from the if-they-had-only-listened-before dept.
Marketoonist ran a story about marketers saying, "Oops, our bad."
The Interactive Advertising Bureau issued a remarkable mea culpa last week about the state of online advertising. In response to the rise of ad-blocking software, IAB VP Scott Cunningham said digital advertisers should take responsibility for annoying people and driving them to use ad blockers:
"We messed up. As technologists, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience....
"We build advertising technology to optimize publishers' yield of marketing budgets that had eroded after the last recession. Looking back now, our scraping of dimes may have cost us dollars in consumer loyalty...
"The consumer is demanding these actions, challenging us to do better, and we must respond."
Nod to pipedot for running this story.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @06:19AM
Gird your loins for the advertising communities upcoming self-marketing drive. We are about to get pounded with a tsunami of astroturfing that the marketing industry is the key to a successful society. It will be unlike any campaign we've endured before, it will be all lies, and it will never stop. The advertising industry deserves no sympathy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @08:15AM
Not only that, the industry is considered by some (themselves) to be 'too big to fail' and have already started perverting 'free speech' rights by pushing legislation to punish those who would deny them their 'right to advertise'. This threat to the First Amendment in combination with our already eroding rights in the name of 'security' could sound the death knell. Advertisers are on the wrong side. They need a smack-down of epic proportions or we will all lose, and BIG. No mercy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:35AM
the industry is considered by some (themselves) to be 'too big to fail'
This. The only people the advertising industry serves is themselves. They are a self-serving greed machine. Society & culture don't need them, and in fact would thrive without them. Madison Avenue could burn to the ground and the world would be a better place for it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Monday October 26 2015, @06:27AM
Quote: "The consumer is demanding these actions, challenging us to do better, and we must respond."
No, the consumer isn't challenging you do to anything except GO AWAY and stop stalking us. The consumer explicitly does not want you to do better. We never agreed to the tracking, the cross site scripting, video ads, auto playing ads. We barely tolerated static image ads.
Who in their right mind is going to remove ad blockers just because these guys ask for another chance?
(Score: 2) by That_Dude on Monday October 26 2015, @06:39AM
Ditto!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @08:49AM
Who in their right mind is going to remove ad blockers just because these guys ask for another chance?
Nope, the advertisers aren't expecting that. The about face is just to soften the outcry when they *buy up* all the ad blockers and make them useless.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 26 2015, @01:15PM
You're going to have to explain exactly how that would work. What prevents more people from making ad blockers, or forking existing ones?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @06:09PM
fear of ninja lawyers
(Score: 2, Informative) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:33AM
Ninja lawyers? Don't make me laugh.
They don't stand a chance against a BOFH and his cattle-prod.*
*Not forgetting the roll of carpet, bag of quicklime, and shovel.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 3, Funny) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday October 26 2015, @06:46PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 26 2015, @07:33PM
Unless you want to block everything you don't already know, that won't help. You need a greylist, and greylists are a lot more difficult than either whitelists or blacklists. And in particular, they already work around blacklists, by periodically changing numbers. (I'm being a bit vague here, because precision would be misleading. This is true for phone numbers, TCP addresses, *ETC.*. It's not limited to those categories.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday October 27 2015, @03:04PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday October 26 2015, @09:38AM
I don't quite agree. Advertising can serve a valuable purpose. There are basically there kinds of advert:
In the last few decades, the advertising industry has concentrated entirely on category three. I'd be very happy to have all of these classed as assault with a dangerous weapon, as they're damaging to both individuals and society, and any executive that knowingly uses them put in prison. I'd also be very happy to have more of the ones in the first two categories.
I stopped believing Google's 'Don't be evil' motto when they replaced their simple, informative, relevant, text ads that were usually in the second category (sometimes in the first) with a full-on attempt to build detailed psychological profiles of every individual to use producing adverts in category three.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday October 26 2015, @10:11AM
Advertising can serve a valuable purpose. There are basically there kinds of advert:
You have a problem. A product exists that can solve (or, at least, help address) this problem. The advert makes you aware of the product and how to find out more about it.
You have an idea of the kind of thing that you want to buy. The advert makes you aware of a product of this type that you might not have been aware of.
You don't need anything. The advert tries to use psychological techniques to persuade you to buy something, or to convince you that the next time you want a specific kind of thing that you should go for a certain brand.
...
I'd also be very happy to have more of the ones in the first two categories.
Actually, what's needed for the first two is something like an interweb trades directory - somewhere to go when you particularly NEED to look at ads. Then there is no reason for any other advertising at all.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday October 26 2015, @11:58AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by NickFortune on Monday October 26 2015, @12:16PM
I suppose I could see that if you weren't aware that you had a problem in the first place. If you were, you'd presumably make the occasional attempt to find a solution, and some sort of directory site would then be adequate.
Of course if you didn't know you had a problem ... well making people "aware" of problems that they didn't know they had and then selling them solutions, that puts us back in category three territory.
That said, I remember the days when advertising was a single silent, static banner across the top of a web site. Didn't get in the way of the content, was easily ignored and often looked interesting. I used to click on those from time to time. I don't think advertising is necessarily evil. I just don't trust advertisers not to abuse my hospitality if I let them on to my computer again.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday October 26 2015, @04:54PM
That said, I remember the days when advertising was a single silent, static banner across the top of a web site. Didn't get in the way of the content, was easily ignored and often looked interesting. I used to click on those from time to time.
They eventually made those a problem by whisking you away from the sites you were visiting and making it so that hitting the back button on your browser would not take you back to the original page. That and the pop-ups they started using as well. There were manual pop-up blockers (RIP Surf In Peace!) but when Firefox and tabbed browsing came along it was a revelation.
