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I have no issue with static, contextual ads (I had this conversation on here the other day in fact). Imagine reading something about, say, a particular lawnmow

I have no issue with static, contextual ads (I had this conversation on here the other day in fact). Imagine reading something about, say, a particular lawnmower and the article has a link to that lawnmower at the top as an ad from Flymo with a discount. No tracking just a link to buy it with a tracking Id in the URL or something. Can someone answer me this: Are there studies, not funded by those who benefit from mass-tracking, that show the benefit of all this data-gathering to show ads? Or that show it doesn't work perhaps? My gut tells me the difference in success rate is minimal and couldn't possibly justify the data collection but I'd love to be proven wrong. At this time, I believe the whole scheme to be a con. (there, I said it!)

drawnwren 7y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but there is far too much money in ad tracking for it to be ineffective. Internet advertising is a very metrics-driven enterprise
pixelrevision 7y ago
The online ad industry is super shady and is getting much worse since google and facebook have started eating their lunch. But it would be very hard to pull data collection out of this business model. If company a puts the lawnmower ad up and only reports clicks and company b reports the percentage of men aged 35-40 company b will eventually put company a out of business. Content providers have to run what ads will actually make them money so they’re going to go with networks where companies actually buy ads. The only way this cycle is going to get stopped is with serious pushback either from consumers, technology or laws.