Users Know Advertisers Watch Them, and Hate It 243
Chris Blanc tips an Ars writeup on a survey of consumer attitudes toward targeted advertising. The results of the survey, conducted for TRUSTe, confirm that advertisers are in a tough spot. "[The survey company] randomly selected 1,015 nationally representative adults... Although only 40 percent of the group was familiar with the term 'behavioral targeting,' most users were well aware of the practice. 57 percent reported that they weren't comfortable their activities [were being] tracked for advertising purposes, even if the information couldn't be tied to their names or real-life identities. Simultaneously, 72 percent of those surveyed said that they find online advertising annoying when the ads are not relevant to their needs..."
Big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
But isn't the advertising to some extent what keeps some websites afloat? Even some services?
As for billboards being less intrusive, that depends on the billboard and where it is, and how often you happen to visit wherever it is...
And as for the postal systems, that is a federal system and it is illegal to open someone else's mail. I'm not sure the same applies to online transactions, depending on how it is sent. If you shout across the room, don't sue me for listening if I'm in the room...
Re:Big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps. What's that got to do with liking it? Proctoscopy may make me live longer, but that doesn't make me enthusiastic about having a proctoscope jammed up my butt.
As for billboards being less intrusive, that depends on the billboard and where it is, and how often you happen to visit wherever it is.
True. And not all advertising is obnoxious. Just advertising that is ugly, poorly designed, gaudy, moves on my screen, takes up space on my screen to the detriment of the page, makes the page load slower, or is for things I'm not interested in at the moment. So that includes about 75% of the advertising I see on websites ("ads that I see" does not include anything using Flash or most popups). Most of the other 25% is Google's ads, which aren't too obtrusive yet. If I'm shopping, I might even click on them.
TFA says that consumers want to see more relevant ads. It is very important to note that "more" modifies the word "relevant", not the word "ads".
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Re:Big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. The point of advertising is to get me to want something I don't need (because if I needed it, I could not wait around for an advertiser to "educate me about his valuable product/service"). That is, by definition, a waste of my time.
When I do want to buy something, I go looking for it. To find what I want, I use a wonderful invention called the Yellow Pages, and if I want to get high-tech then there's Google. These are more than adequate for me to find what I want without much effort. When I don't want to buy something, I think it's reasonable to ask the sellers to stay out of my face.
Re:Big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is still obnoxious, though.
Re:Big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, if I had mod points, and I could mod you up with all of them at once, I would.
MOST INTELLIGENT AND INSIGHTFUL POST EVER, EVER!
Seriously. This is why I surf with Firefox using Adblock Plus, Flashblock, and No Script. I HATE HATE HATE ads! I don't care what you are selling, don't care how great it is, and I do NOT want your ad in my face. I know what I want, and can go find it myself, I do not need some marketing guru shoving crap in my face all day long. Heck, I even mute the T.V. during commercials! The only exceptions I make to this are the particularly clever and funny commercials that are entertaining in their own right. Of which there are vanishingly few.
Frankly I don't care that your website is "Ad supported". While I may enjoy your fine content, it's not my responsibility to create and support a good business model for you. That's YOUR job as the website operator. If you go away because your business model depended on me being assaulted by ads and I didn't see them so you made no money and went under, then fine. There are THOUSANDS of other people out there that are just as good as you and just as smart as you, with just as much opportunity as you that will replace you and your website in a heartbeat. To be blunt, neither you nor your website is really all that important to me. Certainly not so important that I would choose to inconvenience myself by being forced to look at annoying ads. Keep in mind that as far as I am concerned, 100% of ads are annoying. If there is an ad it is annoying SIMPLY BY EXISTING. There is no such thing as a "targeted ad" in my universe, unless the ad is targeted for deletion.
So there you have it. Find another way website owners, or go the way of the dodo. Either way, I won't be looking at your ads.
Re:Big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's not always the case, because you have to know that something, or at least surmise that it might exist before you go seek it out. The iPod is a good example - it was a new type of product that the market was ready for (a portable MP3 player), but without Apple's advertisin
Re:Big deal? (Score:4, Interesting)
People are lately talking more and more about "distracted driving" laws. No cell phones allowed, no changing the radio station, no lighting your cigar, etc.
If distracted drivers are such a problem, then why are people allowed to put up those damned blinking flashing signs? They're FAR more distracting than answering the phone. I hate online ads that do that but at least online ads won't kill me. The flashing sign at the McDonald's at sixth and south grand just may.