(Score: 1) by SDRefugee on Monday October 26 2015, @06:22PM
Like the endless fucking drug ads on tv... Where they spend nearly the whole commercial rattling off side-effects that would make anybody EXTREMELY leery of using the fucking drug, then a perky voice says "Ask YOUR doctor if zippydodah is RIGHT for YOU!!".... Serious annoying.. And EVERYBODY knows annoying your potential customer is the correct way to sell your product... <sarcasm>
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @05:16PM
Exactly. A dead-tree computer magazine I like has both ads on the text pages, and a separate ads-only section. I've never bought anything from the ads on text pages. But I've explicitly gone to the ads-only pages to look for things.
When I'm reading texts, I'm reading texts. I don't want the ads, and they are only an annoyance (fortunately easy ignored for printed text). When I'm considering buying something, I'm not going to hunt for ads in the text section. I'm going to open the dedicated section.
I have no idea of how typical I am, but I can tell for sure that as far as I am concerned, the money paid for ads on text pages were wasted, but the money for ads on the dedicated pages was not.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday October 26 2015, @10:23PM
A dead-tree computer magazine I like has both ads on the text pages, and a separate ads-only section. I've never bought anything from the ads on text pages. But I've explicitly gone to the ads-only pages to look for things.
As some on SN may be aware, I am one of those people who hate ads. However this does not apply to ads-only pages. I receive QST, for example (one of the two dead-tree magazines that I subscribe to,) and it has ad pages. Quite often I like to look through those, to learn what's new is up there. The keyest difference here is that those ads are not interfering with me reading an entirely unrelated article. They are read in a completely different configuration of mind, on my own terms, when I am curious about new products.
In other words, ads on demand are fine. They are useful, as they allow manufacturers to explain what they have. There is time and place for everything. There is time for silence during a brain surgery, and there is time for loud music during a large, wild party. Just don't mix them up. If I want to see ads about bicycle headlights, I want to search for them and be given a collection like Google Images. I don't want to see ads about bicycle headlights when I read an article about glueballs, or about serialization of a class.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday October 26 2015, @06:06PM
Sounds like a nice idea, but assuming that the listing site charged each company a fee to get listed (what else are they gonna do to make money? run ads? ;), it would inevitably devolve into a "first among equals" SEO problem where the companies with deeper pockets pay extra to sort them to the top of the list.
And companies would still run ads the traditional way anyway. The listing site is just an extra place to advertise.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday October 26 2015, @11:40PM
it would inevitably devolve into a "first among equals" SEO problem where the companies with deeper pockets pay extra to sort them to the top of the list.
This has no effect on a savvy customer who reads the entire list before deciding what to buy. This is also convenient enough for a customer who has to buy something right away, no matter if it is the best or the cheapest. In other words, the order of ads in the ad listing does not bother the customer.
And companies would still run ads the traditional way anyway.
And they will be blocked by everyone, now that the official listing removes the last reason for advertising within someone else's materials.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday October 26 2015, @12:18PM
There is a slight monetary problem. Say the corporations have billions they could spend on ads. And the population in general is in a permanent economic decline, so you're not going to build sales organically, only by scavenging a larger slice of a permanently shrinking pie. This is the consumer situation in a nutshell.
So for consumer sales you have to convince the CEO that the ratios of ad bucks to sales and the long term effect of too many ad bucks chasing too few revenue dollars are unsustainable. I'm not sure that's necessarily true. Look at something like $1000 tennis shoes and $5000 car rims vs poor people. It seems the way of the future, that eventually we'll all have no money while being bombarded with ads trying to convince us to spend money we don't have. Its a higher level economic system failure, you can't exclusively fix just the advertising sector, or rephrased I can't think of a way to fix the ad sector that wouldn't change everything else.
On the non-consumer side #1 is engineering whitepapers which are always kinda slimy, and #2 is the stereotypical engineering component online parametric search. The problem is #1 and #2 are incredibly cheap, and 99% of the budget is for #3. I'm kinda speechless about how to spend #3 levels of money on #1 and #2 ad outputs. You could replace pdf files of amplifier transistor spec sheets with online videos of taylor swift bouncing around while lipsyncing as someone reads the spec sheet for her. Or parametric searches of bypass capacitors could include not just the usual max voltage, capacitance, ESR, and self resonance freq but also thumbnails of pr0n, perhaps taylor swift pr0n, to stay on track.
A lot of the problem at both scales is ratios. So at a high enough level money is allocated into local minima and local maxima based on $ revenue vs $ ad spend, for example. They're very local, local min and local max, and almost never global minmax results, but what is a risk adverse extremely short term thinker of a CEO supposed to do? You can't ask them to "do the right thing" because the purpose of a bureaucracy is specifically to filter people with morals, ethics, or independent thinking skills out before they get to the top. Its going to require a major system reboot to fix things.
Maybe after the upcoming web 2.0 crash. The unicorns are already dying. Looks like another down leg in the great recession coming up too. Historically that kind of thing flushes out a lot of malinvestment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Monday October 26 2015, @01:02PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday October 26 2015, @01:43PM
Except if you do any online shopping the first two really aren't needed anymore as the places you shop can take care of the rather easily and simply. Look at the Amazon recommendations, or the Newegg and Tiger flyers,Amazon for instance was able to see from my purchases I'm working on building a little music studio in my new place and so under recommendations I was shown when they had sales on things I could use like patch cords and mikes, and Newegg and Tiger have both seen that I use a lot of flash drives and hard drives so I get flyers when they have sales on those, thus making it easy to know when they have a deal on something I can actually use.
