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Parents putting together baby registries on Amazon have begun to notice a pesky problem, one that has resulted in parents receiving items they neither listed nor wanted. The online retailer has been placing sponsored products in baby registries, the Wall Street Journal reports, but because the ads look so similar to other registry items, people are purchasing them, unaware that the items weren't added to the registry by parents. Like added items, the sponsored products include an image, rating, price and a "0 of 1 Purchased" tag. The only thing that distinguishes them is a small, gray "Sponsored" label situated just above the item name.
[...] One new dad told the Wall Street Journal that he only realized Amazon had placed sponsored products in his baby registry when the Aveeno bath-time set arrived at his home. He said the ads were "blatantly trying to trick you." "Worst part is a friend spent money on something we didn't want. And Amazon profited," he added. While users can remove these ads from their registries, Amazon reportedly told advertisers that around 60 percent were left in place.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/28/amazon-inserting-sponsored-products-baby-registries/
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday November 29 2018, @08:12PM (4 children)
Speaking of Amazon and spam, I recently noticed Prime Video seems to prefix lots of videos with ads now. WTF is this, youtube?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 29 2018, @08:32PM (3 children)
I've been using Netflix for quite some time. While their streaming lineup may or may not be as extensive as with Amazon Prime, I've experienced 0 advertisements. Unless you count those auto-playing video previews. Which is at least just trying to catch your attention for movies / shows that are available or will soon be available through Netflix. My wife has threatened to drop Netflix once Disney's streaming service becomes available, but we'll see. We likely won't be affording both, though. We also have the 1 DVD plan, but haven't taken full advantage of it recently.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday November 29 2018, @08:40PM (2 children)
That is a recent style or fad I could enjoy never seeing again across the entire internet, more than just on streaming video. So annoying.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @09:42PM (1 child)
I canceled my subscription over that auto-play issue. Netflix didn't listen to the hordes of complaints about it and just said "fuck you guys our metrics show its fine".
At the least they could have added an option to disable the auto play but noooooo.
The other factor was their content line up. I found myself just re-watching shows I liked and the Netflix created content wasn't frequently good enough to maintain my interest. I realize that they license content, but if I subscribe to a service I expect the content to remain steady. Oh, also the region availability. They would license shows for some countries but not others, that pissed me off. Once again region controls are being applied, bunch of bullshit!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 29 2018, @10:01PM
Region controls aren't necessarily something they have control over.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"