Advertisers are shooting themselves in the foot, targeted ads or not. I'm not just annoyed with advertisers that aren't advertising what I might be interested in buying, I'm just as annoyed with advertising for stuff I want - if the ad itself is annoying.
If I'm shopping for a laptop and Dell has a splash page at slashdot (for instance) making me click past the God damned thing to get to the site, I'm more inclined to buy a Gateway YOU HEAR ME, MIKE?). If Burger King has a blinkey flashey ad at the newspaper site I'm more inclined to go to McDonald's.
Rewarding obnoxious behavior is stupid and I refuse to do it. I also refuse to use those incentive cards at the grocery store. "Do you have a MAX card?" the cashier asks. "No" I reply, "I don't like being STALKED by a God damned corporation!"
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Post some white powder and they will kick your back door down and drag you out of the bath tub.
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Yeah, this is pretty ridiculous. At the very minimum, all wireless routers should support some standard VPN which is nearly unbreakable, web traffic should be encrypted, and addresses and DNS lookups should be encrypted as well (perhaps using one way hash functions or the like). It annoys me that individuals other than the computer I'm communicating with know that the communicatio
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We don't need IPv6 to do this. We just need to get more people to start using current technologies like OTR and PGP
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Well, this is why it's a big deal (Score:5, Interesting)
1. people change their behaviour when they think they're watched. Doubly so when it's recorded and they're not even sure when it'll be used, how, and in which way it'll bite them in the arse.
My favourite example is about the USSR. Everyone knows the brutality of Stalin's NKVD and about the Gulag, but that got toned down a lot after Stalin. Mostly because it was cheaper and more effective to just give people the impression that everything they say or do goes into some dossier, and they have no idea when it'll be used against them or how. Maybe it'll be the GULAG, but maybe they'll never travel abroad again, or maybe their kid won't ever get a promotion because of what their father said, or God knows what else. Or maybe nothing will ever happen, but there's no way to know.
That uncertainty is actually scarier than immediate repression. It removes the feedback. With Stalin's NKVD, you could know pretty soon whether they have anything against you or not. With something that might, or might not happen, and might take a decade or two to, you just don't know.
The bigger effect is that it made people distrust each other, and thus unlikely to get organized. If comrade Piotr swears at the Party, how do you know if he isn't some agent provocateur trying to get you to say something you'll regret. And even if he isn't, do you want it on your record that you hang out with a disgruntled enemy of the people? Best avoid going drinking with Piotr in the future.
Of course, you could point out, that was only because Big Brother there had not only ears, but also an arm with a whip and an inclination to use it. Well one way or another disincentives exist just as well in a free society, and in the West we're all the more eager to accept them if they're wielded by the private industry instead of the state.
E.g., just like in Soviet Russia you might have feared that you'll never get a well paid job if you have on your record that you're a maladjusted malcontent, the exact same can happen in the west too, in a world where employers routinely google their employees. Even if your current boss doesn't mind it, how do you know if the next job interview doesn't get influenced by something you said or did?
E.g., to get to more mundane western worries, if you're, say, in a particularly bigotted town in the Bible Belt, do you want your next employer to know that you're surfing for gay porn? Most people even if they're not particularly secretive about either being gay or surfing for porn, don't wear "I download gay porn" on a badge at a job interview either.
This whole data collection, and the possibility that it'll get leaked, sold to the highest bidder, or just given as a "gift to the community" like the infamous AOL search data, is enough to make a lot of people think twice about what they do. Even if it's not antisocial per se. Better not trip someone's sensitivities the wrong way, and all that.
(And, yes, I know, maybe _you_ are brave and fearless and never give in, bla, bla, bla. The vast majority of others aren't. That's the problem.)
It can enforce a degree of conformism that's outright scary.
2. Data mining, especially the way Joe Sixpack doesn't even understand it, adds another layer of scariness to it all. You don't know over what inferences they'll get to you, or whether you'll be a bystander casualty of one.
Basically the same as you wouldn't go into a black or jewish boss's office carrying some white supremacist magazine under your arm. Chances are the "pays to read that kind of thing => probably is a racist" inference won't help your career much. So even the real bigoted guys still wouldn't do it.
Data mining promises to make the same kind of inferences from other more mundane things. That even much more innocent things could finger you as something you'd rather not proclaim yourself as, or even genuinely aren't.
