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how does adtech industry hurt people? Btw there are ad blocker for those who don't like ads.

• TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Directly, by wasting people's time and trying to manipulate them into buying a good or service they don't need. Quite often, those goods or services are subpar and a bad fit for the buyer (but a better sale for the seller). For each one of us who knows how to run an ad blocker, there's someone else who will get convinced by the ads and will sign up to a bad deal, possibly leading to a scam or a payday loan. Indirectly, through erosion of privacy and pretty much constructing a global high-tech surveillance apparatus, ready to be taken over by any evil government in the future. Basically, what this talk was about. Indirectly, through criminals who exploit marketers' data, as it inevitably leaks in data breaches. Indirectly, through enabling even more waste of precious resources in a stupid zero-sum game of customer acquisition.
  • majewsky 9y ago
    Indirectly, because ad networks are one of the most powerful malware distribution vectors. (Instead of hacking a website and putting your malware there, you can hack an ad network and put your malware on thousands of websites. Also, I'd expect most ad networks to have only very small budgets for infosec, or none at all.)
• Feniks 9y ago
  Yep some of the brightest minds of our generation are fighting the good fight.