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I wish targeted advertising was made completely illegal here, I am sure our society would greatly benefit from that.
by thrance 2y ago
I wish targeted advertising was made completely illegal here, I am sure our society would greatly benefit from that.
- _ink_ 2y agoI agree to the fullest
- AnarchismIsCool 2y agoI'd just say all advertising. It's effectively money time and effort we just light on fire.
- throwawayq3423 2y agoWhy not make Sales illegal too.
- ktosobcy 2y agoHappily. I'm not very fond of dumb calls from "sales" starting with "Let me introduce you to our new shiny product"...
- in_a_society 2y agoJust curious, what industry do you work in?
- ktosobcy 2y agoWhat's the relation to the outlook?
- thfuran 2y agoAll advertising is a step too far, I think. But banning accepting any remuneration to deliver, display, or cause to be viewed any advertisement, and limiting physical ads in places viewable from public areas seems like it would improve things. Buildings shouldn't be covered in ads, and the internet shouldn't be largely based around scamming as much information out of people as possible to jam ads down their throat, but a business should be allowed to put up flyers on their own storefront. I mean, if you're really pedantic about banning all ads, that probably precludes restaurants posting menus out front.
- amelius 2y agoBring back yellow pages.
- mjevans 2y agoExtremely limited, focused, designed to deliver facts rather than entertainment or flashy catchy content 'ads' could be informative and beneficial. The structure of the ad should be as close to sanitized textbook as possible, maybe even follow a regulated formula. Something like, "This is a thing that exists. Here's the benefit without dramatizing or 'selling' someone something they don't need. X brand can be found at Y location for Z cost." It's easy to agree with all advertising. I think that's the quickest, easiest measure to cut that yields an outcome beneficial to society, and that more ads are nearly always worse. I also think that sales are worse for society than every day prices that deliver value; sales do make sense for things like seasonal items which are in abundance due to just being harvested.
- null0pointer 2y agoI’ve wondered the same thing. How much does a company have to spend on ads just to keep up with their competitors’ ad spend? I don’t know but if I had to guess I’d say most of the ad budget. Not to mention that ads are a cancer that infest and overrun anything they touch.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y agoWould be a dream. Then a more-or-less independent entity paid by our tax money could be used to test stuff according to objective and scientific standards. I mean, stuff like TÜV certification already exists, doing a bit more work to get a reliable measure of performance, repairability, etc... like some review websites do wouldn't be that difficult. Instead, we're forced to turn to third-party testers with dubious manufacturer relations - even when the results aren't freely available! - or technical knowledge (e.g. Consumer Reports using 1/3 octave smoothed power response for loudspeakers)...
- georgeburdell 2y agoDo you actually get relevant online ads? I usually get ads about the thing I just bought
- baq 2y agoI thought it’s idiotic until the first time I sent something back for a refund.
- fruit2020 2y agoAnd how many times did you do that :))
- ambicapter 2y agoThe great thing about them selling you something made to be as crappy as you will stand, is that then you'll then have to refund it all the time, making their re-targeting ads even more "effective" :)) What a virtuous cycle!
- fooker 2y agoStatistically this works out pretty well. If you spent real money on something, you're far more likely to buy it again or buy it for someone or send that link to someone than a completely new product.
- Too 2y ago
- finolex1 2y agoWhy would it benefit society to get less targeted ads as opposed to more targeted ones?
- ab5tract 2y agoBecause there would be no incentive to commodify user activity, bundle it up, and resell it to ever more dubious information brokers?
- llm_trw 2y agoYou'd need to ban targeted marketing, not just advertising. If I were selling widgets I still greatly care about knowing who buys a billion widgets a year and will pay good money to find out.
- okanat 2y agoTracking stats of your customers using the data they willingly gave you and making marketing decisions isn't the problem. Neither is making sponsorship agreements with content producers who make relevant content. Creation of global markets with interconnected networks to track and share detailed personal information about mental states, political alignment, sexual life and more is the problem.
- llm_trw 2y agoYes, all those things mean I get to find out what _groups_ buy my products. The plural of anecdote is data after all.
