5 ms·

Targeted advertising has become the norm on the internet, and it's hurting us

66 points by jrepinc 8y ago

Tsubasachan 8y ago
Meh, it employs millions of people. Pretty much every app comes with secret trackers. I want no part of advertising and have no need of it but clearly it pays somebody's bills.
- noisem4ker 8y ago
  Society as a whole is paying. I don't like paying the bill of someone whose scheme consists on capitalizing and slowly draining trust in the collective.
- dmortin 8y ago
  True and it also enables many smaller sites to function. The big players can adapt to a new revenue model easily, but for a small site maintained by 1-2 peopla it's not feasible to have and ad department or start selling ads individually. So aside from its drawback the current automated ad system helps the little guy site owner and any tightening would only result in the small players getting eliminated with the big guys continuing to thrive.
Proven 8y ago
Whatever. If you go on the Internet and don't want to be tracked and watch personalized ads, either take care of your privacy or pay somebody to do it for you. Bloody whiners.
buboard 8y ago
But advertising was always targeted. All those sleazy manipulative TV ads that sway angsty teenagers, targeted. Those baby faces that spin up any hormonal lady, targeted. The boobs that make plethysmographs spike, targeted. The internet just shifted the targeting balance from the form of the ad to the delivery of the ad. People may believe advertising is breaking the world, but the truth is it is people themeselves that break it.
- sorokod 8y ago
  Sure, it's just that the radius of the target's boolseye has shrunk to the point of constituting a qualitative change.
throwaway713 8y ago
It’s a bit hard to take this article seriously when there are FB and Twitter "share" buttons right under the title. I don't understand how news groups constantly criticize social media and then turn around and pay for advertisements and ask people to "share this article" on those very same platforms.
- azahk 8y ago
  I wish the "evil" advertisers and social media would ban all those news groups so they would shut their traps.
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  Not only that, AdBlock Plus blocked 51 tracker cookies on that page. Y'know, maybe I'm better off without VICE in my life. This one is going into my hosts file.
- thomasz 8y ago
  You can be part of a something and still realize that it is a problem.
- apatters 8y ago
  Not to mention the clickbait/hyperbole in the title. I strongly believe that targeted advertising has negative effects on society, but "breaking the world" screams "we want to grab and monetize your attention by activating your stress response, just like advertisers do." Do they not see the irony? Vice sucks
  - nathanaldensr 8y ago
    Yep. We're basically reaching "peak hyperbole" in the English language. All these actors vying for our attention are resorting to more and more extreme wording to get our attention. Soon, there won't be new words to use that are more extreme! I guess they could say "YOU WILL DIE if you don't read this article" but we already had that with "copy/paste this message or you will be visited by a demon" stuff on AOL decades ago...
  - 8y ago
securityfreak 8y ago
Oh the hypocrisy. Reading about how bad ad targeting and tracking is, while being welcomed by a huge, annoying modal, covering up half of the text I’m eager to read, with a large ACCEPT button, or the opt-out button hidden behind a link on an external page. It’s like sharing those “Delete Facebook” posts, on Facebook.
- windows_tips 8y ago
  "Adblock Plus"
- jjbinx007 8y ago
  I also don't appreciate auto playing video wasting all my data and battery when I'm reading on mobile. Why can't sites just emulate newspapers of old and statically embed non tracking ads on their pages? I'll whitelist the site on my ad blocker straight away. This shit also causes no end of hassle to those who use screen readers or who have other accessibility problems.
  - securityfreak 8y ago
    This is the industry standard. I wish I had a choice to either pay with my data ("free" content), or pay with money in a subscription model. Just like Zuckerberg was asked, whether he would consider a subscription model. The formula is quite simple: monthly income divided by the number of users, that came out around $11 a month, if I recall correctly. This, of course, isn't in the interest of content providers at all. With a growing user base, the unit price of an ad is growing each month. Users wouldn't agree to an increased monthly fee based on the number of users. Greed wins. I wouldn't mind ads in principle. I hate intrusive ads. Does anyone know, why the Acceptable Ads movement isn't globally spread yet? I think this could be a middle ground for advertisers and users. https://acceptableads.com https://acceptableads.com
- vvpan 8y ago
  Hypocrisy is difficult to avoid in modern world. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to criticize things we are enmeshed in. Your argument is not invalid, but I thought I'd point out.
foobar1962 8y ago
> third, monetize that information by performing big data analytics in order to show users advertising that is narrowly tailored to their demographics and revealed interests No. Big data analytics allows advertisers to target users. The "targeting' is for the benefit of the advertisers, not the users.
mandelken 8y ago
> Though the rule was far from universally respected, 20th century journalism's code of ethics prohibited financial considerations from influencing news coverage. This is a fairytale. Chomsky and Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent 30 years ago where they popped that bubble.
- B1FF_PSUVM 8y ago
  If you think about it for a bit, the whole Western perspective has been moulded by merchants' advertising for a few centuries now - say since the Gutenberg press was used for non-sacred texts ...
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  What bubble? That the various codes of ethics state what they state, even though they were "far from" being universally respected (which means it was often broken)? You're just confirming that they weren't universally respected. But that doesn't change the various codes of ethics themselves, e.g. from https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp Journalists should: – Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts. – Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility. – Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; do not pay for access to news. Identify content provided by outside sources, whether paid or not. – Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage. – Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two. Prominently label sponsored content. Meanwhile, "new media" don't even have that ethos in paper, with or without "teeth", you might say there are no principles being broken because there are no principles.
floatboth 8y ago
> Google pioneered the targeted advertising business model in the late 90s Weren't Google ads purely contextual until 2010 ish?
writepub 8y ago
There are many many hundreds of millions of people who would never be able to afford a paid-only version of the internet. Imagine a $20/month bundle for all if Google's services, from search to Gmail, from photos to docs. Many in the developing world would find that prohibitively expensive.
billfruit 8y ago
Perhaps targetted ads can be less manipulative and more information rich than untargeted ads. Also, I think, if I had a product to sell, I would want to spent every penny of my ad budget to be able to get the focused attention of potential buyers who might be looking for products like mine.

