I want less privacy to get better ads

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27 Sep 2009
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1,701
I know a lot of people would disagree, but I want less privacy so I get more relevant ads. I am so frustrated with incorrect ads on the internet. Eg. I just bought a holiday to Italy from BA, but now I am seeing ads for BA holidays to Italy ... that's so stupid!! Also I see ads for cars even though I don't have a driving license, if companies knew that I wouldn't see these.
 
Genuine question and on topic, do you not feel concerned with what the added rather subtracted level of privacy for more appropriate adverts would cause in the long run in terms of your data being incorrectly managed, lost or even sold by big names?
 
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I never understood the big deal about ads. I've never paid attention to them on the TV, radio or internet. Can't you just Google search.
 
You may think that you're not think attention to them.

I'm pretty sure I've learned not to look, I used to change channel on the TV when they came on they annoy me that much. I just never look at Google ads. I'm sure a certain amount gets to your consciousness though, billboards, flyers and whatever else. I'm not against businesses advertising per se however they just annoy me too much. It's for the mainstream, I'm perfectly capable of using Google search.
 
Ads do my head in but I'd prefer to have more privacy and less directed ads. Always seeing whiskey, motorbikes, cars and the like and it does make me think hmm that's a good deal or I'd maybe like that. Prefer ads for like bed covers or kids toys where I'd have no interest and would just ignore them.
 
If you even allow yourself to be exposed to adverts then you’re already an idiot in my book.
You know there's an advert on this page, right? And it won't be caught by adblockers, because it's served from this domain. And you are also aware that this forum is in itself a giant advert for OcUK?
 
Lol at not using an ad/tracker blocker in 2019.

You know there's an advert on this page, right? And it won't be caught by adblockers, because it's served from this website. And you are also aware that this forum is in itself a giant advert for OcUK?

Incorrect. Mine has blocked it.
 
Which one do you use? UBO is still showing me the Noble Chairs ad in the top right.

I don't block the OcUK ads because in principle OcUK are allowed to advertise their stock. We are on their web site after all. Plus, it's at the top of this page which you don't see when you scroll down. So it's not exactly intrusive.

For most of the rest of the web though, I do use UBO and a Greasemonkey (Tapermonkey) script to kill anti-adblock detectors and other scripts in place. These are ads that actively and constantly get in my way e.g. Facebook sponsored posts. I don't need to see them and I pay £37/month to access the net as it is and that's only the medium tariff.
 
I am sure when you get assigned a social credit score and it prevents you from doing certain things, you will change your mind.
 
I'm pretty sure I've learned not to look, I used to change channel on the TV when they came on they annoy me that much. I just never look at Google ads. I'm sure a certain amount gets to your consciousness though, billboards, flyers and whatever else. I'm not against businesses advertising per se however they just annoy me too much. It's for the mainstream, I'm perfectly capable of using Google search.

So you are looking at ads and thinking that you aren't, making you the perfect target for advertisers. Google's search engine is part of their advertising business and it deliberately skews the results it shows to each person, which is a form of advertising.

The whole point of advertising is psychological manipulation - the goal is to manipulate your target into doing what you want them to do. Buy something from you. Vote for you. Support the political position you're promoting. Join the religion you're promoting. Become angry. Become scared. Whatever it is you want them to do.

Most traditional large scale advertising has little or no effect, which is why it has traditionally been used as widely as possible with some degree of targetting but not much (e.g. trying to appeal to a non-trivial proportion of people in a targetted demographic). If you throw enough of it at enough people, some of it will stick to some people. The other traditionally available advertising option was to advertise to a self-selected sample, so you had a much smaller number of targets but a higher chance of hitting them. Things like advertising car products in car magazines.

What's new now is the ability to use personally targetted manipulation on a large scale. In the past, targetted manipulation was expensive, only possible on a one to one basis and almost impossible outside of existing customers that you had gathered information on. Nowadays the process is automated and the amount of information gathered on almost everyone is vastly greater than in the past, even as recently as just a couple of decades ago. That makes it possible for the first time ever to try to manipulate large numbers of people at the same time with personal targetting for each individual. It might superficially look like the same sort of thing as before, but it's quite different.
 
What's new now is the ability to use personally targetted manipulation on a large scale. In the past, targetted manipulation was expensive, only possible on a one to one basis and almost impossible outside of existing customers that you had gathered information on.

heard an interesting article - women control more of the household budget, so their 'eyeballs are more expensive', and they may be (FB AI) targetted with more appropriate, but expensive adds, than their male OH ... so need to configure an alternative account, and test that hypothesis.
 
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