But lets be honest, the advertisers frankly SUCK ASS when it comes to all 3, even their so called "targeted advertising" is pathetic and wrong. When the big stink over targeted ads came up I decided to see how well it worked so I took a system I was planning to wipe and let it run ads then went to look at the prices for a netbook...what happened? I got tons of ads for TVs and jackets and other shit that didn't have squat to do with what I was looking for, by the time they actually started showing me netbooks? It was a month AFTER I had stopped looking at netbooks because I had already found and bought one* and had moved on to looking at the usual parts I need for the shop, hard drives and flash drives...so what did they show me? Tablets! Talk about a pointless waste, all they ended up showing me was either shit I had looked at over a month ago and no longer gave a shit about or things I had never looked for and gave not a single fuck about.
* - Ended up with an Asus EEE with the AMD APU, one of the best laptop purchases I ever bought, still works great after 5 years, still gets over 3 and a half hours on the original battery and its powerful enough I use it as an HTPC when I don't need it for service calls, great little unit. Got it from Amazon who was showing me nothing but netbooks under recommendations within 15 minutes of me looking, now THAT is adverts that works.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday October 26 2015, @01:28PM
Not to mention as I told Jim Sterling when they had him railing against ABP on the Escapist "Are you gonna pay for the damages your ads cost the users when you show malware ads? Gonna pay to watch their accounts, the clean ups? No? Then you have no right to complain when people protect themselves against your malware by blocking your ads".
I can honestly think of no comparison where somebody makes their money from risking causing damage to others and then actually bitch when people try to protect themselves, it'd be like a pickpocket bitching that people that have wallets with chains. If you block ads? The rate of infection drops so long antivirus honestly isn't really needed, in fact I cannot remember the last time I saw a PC at the shop that was infected by anything other than malvertising, nothing else comes even close.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:27AM
That's the thing, I generally ignore ads without needing a blocker. I use a blocker because they've become a security nightmare, intentionally slow the loading of pages and sometimes prevent the page from loading at all.
The fact that I no longer see the ads is just gravy.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:47AM
And as I told the Escapist (which got me banned BTW, but they ended up having to lock the thread as others took up the cause, which made me happy) if they simply followed the ABP "best practices" so they were put on the ABP whitelist? Then users wouldn't have to worry about infections from their site as to get on the ABP whitelist? Its like a "how to" on insuring malvertisements won't get through. But of course that would mean they couldn't take a check from anybody that walks through the door, they would actually have to give a shit about their users and not abuse them for their own profits.
So i hand out ABP in every default install, and the rate of infection? So low as to not even be worth mentioning, because the vast majority by a HUGE amount of infections can all be traced back to malvertisements. And sorry but I won't shed a tear for douchebags that care more about their profits than spreading harm to their users going broke.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday October 26 2015, @05:07PM
That comment wasn't aimed at you. The "challenging us to do better" was a comment to their shareholders or VC or sugar daddies, who apparently do not mind funding such evil. I guess cola executives don't mind seeing their ads full screen if they paid for it. Maybe it gives them a subtle high to see how their product is on the internet!
I mean... as a totally random example, one that I also used among family and friends and asked if they actually did this: who really goes to coca cola's website? for what purpose? (none of the people I asked ever went there, but assumed the site existed and probably had coke related flash games or video ads of attractive people drinking coke in fun settings. No reason to go there, so no one did).
I can't even imagine what the point could be for Coke's website besides preventing someone from redirecting it to a website like Pepsi (perhaps it exists to prevent a redirect to Royal Crown and so on--its cola all the way down) suggesting you can lose weight via dieting and not drinking empty calories. Because that would be wrong, just like filling a site with misleading medical details that avoids the elephant in the room -- if your room stinks of elephant shit, and you have a trunk, big ears, and make a lot of unnecessary noise in autoplaying advertisements, you're the elephant so stop shitting in the room. Rooms like that I don't go to, like coca cola's website, because you can smell that stink without going into the room. Don't cry to me that you reek of elephant shit. Even circus elephants are trained, and ones in the wild know better than to roll in their mess. So why don't these big companies? Oh wait, they are using their marketing to try to change the narrative that sugary soft drinks is bad. They've evolved into something worse!
You have to be pretty evil or pretty stupid to believe any of that (but a good and intelligent person if you believe me, right??)
I can only imagine that they cut off their noses in spite of their faces and also plugged up their face to prevent from smelling anything shitty. But that's pretty unrealistic so I think marketing executives are engaging in a mental dissonance in that they want to believe they are providing value because if everyone refused their services they would have to get a new job. They likely really believe they are doing the right thing as a positive for everyone, if only they would listen to the message! Why do they hate Corporate America, because as people, us Corporate Americans have feelings too!
Anyone remember the show Newhart? Where Bob Newhart retired and opened a bed and breakfast hotel (he had a show in the 70s, also called Newhart...), and had regular people hanging out there or working there. The waitress/maid Steph (cynical/sarcastic big haired 80s blonde on the show acting as a foil of sorts to stupid visitors) was married to a marketing executive who truly had NO SKILLS and couldn't even pick his nails if he was in danger of getting dirt under them. (It must have been a plot device that she was married to him, or, he was rich being a marketing executive) He got fired after people at work started poking around to see what he actually did, and it only amounted to his attending meetings and agreeing with upper management and expensing trips to places and stadiums and stuff. He did nothing, he didn't even make the ads let alone watch them. He truly had no idea how any of it worked or even what the products they sold did. He wasn't looking at ads, that is what the little people did! When cornered he couldn't even think of something of value he did but he had been doing his job his entire life, and he didn't even know what it was when his job depended on it.
He was fired. Soon, at the unemployment office, a homeless man that typed at 20wpm with a high error rate was accepted for a position he applied for because that person had more professional skills. Truly a low in his illustrious career of marketing--he couldn't even market himself.