- amelius 2y agoAlso it would help reduce overconsumption which is great given the finite resources we have on this planet.
- ozim 2y agoAds can be targeted but not at individual. If I am Tylor Swift fan I should get her merch advertising only when I am visiting swifties forum or group - but not when I am checking my fishing forum where I expect fishing gear ads. But nowadays I get adsg
- ApolloFortyNine 2y agoThis would kill the free internet tomorrow, and the one billion YouTube viewers would likely be quite upset about it. Untargeted ads pay less than 5% what targeted ones do.
- rpbiwer2 2y agoThe Internet existed before Internet ads (and particularly targeted ads) did. Personally, while I don't necessarily disagree with the point you're making, I'm curious to see what a pendulum swing in the opposite direction might look like.
- chmod775 2y ago> Untargeted ads pay less than 5% what targeted ones do. Even assuming that is true, companies are bidding for user's attention and against each other. What do you think will happen to prices for context-based advertising if targeted advertising goes away? > and the one billion YouTube viewers would likely be quite upset about it Great example. Many of the ads that finance the YouTube ecosystem are context-based and not targeted.
- burnerthrow008 2y ago> What do you think will happen to prices for context-based advertising if targeted advertising goes away? It's quite obvious, isn't it? They will stop buying ads altogether. The entire reason targeted ads pay better is because they have a higher conversion rate, so advertisers can afford to pay more. > Many of the ads that finance the YouTube ecosystem are context-based and not targeted. And that's why shovel-ware "personal finance" crap YouTube channels make mega-bux, while actually interesting creators earn pennies. If you want more "junk food content", have at it: Ban all the targeted ads! Just don't come crying in five years when there's nothing good to watch or read.
- fooker 2y agoIf targetted ads are suddenly illegal, won't this mean the advertising market jumps 20x larger? Either that, or we'll find out what just content based untargetted ads work pretty well.
- tzs 2y agoWhat exactly do you mean by "targeted advertising"? I'm guessing you probably mean "behavioral advertising", which is a subset of "targeted advertising". Targeted advertising includes contextual advertising (e.g., a company putting an ad for their bird watching binoculars on a bird watching blog) and I'm having trouble thinking of any reason to ban that.
- tcfhgj 2y agoI'd even go to banning all commercial ads, like several cities have done offline. Reasons? Click bait, boosts consumerism, ads imply essentially a tax for everyone (remember that ads have to be paid by the consumers), CEO spam, annoying, environmental costs
- XCSme 2y ago> boosts consumerism Don't we live in a capitalist world?
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y agoConsumerism is overrated, but we all want it because neighbour has nice thing
- tcfhgj 2y agoWhat does it matter?
- ADeerAppeared 2y agoI have some excellent news for you about the legality of targeted advertising under the GDPR. The GDPR is very clear about this. Advertising is not a legitimate interest or a functionally-required data processing, ergo, it may only be done with user consent. And that user consent may not be coerced in any way at all, you may not even refuse access to services if users reject their data being used. It's taking a while to go up and down the courts, but the days of ad-tech are numbered.
- xvector 2y ago[flagged]
- aniviacat 2y agoThere are no free web services. By watching ads you are paying with other people's money.
- Too 2y agoGood intentions but how well is that working out so far? Only thing we got was annoying cookie popups everywhere, where consent is one click away and reject is three layers behind a small “learn more” button.
- sensanaty 2y agoThat just shows us that the companies don't give a shit and are implementing every dark pattern under the sun to keep harvesting data. The ePrivacy bill, GDPR and the EU cookie laws say nothing about cookie banners or anything of the sort, companies just make it as annoying as possible so that people get tired by it and mindlessly click reject. Guess what, the whole hidden reject thing? That's not legal. Opting out should be equally as easy (or easier) than opting in, which a lot of EU companies realize.
- afiori 2y agoevery meeting I have been in wrt PII collection had some provvisions for 1) how will this be protected enough 2) how can we easily delete this if needed; so I would say decently.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]