E.g., what if some data mining survey says that employees drinking Coca Cola are twice as loyal to the
Re:Well, this is why it's a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was living in Southern California and getting my first security clearance, scary men came around the neighborhood asking questions of the neighbors about me (as I was told later). None of them knew me, so much the better.
The situation is much different in the Asian countries I've lived in. Different lifestyle, different culture and it takes some getting used to. After a time, I came to expect that everything I did was watched by someone and gossiped about, getting very twisted by the time it got to my wife at the time which caused a lot of problems.
On a numeric basis, there are more people in the open glass communities in Asia than in the US (perhaps in Europe, I've never been there), where there is some expectation (and reality) of privacy in outdoor day to day activities.
Sure, it adds stress to me, I was born and raised in California, but it doesn't seem to matter to most everyone else.
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I guess the best way to explain it, is via Adlai Stevenson's "A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." For millenia, even in Western Europe and even early USA it wasn't. From Socrates being executed for making himself unpopular, through the witch
That was... (Score:3, Funny)
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Not just the USSR. McCarthyism [wikipedia.org] kept Americans from travelling abroad, or keeping their kids from even being employed. It killed Pete Seeger's [wikipedia.org] career, as well as many other artists, entertainers, as well as more normal run of the mill people.
During the McCarthy era, Americans were as afraid of being called a "commie" as the commies were afraid their government
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Basically, it says they don't like ads that "track their behavior", even if they're not personally identifiable. Then they say they don't like ads that aren't relevant to them. How's the advertiser supposed to know what's relevant to them without tracking their behavior at all? I don't know how these questions were asked, but the answers make no damn sense. Either that, or people in the survey didn't spend more than 3 ne
Bottom line... (Score:5, Insightful)
I see you are having your period... (Score:5, Funny)
At Tampax we understand this and that's why our tampons are designed to suit your body and help you get on with life...
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Re:Bottom line...Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
advertising is merely publishing the existence of a product.
marketing is the active, dogmatic, flagrant, imposition of a product to a particular target using the most invasive means possible within the boundaries of the law. An advertisement would be a poster for a revlon product in a department store. marketing would be the woman who blocks your path and burns your eyes out with a well placed blast of a perfume bottle.
your typical toy marketing campaign is not about convincing you and your kid to get this toy.. it's about deliberately manipulating your kids into pissing you off until you pay them temper tantrum protection money.
Slashdot's ads are actual advertising, while those seizure inducing flashers, popup windows, and fake system alerts are marketing.
Re:Bottom line...Not quite (Score:5, Funny)
I always called it "bullshitting."
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This is slashdot, you need links.
Bullshit [wikipedia.org]
Bullshit [uncyclopedia.org]
Bullshit [house.gov]
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Re:Bottom line...Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
True marketing deals with WHO buys WHAT. After that ADVERTISING takes over.
The slashdot crowd may unilaterally hate "marketing", but thats because they don't understand what it truly does. It is ironic that most people here who hate marketing don't sign their own checks.
Confusing B2C advertising methodologies with true marketing is ignorant. Apple is winning due to marketing, not advertising. Microsoft won due to Marketing, not advertising. Sony pwned for 2 iterations of gaming devices due to marketing, not advertising. Band-Aids, Toyota, Whole Foods, Glock, Clorox, Dyson, BMW, Jones Soda - these entities are winning due to marketing, not advertising.
Marketing is an analysis of data....thats it. Those who choose to use tha data to advertise corruptly are the culprits.
Get a clue.
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jones soda is winning because they actually follow the equation P = MC. They don't skimp on their ingredients like the major bottling houses do, and they don't gouge like they do.
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You must realize, there are marketers out there who are interested in the common good. We do know the reality of the situation and want to rectify it for the good of the consumer and the business. Fuck, Google was a prime example until about 2004.
Re:Bottom line...Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
jones soda is winning because they actually follow the equation P = MC. They don't skimp on their ingredients like the major bottling houses do, and they don't gouge like they do.
As the saying goes, sell the sizzle, not the steak. p=mc, ingredients, alternative to major bottling houses, not gouging--sizzle. You didn't say a single thing about the flavor! Seems very telling...
