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We need legal controls on web advertising

theregister.com

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Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#41

Post by secondcoming »

raxxorrax wrote: post #7

Agreed and advertisers do agree too. They themselves demanded controversial content to be removed while their ads are showing, society demanding the same is in line with that thought. They do pay for many internet services, but I think the negative aspects outbalance the monetary advantages.

> They themselves demanded controversial content to be removed

I don't think this is necessarily true. They demanded that their ads are not shown next to controversial content.

An unintended consequence of this is that the definition of 'controversial' is fluid and open to abuse. So if a pressure-group deems your thoughts and opinions 'controversial' you get no ads. And if you get no ads there's no real incentive for YT or whatever to serve your content; they're not charities. Your only other option is to self-host. So advertisers and indirectly control the societal narrative, and that should be troubling.

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#42

Post by Super_Jambo »

jasode wrote: post #38
lordnacho wrote: post #33

If we know that humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market? Say you discover that putting good-looking women next to cars causes the sale of cars to increase. Why does nobody question whether it is legitimate to do so? It's as if there's a line between actively lying ("Studies show that men who buy this car will find m…

>humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market? [...] How can the free market work if everyone is so easily affected by suggestion? I'm (genuinely) surprised that someone with your financial background knowledge would write those sentences about "free market". I think you already know that the "free" in "free market" mean…

My view is we should be aiming for _competitive_ markets or perfect markets. Markets which approach as near as possible perfect competition[1].

It's obviously impossible to realize in reality. However, it's instructive that we get closest to it in the stock market. The market most important to the very rich.

Elon Musk can't even tweet a joke about TSLA stock. Meanwhile if you're _buying_ a Model 3 you'll get expertly crafted disinformation shoved down your throat from every billboard and website.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#43

Post by mguerville »

SCNP wrote: post #28
BlueTemplar wrote: post #17

> why no home router makers have put ad and track filtering in their products is slightly mystifying French ISP "Free" used to vocally advertise their router ad blocker (consumer interest). They also vocally claimed to be the underdog and fought YouTube then Netflix (huge data volume interconnections are expensive). If I'm not mistaken, in all the 3 cases they ended up "settling"

While it would be awesome to have hardware that did the heavy lifting, I don't like the incentives for commercial products anywhere near the ad-space. It would only be a matter of time before a firmware update allows "permitted" ads through because the advertiser paid the proper sum. It may be time to finally set up my pi-hole.

I set up NextDNS instead of a pi-hole, because frankly pi-hole seemed a bit daunting as a non technical user (if not setup, proper maintenance) and it's been great, between that and uBlock Origin I feel well shielded, and when I use my wife's iPad with neither of these I'm appalled at what the internet has become ad-wise

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#44

Post by elliekelly »

mguerville wrote: post #43
SCNP wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it would be awesome to have hardware that did the heavy lifting, I don't like the incentives for commercial products anywhere near the ad-space. It would only be a matter of time before a firmware update allows "permitted" ads through because the advertiser paid the proper sum. It may be time to finally set up my pi-hole.

I set up NextDNS instead of a pi-hole, because frankly pi-hole seemed a bit daunting as a non technical user (if not setup, proper maintenance) and it's been great, between that and uBlock Origin I feel well shielded, and when I use my wife's iPad with neither of these I'm appalled at what the internet has become ad-wise

I was using PiHole and switched to NextDNS and it’s been fantastic. It’s way easier to maintain.

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#45

Post by tantalor »

baq wrote: post #35
amadeuspagel wrote: post #18

> It's kind of a tech company too, but in a good-enough sort of way rather than the "hey, we invented the transistor" sort of way. Really? PageRank is not an invention like the transistor?

not sure if you're trolling but yeah, it isn't. algorithms are discovered. inventions require physical objects, so all software patents end up being 'method and apparatus'.

Tell that to RSA.

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#46

Post by marcus_holmes »

I am beginning to believe that advertising (at all, on any medium) is an evil we need to do without.

The "free stuff" that we get in return is never without consequences, as we're finding out.

The "hey we built a thing you might want to buy" function can be done in different forms, better, I think. Probably by newspapers.

I think we could start by taxing all advertising revenue by, say, 50%.

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#47

Post by specialist »

jasode wrote: post #38
lordnacho wrote: post #33

If we know that humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market? Say you discover that putting good-looking women next to cars causes the sale of cars to increase. Why does nobody question whether it is legitimate to do so? It's as if there's a line between actively lying ("Studies show that men who buy this car will find m…

>humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market? [...] How can the free market work if everyone is so easily affected by suggestion? I'm (genuinely) surprised that someone with your financial background knowledge would write those sentences about "free market". I think you already know that the "free" in "free market" mean…

What's your position on cigarette ads targeting children?

re [1], which of the mutually exclusive definitions of "free market" do you subscribe to? Adam Smith's Georgism? Hayek's laissez faire? Other?

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#48

Post by coldcode »

If there was a non gamefiable system for allowing people to pay a small amount automatically for reading content, and that system allowed you to specify you did not want to pay, which then told the website this and allowed it to show ads instead, otherwise they got most of the small amount, what would that do to advertising?

Ads exist to (1) pay for free content (2) try to get you to buy/try/etc the thing being advertised. If (1) were taken care of, would (2) even exist? Or would websites just do both and piss everyone off?

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#49

Post by oblio »

tjpnz wrote: post #11
jakubp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a different idea, which was that governments of the future could ban advertising altogether. I know it's a... stretch, but imagine this: - you can't put billboards in the city - you can't place any images, text, etc. banners anywhere (except for tightly controlled, single-design descriptions of businesses in buildings, decided by each municipality like it's already done in some cities to maintain consistent loo…

If enough people abandon cities I could see this happening. Imagine how much it would cost to engage a marketing company to put your BS "message" onto a billboard and have enough people see it. Imagine too all of the added compliance costs that would come with having to deal with dozens of small municipalities, each with their own quirky laws.

That sounds like a nightmare. Cities are not perfect but they're amazing for a million reasons. Civilization started with agriculture and then with cities.

There are big cities, see the comments above yours, where billboards are banned or strictly limited.

There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: We need legal controls on web advertising

#50

Post by Super_Jambo »

jakubp wrote: post #3
notRobot wrote: post #2

I wonder, how would the world be different if a major government was to completely ban user tracking? Ad companies would be forced to use contextual advertising. How would that play out?

I had a different idea, which was that governments of the future could ban advertising altogether. I know it's a... stretch, but imagine this: - you can't put billboards in the city - you can't place any images, text, etc. banners anywhere (except for tightly controlled, single-design descriptions of businesses in buildings, decided by each municipality like it's already done in some cities to maintain consistent loo…

My idea for this is that we should nationalise advertising & product discovery.

Over consumption is killing the planet, processed foods are destroying our health, user engagement hacking is eroding free will.

Powerful companies like HSBC manipulate the press through the pressure of their ad-spend. [1]

But obviously we can't just see the vast advertising industry and all it supports vanish overnight. However, we could nationalize them. We could pay last years ad-spend to market healthy food, low consumption & social connections. Then next year we could cut spending a little, say 90%. If companies can't survive without the economic dead weight of advertising then they shouldn't exist. It's not like they're required for product discovery in the information technology age.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-oborne-t...

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