I think that the show depicted the typical marketing executive pretty well -- at least, as far as I have come to see them. Maybe they do something, but it isn't obvious what it is or what makes it valuable to me as a consumer or end user.
So, when they are trying harder, they aren't trying harder for our favor. They are trying harder to keep from having to learn how to type.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:22AM
Nobody, but I tend to not bother with adblockers for the first few days after a new install. Then I get so fed up with the bullshit that I install the best adblockers I can find.
That being said, there's a ton of new computer users that wouldn't have blockers at all if their techie friend didn't install it for them. Those are the people that would be affected first by the advertisers obtaining morals and some restraint.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday October 26 2015, @06:33AM
I have started simply closing page that present those annoying pull-page ads that cover the page and must be acknowledged. Let their analytics show that such highly intrusive ads don't work.
And because many of those ads are so slow to load, I have closed the page before it loaded.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @07:46AM
I should have been doing that all along. First, I installed NoScript and PolicyRequest. Allow a request, whitelist that page, etc etc etc. It has got to the point that a single page often exceeds 30 permissions. FFS, that's entirely to many permissions to scroll through, deciding which sites and which permissions to allow.
I've begun to rethink my permissions strategy. Just close the damned tab, and do a google search for the content that I thought I wanted to see.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday October 26 2015, @09:42AM
Just close the damned tab, and do a google search for the content that I thought I wanted to see.
If you want to discourage advertisers, maybe try using a search engine that isn't run by one of the largest ad companies on the planet.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @10:05AM
No fair being rational!
I'm accustomed to using Google, after years of using it. It's irrational, but it's what I turn to. Ehhh - maybe I need an attitude adjustment. Yeah, I know Duckduckgo works - I've used it off and on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Monday October 26 2015, @04:36PM
yes use duck duck go , or ixquick. Not perfect, but what is.
Google made a change in the past year or two that simply made it harder to get the results I wanted. Searching with quotes and other symbols and operands simply stopped working. This mobile first ranking system is of zero relevance to most of what I search for and if i paid for the service I'd be upset. Instead, I am powerless to even complain about it and expect anything in return. It's not like my opinion matters, nor those of many others.
It's bad enough when "they" correct my search to be something I didn't search for, so I am now cautious to make sure the results they gave me are even relevant, but over all -- I can't even be somewhat granular and get a very specific wrong answer. I get wrong answers in general, or even worse, some blog where the guy asks a different unanswered question that gets linked to in numerous other search results.
That they are so in your face about the ads and and data collection is reason enough to avoid them--giving me poor on a desktop because sites are ranked mobile first... makes it hardly worth the cost of free that I am paying. If they do it differently than how I described, then ok I am wrong, but it still isn't worth the price and it's unlikely I am going to resume using it regularly. And yes I realize what I am saying. It is like the woody allen joke about two old ladies at a restaurant they frequently visit--one comments that the food there is terrible, and the other one says yes and the portions are so small, too. Ladies, why do you go there, and if the food is bad, why are you complaining you don't get enough of it?? You can ask me the same of the google search engine.
Even if nothing is as good as google's search engine used to be, I have come to believe that I am right back to where I was in the late 90s -- using multiple search engines because none of them are really very good at finding what I am looking for.
Mind you, it's mostly job or IT related stuff. Maybe if I searched for celebrity news I'd get all of my wildest queries answered for me. I don't know. But since I am not in the market for that and I already am poisoning my well, I don't want my well to start mixing poisons like that. Then it would be truly worthless.
To that end.. uh does anyone remember the program Copernic? It used to search all of the search engines you defined (or a list of them as defaults) at once, and would do its best to use your parameters (like the options google removed to make their search that much easier to use on a mobile, I guess).
After a while it started to become ad driven and then finally disappeared when Google started to reliably deliver the same useful results Copernic did, without having to install something to do it.
So, to go full circle back to how I used to do it efficiently... does anyone know of such a product that can span multiple engines and deliver the top 5 results from each? Without the low, low cost of my immortal soul being repeatedly harvested in exchange?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @04:57PM
Actually, yes - I do vaguely recall Copernic. And, a quick search found their home page - https://www.copernic.com/ [copernic.com] It appears that they are just a "desktop" search now. Another product, "on the go" is a private cloud search engine? I guess they surrendered the internet search, and restricted themselves to a niche market. I can't even imagine using a hard drive catalogueing application - it's pretty much built into any *nix distribution, if you understand how a file system works.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 26 2015, @07:41PM
But Google isn't annoying. I may refuse to use their services (e-mail, etc.) but Google search is hard to beat, and isn't annoying. I don't pretend that it's secure, I know they track my search history, but they aren't annoying, and I believe that they consider their information on me to be a corporate advantage, so they won't sell it, at least not without either coercion or a highly restrictive NDA and a steep price. This isn't real security, but it's probably the best that's available.
OTOH, advertisers have contributed to my decision to not install Flash. And they have driven my decision to use noscript.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2015, @11:41AM
That's surprisingly easy, given that most outlets are grabbing articles from AP, Reuters, and other newswire services. Most places eliminated their newsrooms a long time ago and now only repackage what they get from a feed and pass it off as their own.
Why should anyone suffer advertising for that?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 26 2015, @12:25PM
Why should anyone suffer advertising for that?
No one has an answer; leading to the industry being almost dead:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/moderating-declines-parsing-the-naas-spin-on-newspaper-circ-data/ [niemanlab.org]
In just a couple more years, following 75 years of trend, there will be no newspapers.