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I "bought into" a package of a particular flavor of jones soda because it tastes like a drink that's exceedingly expensive to import. (it's sold in the asian district for about 25 cents an OUNCE)
the soda was 40 cents less a can than the pepsi products on the same aisle.
nothing to do with marketing, it's called a competitive product -- something foreign to the US economy for a long time because the vast majority of producers who pull that "capitalism" crap are bought out and shut down by the incumbe
Re:Bottom line...Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
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Could it be that those products are winning because they have consistently high quality?
Sure I suppose that some of that could fall under the heading of marketing, if marketing means knowing that people don't like shoddy design, planned obsolescence, or unnatural food additives. I suppose that making a connection between poor business practices that result in a boycott or lack of trust in your product would have to qualify as marketing
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I spent a bit of time in the television industry in the early 80's. I was always amused by the fact that TV executives don't actually watch much television at all. If they were all forced to spend two or three hours a night for a month of two watching what they put out there, maybe we'd see some improvement in the quality of programming.
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So true.
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Uhm, there is NO clear demarcation between advertising and marketing. When someone from my bank calls me up about credit card offer X/Y/Z WITHOUT my persmission they have gone overboard and it's no longer advertising but STALKING for profit. No business should have the right to HARASS it's customers or "inform them" of things they DON'T want to be 'informed' about. I do online banking and they are free to advertise on their site but to CALL ME
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Advertising is fine.. "MARKETING" is what people dont like.
Actually, no. Advertising is the useless crap that litters an otherwise well-functioning web (as well as just about every street, magazine and tv-channel) and turns what would have been an enjoyable journey into a noisy, uncomfortable run of the gauntlet in a desperate attempt to get to the information you are after. And that is why people hate it.
I suspect most of us would mind it a lot less if we only saw adverts that were discreet and addressed our needs exactly; in fact, I think the best and probably m
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"Slashdot's ads are actual advertising, while those seizure inducing flashers, popup windows, and fake system alerts are marketing.
In the past week or so I've three times clicked on a discussion link here only to be greeted by one of those full page ads with the 'Click here to skip' links at the top. I'd call that just about as annoying and intrusive as popups.
I'm a capitalist and hav
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Only the incredibly stupid fool themselves into thinking that the stuff you get on credit is free. I would rather pay cash so I can see how much I've spent. I even got rid of my bank card so if I spend all my ready cash at the bar on a Saturday night, I'll go home and to bed instead of whipping out the plastic to buy drinks for that fox who was a dog four beers ago.
Re:Bottom line... (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for companies that are dependent on advertising to make revenue. I'd prefer to keep those websites free, and advertising is the best way to do this.
I try not to be a hypocrite, so I don't block ads. If a website has horribly obtrusive ads, I simply stop visiting it, but I have pretty high tolerance for it now. I either tune them out or just deal with it, because the comparatively minor inconvenience is often well worth the benefit of having free access to content/services.
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Since you appear to be in marketing, I'm surprised you aren't aware of the concept that people who do block ads aren't going to follow them anyway. Advertisers won't waste money advertising in places where people aren't interested in their service to begin with, which in my opinion helps them to not waste money. I will occasionally click on a random ad si
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I'd like to agree with you, but I don't believe that's true.
The reason why advertising exists and is prevalent as it is is that we, the great unwashed masses are happy to tolerate it, and obligingly participate in it, all with little or no thought. You could argue, for example, that the blight that exists on a city's buildings and infrastructure saves a few dollars for taxpayers, but hell, we've gotten to the point we erect building and monuments to the stuff. When we're n
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So why does everyone keep using it?
If you don't advertise no-one knows about your product or service. How would you get your car fixed without advertising? Walk round randomly asking people until you find a mechanic? How would you know if he was screwing you without getting a price from a competitor? That's a second person you'd have to try and find by word of mouth. This may take a while.
I'm afraid advertising is a fundamental part of any economy in which labour is divided. Except one in which the stat
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Of course, these adverts stimulate spending and provide
Just Don't Look (Score:4, Insightful)
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Users Prefer Targeted Advertising (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well, block them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every machine has a hosts file in which machines can be locally defined.
So, lets take what we know and make ads gone.. maybe not all of them.. Lets start with the annoying ones first.
First, get Firefox.
Next, we gets some plugins:
Adblock Plus
NoScript
NukeAnythingEnhanced
Flashblock
What, you dont like being watched? Now get TOR from tor.eff.org and install it, along with accompanying firefox plugin for proxy changing
Set up TOR and now you have ad-free browsing, with optional anonymizing surfing when needed (for performance hit).
