• MurrayL@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Advertising isn’t going anywhere, so investing in/supporting ways to more ethically serve ads without harvesting private data seems like a good thing?

    • uzay@infosec.pub
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      8 months ago

      Becoming an ad company while trying to put privacy first seems like a conflict of interests in the making

      • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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        8 months ago

        As Jamie Zawinski put it, it’s like a non-profit animal shelter setting up a sideline selling kitten meat to satisfy demands for hockey-stick growth. If somebody castigates them for it, they can point out that the demand for kitten deli slices didn’t going to go away, and if they didn’t sell them, someone else would step in and do it less humanely.

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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          8 months ago

          There’s actually a real world example of this. Some cats that are disected in schools are euthanized cats from shelters, because the alternative is cat farms that breed cats just to be killed and disected

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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          8 months ago

          That’s what I always say. Targeted advertising should be illegal. Contextual advertising is acceptable.

          If I’m on the star trek wiki, serve me ads for star trek, sci-fi, and whatever. You don’t need to know anything about me specifically.

          We’d still need to do something about like ads that take up too much space, hurt page performance, or introduce malware, but removing the stalking would be an improvement

        • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          When you drive by a billboard on the highway, is it invading your privacy?

          Possibly?

          Let me rephrase it a little- When you walk past a digital advertising screen at a Westfield Shopping Centre - is it invading your privacy? (The answer is a definite YES, they have facial tracking and keep metrics on where you go in the mall, how long you loiter in certain locations, what stores you go, whether you came back out with bags, etc)

      • MurrayL@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It’s definitely making their job harder on the face of it, but it also differentiates them from other ad companies, so I guess they’re betting on that being a draw for potential clients.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      Why? Does 95% of digital advertisement even serve a single valuable purpose?

      I get that websites need funding and that legitimate business require some way communicate their services exist. We need to solve the problem for the former and create specialized accessible safe spaces for the later.

      When is the last time anyone here saw an ad for a local business, when is the last time anyone recall willfully clicking one? Was there actually anything useful there?

      From what i recall ads almost always are one of the following:

      • sex, barely legal drugs and predatory video games. (Lumped together to make a bad pun)

      • real product/fake price: oh this item isnt in stock plz look at catalog

      • politics, buy our guide to get rich, actual illegal scam operation.

      None of them are honest or respectful to the customer. People aren’t prey, stop baiting.

      Admittedly, for me this is personal. Autism means i experience the extra noise as painful. Plastering it on useful websites feels like a hostile attack to keep me out and unwelcome. I downright refuse to look at watch nor will i support them through ad free subscriptions to the point of it having become a digital disability.

      But come on, can we smart online people really not figure out something else that isn’t based on literal brainwashing.

    • Blizzard@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      When everyone start using adblockers then it will go away and companies will have to come with new business models. I have been using adblockers since the first adblock was released and I don’t see ads so it’s up to the people. Better invest in/support ways to block ads.

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        Same, but surely you realize that ads have only gotten worse in the intervening time. I also don’t truly believe that we’ll ever reach critical mass on adblocker users. You’re asking people who don’t care, who don’t use the internet the same way we do, to suddenly care enough to take manual action outside of their knowledgebase amd comfort zone.

        The only way the adblocker user numbers get pumped up to critical mass for a change is if a popular default browser makes adblocking an opt-out default.

        • Blizzard@lemmy.zip
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          8 months ago

          You’re asking people who don’t care, who don’t use the internet the same way we do, to suddenly care enough to take manual action outside of their knowledgebase amd comfort zone

          If they don’t care about ads then they won’t care if those ads are private or not.

        • thejml@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          I will say that we’re definitely getting to a level of adblockers that the sites actively care about blocking content or warning about people using adblockers. It’s starting to affect their bottom lines.