There are of course more ads than just legacy local newspaper websites. Arguably clickbait and ads on clickbait sites will never die as long as there are gullible people, for example.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 26 2015, @01:24PM
I just recently installed NoScript, and WOW!, what a difference. uBlock Origin is good too (I still use that), but lately I was having all kinds of problems with my browser eating up 100%+ CPU time, and I couldn't figure out why. So I finally installed NoScript and suddenly my browser isn't pegging my CPU all the time, so it was obviously all the JavaScript bullshit these sites run. And now that I've been looking at the NoScript toolbar and seeing all the JS that sites want me to load, it's been a real eye-opener.
Anyway, I don't use PolicyRequest (nor have I heard about it before), but NS seems to work well, but the problem I found was that frequently sites just didn't work right until I enabled the right scripts. The simple solution is to simply allow it to temporarily whitelist the site's own domain. It seems rare for BS JS to be loaded from a site's own domain, it always comes from someplace else. For instance, I have another tab open for an auto parts site, and it has no less than 5 domains loading scripts. The first is the site itself, but the other four are newrelic.com, addthis.com, google-analytics.com, and trustwave.com. NoScript blocks those last four and everything seems to work fine. Occasionally I'll run across a site where I need to enable something like sitenamecdn.com, but that's it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snow on Monday October 26 2015, @05:11PM
Try visit this site:
failblog.cheezburger.com
If you start temporarily allowing all, you'll see that 3rd party scripts call 4th party scripts, call 5th party scripts, and so on. It's like a stack of turtles. There are a lot of sites that do this. Newspapers are some of the worst.
NoScript is also pretty annoying when ordering things online. It seems I always miss a script at the payment screen and end up entering everything again.
But I'll be damned if a website is going to load content from 100 different untrusted places on my computer.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday October 26 2015, @06:25PM
Anyway, I don't use PolicyRequest (nor have I heard about it before)
Possibly because the actual name is RequestPolicy. [mozilla.org] It's like NoScript but for cross-site scripting. Unfortunately they also block CSS* and in my several attempts to find a way to only disable that functionality I've been so far unsuccessful. So basically 75% of the time you load a new site, the entire page style drops out until you just whitelist the domain...which kind of defeats the whole purpose (?).
Hmm. I get a "site says it's HTTPS but we don't trust it" error when trying to go to their non-Mozilla website. That's interesting.
*"that's not a bug; that's a feature"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:49AM
uMatrix ftw! You can control cooke, image, css, iframe, plugin, script and XHR blocking separately, globally and per-site. It's UI may be somewhat confusing at first, but when you'll get used to it, you'll wonder how you managed to live without uMatrix before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:46AM
uMatrix is WAY better than RequestPolicy, and it was written by gorhill too!
Also, you don't even need ReqiestPolicy with uBO: check "I am an advanced user" in uBO options, and you will be able to block 3rd-party thingies from uBO popup.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday October 26 2015, @08:17AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday October 26 2015, @02:28PM
I do that also. I also close any page with auto-starting video or audio. Ain't much web content that's worth hunting around on the page to find out how to shut it off, easier just to close the page.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @05:33PM
Right-click,
Inspect,
Delete,
Done.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday October 26 2015, @06:52PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 5, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Monday October 26 2015, @06:35AM
The entire thesis of my rejection of advertisements is a simple observation: the Internet, and the World-Wide Web, existed without ad-supported websites in the past--and it can again. Even massive projects that require immense bandwidth and storage resources are able to survive without ads if they are valuable enough. The shining example of this is Wikipedia, which despite its flaws and issues is a resources that all of us probably use multiple times per day.
We would certainly lose many things if ads stopped being viable. So be it. The choice between doing without some content and getting it through an unethical, abusive, insecure, dangerous, and privacy invading model is no choice at all. We're better off without those things if that's how we have to pay for them.
It all has to go. Advertising should fade away online even if it means a massive contraction of content availability. Burn it all down. Whatever comes afterward will be different, but it will be better.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Monday October 26 2015, @07:03AM
Interestingly, advertising itself absolutely can survive. I have no problem, and I cannot imagine anyone else having a problem, with a site running ads which are dumb billboards shown to all visitors. They can be targeted to that domain's userbase! You can take the content on that page into account, and modify what they show accordingly. That all is completely fine.
Start scripting in the background? Tracking me across domains? After a kid Googles LEGO Movie I start seeing ads for brick toys and that film plastered across every site I visit? That's where it breaks down.
To the advertisers: Let me be completely blunt. Do not track me. Do not attempt to conduct invasive surveillance of anyone across the internet. If you do this, and guarantee it in a transparent way, I have no problem whatsoever allowing your content. However, right now you are quite simply a malicious tracking vehicle hell-bent on invading everyone's privacy and security. Even this mea culpa isn't addressing the real problem - tracking. Fix what's actually broken.
I've idly considered doing this myself, with a new web advertising startup named something like "Secure Advertising" which guarantees no tracking, no scripting, no Flash, no audio. I think there's pent-up demand for this. Send me a PM if you agree.
(Score: 3, Touché) by K_benzoate on Monday October 26 2015, @07:13AM
Do not track me. Do not attempt to conduct invasive surveillance of anyone across the internet.
I could accept ads on those terms, but you will not get the advertising industry to give up those practices. They're too greedy, and it only takes one bad actor to ruin things for everyone. They won't give up those practices voluntarily so it's up to individual users to take them away.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quadrox on Monday October 26 2015, @07:13AM
I actually have a problem with close to all forms of advertising.
Advertising introduces memetic thoughts into our brains, with the sole intent of extracting money from us. How anyone can not see this as inherently evil is beyond me. Furthermore, my brain gets bogged down with countless jingles, slogans, imagery and other completely useless crap, that I just not want in there. I am convinced that the constant attack on our minds through various forms of advertising is contributing to stress and other psychological problems.
