Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
Google avoids serving repeat ads with machine learning
Like it or not, ads keep the internet running. However, they've become obnoxious and intrusive over the years, leading some to install anti-tracking software on their devices. This makes it difficult for advertisers to show a variety of ads to those users, rather than showing the same ad over and over again. As a privacy-focused workaround, Google -- which dominates the online advertising world -- will use machine learning to manage how frequently an ad is shown to a user when third-party cookies are blocked by users.
[...] "Using traffic patterns where a third-party cookie is available, and analyzing them at an aggregated level across Google Ad Manager publishers, we can create models to predict traffic patterns when a third-party cookie isn't present," says Google. "This allows us to estimate how likely it is for users to visit different publishers who are serving the same ads through Google Ad Manager." The end result is that if Google predicts that you've already seen a particular ad on one site, it will avoid serving the ad on another.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 16 2019, @08:22AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 16 2019, @08:28AM
It's bad if the advertiser didn't pay a premium to Google.
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(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Wednesday October 16 2019, @08:58AM
That sounds like bull. I know they are tracking me, because of the targeted types of ads, yet the same ads show up again and again and again and again.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday October 16 2019, @09:14AM (7 children)
make this totally moot.
Just sayin'...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 16 2019, @09:24AM (6 children)
A lot of sites are rejecting adblock/scriptblock users. I'm surprised Google hasn't done it with YouTube yet.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday October 16 2019, @09:43AM (2 children)
It's a losing battle for ad pushers: if worse comes to worst, ad blockers will simulate downloading the damn ads and not show them to the user - or skip the relevant bits in the videos. Google, Doubleclicks and all the other sumbitches know it full well, so they avoid being too pushy.
After all, if someone goes through the trouble of removing ads from their life, they're not likely to purchase anything that was force-fed to them. Quite the contrary. So ad pushers target the low-hanging fruits: internet users who don't mind, or are too dumb to block ads. In a way, ad blockers act as a pre-filter for them. Anybody who doesn't block ads is easy prey.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday October 16 2019, @02:56PM
Downloading ads but not executing them? Just make sure the ad uses a script that talks to the server. No talk to server? server no provide website content.
As for executing the script but suppressing video display? The script execution is the dangerous part, not the video.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday October 16 2019, @03:12PM
Displaying advertisements invisibly has several drawbacks:
(In adtech, a "publisher" is the operator of a website, especially one on which ads are displayed.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 16 2019, @09:43AM
To quote Walter White, ex-Highschool chem teacher and Meth cook, "We are not the ones who are blocked, we are the ones who block!" Any website that blocks me for using an adblocker (or worse, I have much worse, I use NoScript while dancing with the devil on PaleMoon) is dead to me, gone, off the bookmark list, rejected for all time. And we could have been such friends, doncha know.
(Score: 3, Informative) by helel on Wednesday October 16 2019, @01:46PM (1 child)
For a time youtube did refuse to serve video to anyone using a script blocker. I responded by simply feeding their urls into a youtube video downloader, which has proven to be a much better experience as I now watch the videos I want without exposing myself to their awful interface and constant war on your attention and time. I suspect my actions were the standard response because youtube quietly changed back to allowing script blocking.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 16 2019, @02:09PM
Good point. I was thinking more about vanilla YouTube in a fresh browser with no adblocker. You see banner ads, multiple choice polls, unskippable 10-30 second advertisements, and sometimes multiple mid-roll ads in a video. And all of that goes away once you turn on the adblocker. Maybe YouTube counts on having the mass of adblocker users (30-50%?) sticking around to keep other users engaging with the site.
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(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday October 16 2019, @12:22PM (1 child)
I find that 30 second ads are terrible. I don't like ads. I go out of my away to never see one.
When I am forced to watch one, I don't need a 30 second mini-show. 5-10 seconds seems to be the best. I see the product and can move on. By the end of 30 seconds I'm well into "The ego of these people that force their mini-show upon me.. Why?!"
Does a 30 second ad actually bring in 3 times the people over a 10 second ad? Would be interesting to know truly how much that extra 20 seconds ads to the advertisers return on their advertisement.
Seems to me these jerks have plenty of time to cram more crap down our throats if they adjusted how this stuff was delivered.
Now get off my lawn!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pino P on Wednesday October 16 2019, @03:16PM
In some cases, it's a 30 second or longer ad or the advertiser is forbidden to show the ad at all, as advertisements for certain products have to give warnings and disclaimers. For example, direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs in the United States have to list the major contraindications and side effects.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday October 16 2019, @12:54PM
I don't mind most ads.
The ones I do mind:
* Autoplay videos with sound
* Autoplay videos with suppressed sound that don't let you go back to the start when you decide you *do* want to turn the audio on and hear what they have to say.
* Large ads that cover significant parts of the screen and have a little X to remove them, but when you do click on the X they're replaced with an interview about why you don't want to see the ad, but:
* The interview takes the same space the ad did and won't go away
* Saying it covers too much of the screen isn't an option.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 16 2019, @04:40PM
"Like it or not, ads keep the internet running. "
the internet ran just fine before ads even existed. would that it would return to that age.