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Closing the Loop on Online Advertising

posted by n1 on Monday October 27 2014, @11:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the advertising-arms-race dept.

Nerdfest writes:

The next shot in the advertising/blocking war. AdNauseam is a FireFox plug-in, currently in beta, that works in conjunction with AdBlock and clicks ads while it blocks them.

The project was "initiated" by Helen Nissenbaum, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, and Computer Science, at New York University.

As online advertising is becoming more automatic, universal and unsanctioned, AdNauseam works to complete the cycle by automating all ad-clicks universally and blindly on behalf of the target audience. Working in coordination with Ad Block Plus, AdNauseam quietly clicks every blocked ad, registering a visit on the ad networks databases. As the data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user profiling, targeting and surveillance becomes futile.

They also state "AdNauseam serves as a means of amplifying users' discontent with advertising networks that disregard privacy and facilitate bulk surveillance agendas".

Will this help things with online advertising, or make them worse, assuming that's possible?

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:18AM (#110748)

    To elaborate on (2), they don't have the right to collect accurate statistics on us. If they did have such a right, it would be useful to assign each person online a national ID number and require us to be logged in as our true identities at all times. We have the right to lie about our identities, a point of pride in American history: how many of the Founding Fathers published pseudonymous political treatises as "Cato" or "Publius" or "Caesar" or "Brutus?"

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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:43PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:43PM (#110863)

    Dude, shut up! You'll give them ideas!

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"

  • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday October 29 2014, @05:41PM

    by Wootery (2341) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @05:41PM (#111277)

    If they did have such a right, it would be useful to assign each person online a national ID number and require us to be logged in as our true identities at all times

    What the hell kind of of false-dichotomy/strawman/slippery-slope-fallacy is this?

    Please tell me you're trolling.