I understand the need to inform people about the availability of a product that they might otherwise not know about - but this should be done in the most "boring" information-only way. No pictures of smiling people, no slogans, no music, no glaring colors or anything of the sort. Present the product on a neutral colored background, and give the specifications - nothing else allowed. Anything beyond that should be have been forbidden a long time ago.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Adamsjas on Monday October 26 2015, @07:35AM
Sorry, when I go shopping on the web, I know what I'm looking for, and I expect a lot of information, and I expect images, maybe movies. Not willing to accept your crazy-assed restrictions just because or your childish fear of "memetic thoughts". For christ sake grow up, learn to look away.
If I come to the web to research band saws I expect to find them with a search engine, I expect to find retailers, I expect to find the manufacturer's site. And I expect to find advertising that informs me about the product, both on retailer sites like Home Depot, as well as tool rental shops, and mail order places
The web will ALWAYS have that, because most people want that capability. If you can't handle that, get off the web. Its not for you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by quadrox on Monday October 26 2015, @08:18AM
And I have no problem with presenting all of that on the product page for that product. Just don't show it to me in an advertisement without me asking for it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @08:22AM
For christ sake
.
.
.
.
grow up,
.
.
.
.
learn to look away.
.
.
.
.
Burma Shave!
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday October 26 2015, @02:18PM
If I come to the web to research band saws I expect to find them with a search engine, I expect to find retailers, I expect to find the manufacturer's site. And I expect to find advertising that informs me about the product, both on retailer sites like Home Depot, as well as tool rental shops, and mail order places
Yes, that's fine - on the web sites of retailers and manufacturers. I don't think most people here are objecting to that. Like if I want to buy a camera I look at the websites of Pentax, Canon etc to see what they offer, and I also look at review sites to find what there is on the market (maybe a make of camera I've not heard of before).
What I and most here are objecting to is having camera adverts (or any other) jumping up over a web page about donkey riding (for example) that I am trying to read, because some marketing droid is tracking me to the ends of the earth after I happened to look at a camera-oriented website once.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 26 2015, @01:29PM
Well this is why I liked Google Ads, years ago before they started all the tracking BS. It was great: you did a search, and on the right side of your search results, there were some small, 3-line, text-only ads which pertained to whatever you just searched for. It was a good way to find products that solved a problem you were having, and it paid for the search engine.
Unfortunately, that's gone now, replaced with all kinds of tracking and spying.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday October 26 2015, @01:30PM
I agree with your expressed sentiment. I hold the same belief that brainwashing the masses is really evil. And of course though much less effective than in average case, I know it has some effect on me nonetheless. They have gotten so good at their brain-warping that no one is safe. But you won't ever get them to agree or to see it for what it is, because they were the first casualty of their own propaganda.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 26 2015, @07:48AM
I have no problem, and I cannot imagine anyone else having a problem, with a site running ads which are dumb billboards shown to all visitors.
I have a problem with that.
It use to be that way. But even then the web sites got very greedy and started loading the pages full of advertising images. The animated gifs and such came later. Nobody will follow any rules, so the solution is to just block them all.
Blocking works if these ads are served off of another domain.
But when the images are hosted on the same site as the web content, there is just about no reliable way to block them, other than looking for urls that lead off site, and blocking any associated image. That can be tricky and pretty destructive to the usability of the web.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by NickFortune on Monday October 26 2015, @12:31PM
I can admire the intent, but you've got some hefty problems to overcome. You need to get clients when you don't have any websites to run their adverts; you need to get websites to take your ads when you don't have any clients. And you need to get adblock users to understand that you're not just another flavour of doubleclick so they don't just block you before they realise you have an ethical stance.
You can get around the first two by (for example) calling all the widget manufacturers until you find one with something to promote, and then calling around the widget websites and asking them if they'll run the ad. The third point is going to be tricky though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @07:09AM
It all has to go. Advertising should fade away online even if it means a massive contraction of content availability. Burn it all down. Whatever comes afterward will be different, but it will be better.
I enjoy watching some ads. I've even spent a fair bit of time looking for them using Youtube's crappy search (why is it so crap? Aren't they owned by Google?) so that I can watch them again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYpThnZjWaw [youtube.com] (ceiling board ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbc4grjOA-o [youtube.com] (noodle commercial part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGmJVpYtIUA [youtube.com] (noodle commercial part 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJFHYA0v87o [youtube.com] (bridgestone tyre ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckwo2l8BpUg [youtube.com] (bank ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMU3Mfc04g4 [youtube.com] (canned tuna ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS_EqmoRvns [youtube.com] ( TrueMove H 3 min, 6 min longer version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89aowrlN--k [youtube.com] )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZGghmwUcbQ [youtube.com] (TMB - Thai Bank 3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU4oA3kkAWU [youtube.com] (TMB 5 min)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Monday October 26 2015, @07:23AM
I seriously doubt most sites earn much money from advertising. First, its all pay-per-click these days, at least via Google. People just don't click on ads that much. Having run some hobby sites with google ads, I can tell you that you barely cover your hosting fees.
Maybe if you can still find a way to get paid by the impression, instead of by the click, you could make more money.
The thing is, advertising on the vendors own pages, and via search results is all anyone really needs.
If I'm looking for a new motherboard, or a new car, or a fishing pole, I want to google up some vendors. Even if I don't know the vendor names, (especially if I don't know the vendors), I expect to find them in search engines.
So Google can still make money. Bing can make money.
But I agree we could probably do just fine without ads on every random page. If I searched for motherboards, I don't expect motherboards to show up on the side of every third web site I visit for the next week.
But I do think a lot of little hobby sites would just disappear, or go back into geocities or some place, or ISP free web space. (Remember seeing those tildes in a URLs?).
(Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Monday October 26 2015, @02:25PM
They don't. Which is why I'm baffled by how vehemently some site owners will defend the advertisers. If you have that big of a viewership, a crowdfund will make you orders of magnitude more revenue than advertising will, and it's better for you AND your viewers/customers/whoever. EVERYONE gets screwed by the ad networks:
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday October 26 2015, @06:43AM
I don't mind static image ads, if they don't track you. I don't even mind gifs, if they don't track you.
Anything that takes over the page, runs in flash, or eerily knows too much about me is completely unacceptable.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday October 26 2015, @08:14AM
GIFs were ok untill Firefox took out the ability to stop them looping. Running once through the sequence is enough and the user should be able to stop the animation at any time. But that is no longer the case with Firefox.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @11:36AM
I know, why did they remove it ? As always, "there is an extension for that"; I installed SuperStop and can now stop animation with shift-Esc.
(Score: 1) by jpkunst on Monday October 26 2015, @12:25PM
I believe that is still possible. about:config, set image.animation_mode to "once" or "none".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @07:03AM
It was the advertisers who have made the Internet a horrible experience. At this point, ad blockers are practically a requirement. This is now an arms race that will last forever, so go get some tools...
- uBlock Origin
- BetterPrivacy
- Ghostery
- NoScript
- mvphosts (google it)
- RequestPolicy
Bonus: Don't install Flash Player and surf on Linux
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday October 26 2015, @09:50AM
I also have these running:
- Self-Destructing Cookies
- TrackMeNot
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday October 26 2015, @03:50PM
- mvphosts
Not sure if that's the one I'm using, could be the one from APK. I got one about a year ago that is about 500k , all adservers and malware servers, all now pointing to 0.0.0.0
In that year I have had to comment out two or three entries to get a website to work.
I also run ABP and NoScript. NoScript requires more fiddling, but I still consider it worthwhile.
Other than that I generally wonder what all the fuss is about, and why so many websites have large blank spaces. :)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @09:27PM
OMGWTFBBQPANTIES!!!! deimtee is APK!!!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Monday October 26 2015, @09:00AM
I wouldn't mind seeing e.g. a Red Hat or even MS static logo on soylentnews in return for some corporate sponsorship. Even though I hate systemd, which iirc came via Red Hat, by sponsoring this site Red Had would earn some good-will with me. Of course there are some risks attached. The sponsorship would have to be with no strings attached, in advance, with a firm agreement that any communication with $SPONSOR is public. And editors and other staff would have to be very careful to make sure the site does not depend on any sponsor. Also the logo itself would have to be hosted on soylentnews, with no "impressions" counter or cookies from $SPONSOR.
$Sponsor would also have to tread carefully. If they try any tricks to avoid blocking the logo by the visitor or asking for a too big logo or asking for something too flashy, they would get the opposite effect.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rob_on_earth on Monday October 26 2015, @09:10AM
We do not like auto playing video/animated ads, audio ads, full screen ads, third party sourced agency ads.
But ads did not use to be like that. We had standard sized non-animating images that were served from the site we were visiting. The Google started doing text only ads. To me both these are fine.
The great thing about self served ads was they were relevant to the site or the page and were more likely to be orientated to something you the visitor were interested in. Instead of the "you bought a new Android phone, therefore you must be interested in buying more Android phones, we will advertise Android phones to you everywhere you go" (that happened to me). Or theother fun one was my wife use my computer to search for birthing and baby books and then I was haunted/hunted for years afterwards by companies convinced I need baby books.
SERVE YOUR OWN DAMN ADVERTS!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Monday October 26 2015, @02:33PM
I'd say there's one type of advertising I don't mind: Creating something actually useful for the public good, which happens to increase interest in your product simply because of how they are related rather than because of any hard sell/soft sell tactics.
This [youtu.be] video on the Punic Wars (by Extra Credits) is a perfect example: It gave the audience of the channel, who were already interested in video games, a fascinating history lesson. All to promote a new game release. Similarly, there are many videos for hobbyists which happen to involve tools produced by a certain manufacturer but are still useful for anyone. If I want to know how to operate e.g. a table saw safely, I can look up manufacturers' videos on Youtube—helpful for me and increases the probability that I would buy one from that manufacturer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @06:17PM
Exactly! I'd only ever click on a static image / text ad. Motion, sound, tracking and anything more intrusive is sleazy. Why would I want to take my browser to a place that exhibits sleaze?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RamiK on Monday October 26 2015, @09:12AM
The more money you spend on their marketing campaigns, the more annoying are the ads.
If you just put a little money into it, you get (possibly) effective text ads and some banners.
However, the problem is the advertisers aren't trying to market your product to your customers; They're selling themselves to you.
The ads are designed to look presentable to a board room meeting. To fill a screen with special effects and scantily clad women. To make a clever joke about your brand that you can enjoy but your customers care little about.
Now, every time a person clicks a youtube cat meme they have to hunt down the X button to make your brand go away. They have to hover over the Skip button for seconds just thinking how annoying your product is. They're trying to read an article when that idiot cracking jokes about a product they don't care about starts hovering over the text and pissing them off.
Now, your customers hate you. And you payed for it.
Congrats.
compiling...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 26 2015, @11:59AM
I worked on Madison Avenue for a good decade. After the Dot-Bomb it was almost the only game in town for tech. It was an interesting experience and gave me a good window into how the highest echelons of business really work.
Advertising exists because business people don't know how to sell their products. Once in a blue moon you get a client who's an entrepreneur and has figured out how to sell a good or service. Everyone else has inherited an established business. They know people do buy their products/services, they know how many, they know how much they pay, and they know how much it cost to bring it to them. But they don't know why. They don't know how to make people want to give them money. Enter Creative Directors and the Mad Ave brain trust.