66 points by jrepinc 8y ago

Meh, it employs millions of people. Pretty much every app comes with secret trackers. I want no part of advertising and have no need of it but clearly it pays somebody's bills.

noisem4ker 8y ago
Society as a whole is paying. I don't like paying the bill of someone whose scheme consists on capitalizing and slowly draining trust in the collective.
dmortin 8y ago
True and it also enables many smaller sites to function. The big players can adapt to a new revenue model easily, but for a small site maintained by 1-2 peopla it's not feasible to have and ad department or start selling ads individually. So aside from its drawback the current automated ad system helps the little guy site owner and any tightening would only result in the small players getting eliminated with the big guys continuing to thrive.

Proven 8y ago

Whatever. If you go on the Internet and don't want to be tracked and watch personalized ads, either take care of your privacy or pay somebody to do it for you. Bloody whiners.

buboard 8y ago

But advertising was always targeted. All those sleazy manipulative TV ads that sway angsty teenagers, targeted. Those baby faces that spin up any hormonal lady, targeted. The boobs that make plethysmographs spike, targeted. The internet just shifted the targeting balance from the form of the ad to the delivery of the ad. People may believe advertising is breaking the world, but the truth is it is people themeselves that break it.

sorokod 8y ago
Sure, it's just that the radius of the target's boolseye has shrunk to the point of constituting a qualitative change.

throwaway713 8y ago

It’s a bit hard to take this article seriously when there are FB and Twitter "share" buttons right under the title. I don't understand how news groups constantly criticize social media and then turn around and pay for advertisements and ask people to "share this article" on those very same platforms.

