isn't like tv ads didn't work.
  - antonvs 9y ago
    Advertising is very much beset by the mindset of being "so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should" (Jurassic Park.) Tracking and microtargeting just seem too attractive for advertisers to pass up. Same goes for large size, autoplay, multimedia ads. These mechanisms would have to fail to perform in obvious ways (not long-term, subtle, whole-market ways) before people will stop using them.
- Feniks 9y ago
  That's how old media has been doing it for centuries. But media is hard: you have to invest in personal relations with advertisers. New media just outsources all the hard work to Google and other big ad placers. Easier but you lose editorial control over your work.
  - ar0 9y ago
    In fact, that’s how Google started out with AdSense as well: It was called “content targeting advertising”, because Google scanned your webpage and then served ads that related to the content of your webpage. I don’t know what happened along the road to lead us to the current tracking and spying mess.
    - shostack 9y ago
bertil 9y ago
I do not know you, so I won’t presume (certainly not on HackerNews, the least representative sample of the Internet) but I have seen many experiments proving that most people who think they don’t like targetted ads actually prefer them -- until they make a very informed but very wrong guess. Typical examples include: - advertising for something shameful (underwear and dildo are my go-to examples) or that you otherwise want be kept secret (engagement rings); - repeat ads for specific and unusual big-ticket items. I have told friends working at Amazon that no one I know ever started a vacuum cleaner collection, but they only response is “You would be surprised…” to which I can only assume the world is either weirder than I thought, or their analytics function has missed something. What you (and most people) probably would prefer is the ability to edit what the ad engine knows or assumes about you: gone are dildos, rings and vacuum cleaners; come books about programming patterns! I keep telling anyone close to any of those recommendation engines to allow me to do that, but they mumble things about design, feasibility and hacking that genuinely don’t add up to me.
- badrabbit 9y ago
  Not true,sure I would prefer programming related ads but I still want it page-relevant and not based on my browsing history,habits or sensor data.

As a user,I am most offended by ads that target me. I would rather see a completely unrelatable ad. It feels like learning new information that way,as opposed to being stalked and preyed upon.

kzrdude 9y ago

I would love to see more ads that instead target the content of the page. When I'm reading about machine learning, it should be books close to that topic, and other related things. I can't believe little that happens.

majewsky 9y ago
Considering the sprawl of sponsored content, maybe because it's cheaper/easier to just buy the author?
pault 9y ago
It has the added benefit of having a high probability that you'll be interested in the product, since you wouldn't be on the page if you didn't find the topic interesting. Instead we get tracking networks showing you ads for TVs because you bought a TV last week.
- human 9y ago
  I think the problem with that is that most browsing is done on pages that do not target a valuable topic: news, weather, memes, etc. For that reason, it's better to remind you about that Amazon product still in your cart while you're browsing for random stuff.
spc476 9y ago
I used to to that with Amazon. About a decade ago, I added an Amazon banner, and the link included a search term. So I would add an appropriate search term (related to the top blog entry on the page, which is where the Amazon banner appeared). Sometime in the past few months, Amazon removed that and only allows generic sales banners to be presented.

tikhonj 9y ago

The other option is to target the ads to the publication. As long as the publication is on a niche topic or geographically localized, you can choose ads that will likely interest people (local restaurants) without needing to track them. Tracking is only necessary when the ad venue is incredibly broad across topics and geography.

badrabbit 9y ago
I have been wondering why that isn't done more often myself. I mean,it isn't like tv ads didn't work.
- antonvs 9y ago
  Advertising is very much beset by the mindset of being "so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should" (Jurassic Park.) Tracking and microtargeting just seem too attractive for advertisers to pass up. Same goes for large size, autoplay, multimedia ads. These mechanisms would have to fail to perform in obvious ways (not long-term, subtle, whole-market ways) before people will stop using them.
Feniks 9y ago
That's how old media has been doing it for centuries. But media is hard: you have to invest in personal relations with advertisers. New media just outsources all the hard work to Google and other big ad placers. Easier but you lose editorial control over your work.
- ar0 9y ago
  In fact, that’s how Google started out with AdSense as well: It was called “content targeting advertising”, because Google scanned your webpage and then served ads that related to the content of your webpage. I don’t know what happened along the road to lead us to the current tracking and spying mess.
  - shostack 9y ago

bertil 9y ago

I do not know you, so I won’t presume (certainly not on HackerNews, the least representative sample of the Internet) but I have seen many experiments proving that most people who think they don’t like targetted ads actually prefer them -- until they make a very informed but very wrong guess. Typical examples include: - advertising for something shameful (underwear and dildo are my go-to examples) or that you otherwise want be kept secret (engagement rings); - repeat ads for specific and unusual big-ticket items. I have told friends working at Amazon that no one I know ever started a vacuum cleaner collection, but they only response is “You would be surprised…” to which I can only assume the world is either weirder than I thought, or their analytics function has missed something. What you (and most people) probably would prefer is the ability to edit what the ad engine knows or assumes about you: gone are dildos, rings and vacuum cleaners; come books about programming patterns! I keep telling anyone close to any of those recommendation engines to allow me to do that, but they mumble things about design, feasibility and hacking that genuinely don’t add up to me.

badrabbit 9y ago
Not true,sure I would prefer programming related ads but I still want it page-relevant and not based on my browsing history,habits or sensor data.