Creative Directors figure how to manufacture demand. If you've ever watched the show Mad Men you'll have a stylised, dramatized view of how it works, but one that is essentially correct. Advertising has been that way for decades.
Now that sort of thing is passing away. Google is responsible. They've shifted the game from demand creation to instant fulfillment of pre-existing demand. That's what search-based advertising is all about. There's also a secondary effect now with PR-based marketing. Those are the armies of shills and fake reviewers you see out there to influence purchasing decisions from people who have pre-existing demand.
This current kerfuffle with Ad Blockers is the old-style advertisers waking up to the reality that the rest of the world does not want their old, interruptive form of advertising re-created online. Practices and norms on the Internet have already been deeply established: if you interrupt or stymie, users will route around you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @11:52AM
How many Soylentils get targeted advertising that might even be considered "effective"?
No one targets me very well. Amazon has pulled off a few tricks now and then, suggesting something that I actually had some interest in. No other advertiser has managed to do so.
Ebay is amusing. I can't block (or don't know how to) Ebay's suggestions and specials. What is so funny is, they should know my interests as well as or better than any other online marketing group. I've purchased many things through Ebay, and I've done so many searches on Ebay, they should know me pretty well.
Minutes ago, I got an email, notifying me of a new hit on a saved search. I look at it, shrug it off, then take a look at my profile page. Suggested and "hot products" include all kinds of crazy shite, that Ebay should know I have no interest in.
Boats. People, I love ships. If I could POSSIBLY afford a ship or a boat exceeding 100 ft in length, I'd be looking. Those little puddle skippers? Fek - you can't go deep water sailing in those things. Bass boats? Fek again - I've never liked fishing. To me, a ship or boat is a home, and a life style. I have zero interest in living on land, then spending my weekend tooling around in protected waters in an oversized bathtub. WTF does Ebay show me boats?
I scroll down past dozens of boats, and there's a motorcycle. Great, they acknowledge that I have an interest in motorcycles. I only have six saved searches for motorcycles, and I only search for motorcycle parts, accessories, and motorcycles about 3-10 times each month. So, I get dozens of boats, then a motorcycle?
Man, are they ever screwed!
Way down the page, they begin to come on target. I see computer peripherals, like SSD, SATA, and flash drives. That goes on, and on, and on . . . . and finally, I get some razors. Razors? WTF? I don't shave. I haven't bought a razor in years. Decades, actually. The last razor I purchased, was when I drove truck for a chemical company. Now and then, I had to wear gas masks, and hair under the sealing edges makes a gas mask leak. Decades ago, I had an occasional use for a razor. Ebay thinks they can sell me a razor today?
If the biggest online marketers can get advertising so very wrong - what are the rest of the marketers getting right and wrong?
As I've mentioned in other places, I just don't see adverts in my general browsing. I pretty much only see them on Amazon and Ebay. Those two places, I've voluntarily GIVEN them my personal information, and they get it wrong!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 26 2015, @12:45PM
I've noticed ebay mixes narrowcasting with broadcasting. I checked this morning.
So I mostly buy obscure electronic hardware from ebay, so the narrowcasted portions of the page seem to contain every sma attenuator or filter of various frequency bands that are currently on auction, or so it seems. Also they (correctly) think I have a "thing" for waveguide to coax transitions. Fair enough, I've bought stuff like that before.
On the other hand the broadcast advertisement sections are completely worthless. I have used the ebay android app, so broadcast me ads for $600 unlocked iphones, how could I possibly not resist? I've bought supporting video game console stuff for everything but playstation, so send me some playstation ads.
In the specific case of ebay I think they have collector-itis and think everyone is also a collector therefore if I deal in everything but iphones and playstations, they REALLY need to sell me some playstation video cables and unlocked iphones to complete my collection, when ironically those are the two things I'm least interested in buying because I'm not in those ecosystems at all, by choice and intention. On one hand if you bought antique or repro 1950s gas station metal signs, you'd probably be interested in buying more of them. On the other hand if you bought a GM rebuilt alternator, and a toyota rebuilt alternator, its hard to imagine why you'd possibly want a honda rebuilt alternator.
More generally I think some places spam when they have nothing specific to spam and giving you a blank page would make them look like they're having a going out of business sale. So here VLM, look at ladies handbags, because we have nothing else to show you. Home Depot doesn't really know what to think of me, or what to try and sell me, so its thermostats and window treatments (which is apparently "interior decorator speak" for window curtains)
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday October 26 2015, @01:01PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday October 26 2015, @02:07PM
Where the marketers will go next (that is, where they are going now), is not new ad platforms or modifying their ads. Instead, they are going to move to native advertising. Broadcast advertising has the same problem, because people do not want their shows interspersed with ads. Hulu has started offering ad-free (for a fee), finally, which might just make Hulu viable. I tried it for a month but the interspersed ads were too much.
So, instead of that, marketers pay content creators to unobtrusively insert their product into the content itself. Check out Slashdot and how many of their "news stories" are really just ad copy designed to look like news, written and paid for by the marketers. If you've been to Medium.com, you'll notice that they do a lot of the same thing. You don't see ads on that site because much of the content is the advertising. Companies pay to have their story posted, highlighted, and recommended.
A recent broadcast of ABC Nightly News with David Muir was, fully, 35% native advertising. Much of it was their own products (reality shows on Disney-owned cable channels, talking up Disney's new Star Wars movie), but it also included paid content from McDonald's. So even broadcast news uses native advertising along with all the pharmaceutical advertising.
If Google doesn't have a strategy to move into this new paradigm, they will be hurting. Web advertising was always a lousy way to generate revenue, and Google has been one of the few beneficiaries of it. That train is winding down.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:18AM
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]