azahk 8y ago
I wish the "evil" advertisers and social media would ban all those news groups so they would shut their traps.
SyneRyder 8y ago
Not only that, AdBlock Plus blocked 51 tracker cookies on that page. Y'know, maybe I'm better off without VICE in my life. This one is going into my hosts file.
thomasz 8y ago
You can be part of a something and still realize that it is a problem.
apatters 8y ago
Not to mention the clickbait/hyperbole in the title. I strongly believe that targeted advertising has negative effects on society, but "breaking the world" screams "we want to grab and monetize your attention by activating your stress response, just like advertisers do." Do they not see the irony? Vice sucks
- nathanaldensr 8y ago
  Yep. We're basically reaching "peak hyperbole" in the English language. All these actors vying for our attention are resorting to more and more extreme wording to get our attention. Soon, there won't be new words to use that are more extreme! I guess they could say "YOU WILL DIE if you don't read this article" but we already had that with "copy/paste this message or you will be visited by a demon" stuff on AOL decades ago...
- 8y ago

securityfreak 8y ago

Oh the hypocrisy. Reading about how bad ad targeting and tracking is, while being welcomed by a huge, annoying modal, covering up half of the text I’m eager to read, with a large ACCEPT button, or the opt-out button hidden behind a link on an external page. It’s like sharing those “Delete Facebook” posts, on Facebook.

windows_tips 8y ago
"Adblock Plus"
jjbinx007 8y ago
I also don't appreciate auto playing video wasting all my data and battery when I'm reading on mobile. Why can't sites just emulate newspapers of old and statically embed non tracking ads on their pages? I'll whitelist the site on my ad blocker straight away. This shit also causes no end of hassle to those who use screen readers or who have other accessibility problems.
- securityfreak 8y ago
  This is the industry standard. I wish I had a choice to either pay with my data ("free" content), or pay with money in a subscription model. Just like Zuckerberg was asked, whether he would consider a subscription model. The formula is quite simple: monthly income divided by the number of users, that came out around $11 a month, if I recall correctly. This, of course, isn't in the interest of content providers at all. With a growing user base, the unit price of an ad is growing each month. Users wouldn't agree to an increased monthly fee based on the number of users. Greed wins. I wouldn't mind ads in principle. I hate intrusive ads. Does anyone know, why the Acceptable Ads movement isn't globally spread yet? I think this could be a middle ground for advertisers and users. https://acceptableads.com https://acceptableads.com
vvpan 8y ago
Hypocrisy is difficult to avoid in modern world. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to criticize things we are enmeshed in. Your argument is not invalid, but I thought I'd point out.

foobar1962 8y ago

> third, monetize that information by performing big data analytics in order to show users advertising that is narrowly tailored to their demographics and revealed interests No. Big data analytics allows advertisers to target users. The "targeting' is for the benefit of the advertisers, not the users.

mandelken 8y ago

> Though the rule was far from universally respected, 20th century journalism's code of ethics prohibited financial considerations from influencing news coverage. This is a fairytale. Chomsky and Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent 30 years ago where they popped that bubble.

B1FF_PSUVM 8y ago
If you think about it for a bit, the whole Western perspective has been moulded by merchants' advertising for a few centuries now - say since the Gutenberg press was used for non-sacred texts ...
PavlovsCat 8y ago
What bubble? That the various codes of ethics state what they state, even though they were "far from" being universally respected (which means it was often broken)? You're just confirming that they weren't universally respected. But that doesn't change the various codes of ethics themselves, e.g. from https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp Journalists should: – Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts. – Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility. – Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; do not pay for access to news. Identify content provided by outside sources, whether paid or not. – Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage. – Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two. Prominently label sponsored content. Meanwhile, "new media" don't even have that ethos in paper, with or without "teeth", you might say there are no principles being broken because there are no principles.

floatboth 8y ago

> Google pioneered the targeted advertising business model in the late 90s Weren't Google ads purely contextual until 2010 ish?

writepub 8y ago

There are many many hundreds of millions of people who would never be able to afford a paid-only version of the internet. Imagine a $20/month bundle for all if Google's services, from search to Gmail, from photos to docs. Many in the developing world would find that prohibitively expensive.

billfruit 8y ago

Perhaps targetted ads can be less manipulative and more information rich than untargeted ads. Also, I think, if I had a product to sell, I would want to spent every penny of my ad budget to be able to get the focused attention of potential buyers who might be looking for products like mine.