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Tell that to all those BBS sysops... [wikipedia.org] Just because they've convinced you that you have to pay in one form or another, doesn't mean that it is so.
Re:Well, block them. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is MY choice what images I load, what scripts I render, and what HTML code I accept. You have NO SAY.
I have no qualms to disable ads any way I can, and I will show/set up ad killers so that my clients can surf safer and distraction free.
My setup does not block text ads... You want a way to our eyeballs, make ads like Kuro5hin.org . I recently bought a VPS because of an NON-obtrusive ad I viewed there.
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If a company also wants my attention for one of their product ads they should pay me, and not the advertising agency.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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They should be rightfully ignored and blocked.
Instead, text ads are not blocked. Google proved that one, as that is what they use.
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Unless each point is using some sort of encryption along with authentication, data capture at an exit node can happen anywhere.
Re:Well, block them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just saying.
Re:Well, block them. (Score:5, Funny)
or.. "I am a user who is excessively concerned with privacy and knows how to anonymize himself. Statistically speaking, I am probably (though not certainly) a reactionary paramilitary survivalist cult member. Effective ads for me are likely to include ads for weapons, military surplus, canned goods, religious iconography, industrial grade generators, and DIY bomb shelters."
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Hit the nail on the head, dude! (Score:2)
TrustE isn't a regulatory organization (Score:4, Interesting)
TrustE is more of an apologist than a regulator. TrustE stopped being serious about privacy in 1997, when they "simplified" their seal program. [news.com] A TrustE seal doesn't mean that any standard has been met. All it means now is that the company claims to comply with their own privacy statement, whatever it says. That's it.
Even worse, a site with a TrustE seal is more likely to have badware than one without a seal. [benedelman.org]
TrustE has revoked only two certificates in its ten year history.
Let's see (Score:4, Interesting)
With that said, I don't see how harmful this can be. Browsers do a good job of protecting us from the worst case scenarios, and web sites have a hard time implementing this effectively anyway. The sites best at this are those with real information, like amazon or ebay that have your info and can track what you do. But again, you are on their turf, so its kinda like complaining about being watched by security cameras at Best Buy, or about the membership card that tracks everything you buy at CVS.
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Just use superliminal advertising instead (Score:5, Funny)
BUY STUFF!!!
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Superliminal must be some new marketing-speak term. (similar to last week's new clintonian term: "misremembered") Wikipedia does not have an article on it "superliminal" advertising.
Just thought it was called it 'loud' and 'yelling ads' or propaganda-style...
Re:Just use superliminal advertising instead (Score:5, Funny)
Lisa: But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need subliminal messages?
Lt. Smash: It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal.
Lisa: Superliminal?
Lt. Smash: I'll show you. [opens the window, and shouts at Lenny and Carl, who are standing on the corner] Hey, you! Join the Navy!
Carl: Uh, yeah, all right.
Lenny: I'm in.
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I disagree with their analysis (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get that at all from these numbers; personal experience tells me that people don't want to see ads. Relevent ads aren't as bad, and some can be useful, but most just don't want to see ads.
The fact of the matter is that it is the advertisers themselves who want us to see their ads, not the other way around. To do this, they add stuff to their advertisements in order to make you pay attention to them.
People who pay attention to advertisements/commericals are the product to be sold, the advertisers are the real customer, and the content, whether it be magazine, movie, game etc is just the bait to lure us into the 'snare' and pay attention to the advertisement.
When people WANT to view an advertisement, we'll look for a product then. Building brand awareness beforehand might be effective, but that doesn't mean we enjoy being conditioned in such a manner. If we could have the carrot without risking the snare, we would totally take that. When we want the snare, we'll let you know.
Re:I disagree with their analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
ThinkGeek proves you wrong... I didn't know I wanted *half* that stuff! Seriously, targeting a specialist *site* works wonders, while targeting an individual is annoying. It's old technique though; for example, in specialist-enough niche (print) magazines for hobbyists, the ads are actually quite often interesting and useful to their audience.
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I don't get that at all from these numbers; personal experience tells me that people don't want to see ads. Relevent ads aren't as bad, and some can be useful, but most just don't want to see ads.
True, relevant ads are not as bad, as they waste your time less, as you might actually be interested in them.
But that is only true as long as there is no danger of somebody who know watching over your shoulder. If there is, relevant ads can lead to highly embarrassing situations...
I don't see the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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And in the meantime I use AdBlock Plus. No ad, no problem.
I know advertisers and site admins probably hate that, but I hate the fact that no one seems to know how to display ads in a way that is unobtrusive and effective.
Sure... (Score:2)
It turns out that users like free/cheap stuff a lot more than they hate advertising or "behavioral targeting." People clicking on ads is a big part of the reason why we don't have to pay anything for Slashdot.
Don't you just hate that?
Wow. (Score:2)
Yes, sometimes it is irritating when I see an advertisement that I know is hitting my demographic exactly and pushing my buttons. But a few times I have disregarded it and been sorry I did because I would have wanted the service/item at a critical time.
Overall, I'd rather see ads for computer equipment than scuba gear. The latter is a total waste of my time, the former keeps me up on prices and features of stuff I buy all the time.
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The classic ones are the "in your area" targeted ads, where they pick up on my IP address, which is registered to my ISP, who are based 150 miles away from me, so are totally irrelevant
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Selling you a weekend getaway that is 150 miles away is better than trying to sell you one 1500 miles away.
Also, if your ISP can't narrow its customer's locations down by zipcode, then they get a big bucket of fail served at room temperature anyways.
Even the summary of the questions is loaded (Score:2)
I wonder what question they actually asked (no link in TFA). If the summary accurately reflects the question, then what would we expect? "Are you comfortable that your web browsing, email and purchases are tracked for advertising purposes, even if the information can't be tied to your name or real-life identity?" I'm surpris
What to take from this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, so the consumer wants add targeted to their behavior without tracking it?. Therein is one of the problems - the vast majority of users don't really know what they want - or I guess a better description is that they want something that can no
Google Love Affair (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Google Love Affair (Score:5, Interesting)
Yay.
At the of the day, Apple charges lamorghini prices for chevette parts in cadillac boxes* and Google promises "don't be evil" while collecting and tracking data at a volume that probably makes the NSA green with envy. I personally find this to be irritating (on the part of apple) and heinously evil shit (on the part of google), but both companies are Best Of Breed, and as long as their products Suck Less than everything else on the market, they'll be loved by the slashdot crowd - and any questionable activity will be rationalized or ignored by the fanbase.
* Yes, an equivalent PC that has every last one of the features a Mac packs will cost more. But I can upgrade the video card on a 400$ Dell. The entry level for upgradeable video in the Apple world is currently 2,799$, and the starting point for a useable (non-intel) video chipset (non-upgradeable) is currently ~1,200$. Oh, and the Intel minis cost more than the PPC minis did, with arguably worse video. Mention any of this in an Apple thread and you'll be modded troll or flamebait.
They deliver where it counts : the product (Score:2)
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I didn't like the cookie valid until 2038 back when I found about it, didn't get what's that great about gmail and still don't (I like kmail much better), am not interested in the slightest in using their office applications, and Google's merging with doubleclick didn't improve things either. Doubleclick used to have a quite bad reputation on slashdot some years ago, btw.
One of these days I'm going to figure out how to make google go through tor.
And since other posters mentioned it,
Then offer up an alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowledge is power--Be vigilant. (Score:2)
Persuasion is nothing new or necessarily evil. We tend to modify our own environment for our own benefit. That environment often contains people.
Unless you're planning to take action to change the situation, crying about it is a waste of time. If you don't like it, do something about it. Learn to recongize other people trying to get you to do what they want. Use the k
False dichotomy (Score:4, Insightful)
TRUSTe notes that this attitude presents a conundrum for advertisers, who are simultaneously being told that consumers want to see more relevant ads but don't want to have their activities tracked in order to make those ads relevant.
Until the web gave advertisers the ability to track individuals (even if anonymously), the standard way of making advertising relevant to consumers was to advertise in media that reach your target audience. Magazines have sold themselves to advertisers for decades by offering the ability to reach tiny slices of the population collected together by shared interests. What advertisers now want is the ability to target you, not "18-29 yo males with an interest in technology."
You can continue to make advertising relevant by placing the ads where the target audience is likely to be found. You don't need to track me to preserve relevance.
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot? Partly funded by advertising. Computer sites? Funded by advertising. Open source software? Sometimes funded with website advertising.
Spyware, spam, and splogs aren't driven by advertising, they are driven by money.