Yes. Facebook will KNOW you've been browsing for smut Facebook is pushing the idea that it is offering tighter ad controls to its users just as it prepares to start targeting the web and app browsing habits of netizens in the US. Judging by Facebook's campaign, its users are super-pumped about ads on the Mark Zuckerberg-run network, but would be even happier if all that …
The immunity to advertisement disease has infected most of the internet and is spreadig to the TV and other legacy media.
This is actually a development for the worse as it will mean more infomercials (including fraudulently disguised as real news ones), more placement, more endorsments and other sh*t. While we are becoming well trained to dealing with personalized ads (and ignoring them) the logical step further (personalized fraudulent product placing pseudonews) is likely to take quite a few by surprise.
It is only a matter of time until browsing history, shopping history and internet surfing habits are combined to adjust your "news" to ones that are commercially viable. It is solely a matter who will do it first: MS NBC, Amazon Washington Post or whoever Google (as usually late to the party) will acquire next.
Apparently some people are clicking them. But no-one I know.
I've been asking pretty much everyone I work with (many SOHO/SMB and private customers young and old) if they have ever knowingly clicked on an internet advertisement.
All have responded in the negative - and I'm pretty sure a larger survey base would come to the same conclusion.
Wouldn't it be fun if someone did do that, comprehensively proved that no-one followed through on ads in any meaningful way, and the ad-supported revenue model comprehensively collapsed?
Be interesting to see how much people would be prepared to pay for Facebook, et al, if the ad revenue disappeared.
Ah, in my little dream world....*daydreams of a world without Twitter*
Steven R
"and the ad-supported revenue model comprehensively collapsed?"
I don't see that would be a good thing. I can quite easily ignore ads I'm not interested in or even sites that have very annoying ads. However if I had to pay a subscription fee for every site that didn't have a product to sell then it would not be a better experience for me.
I have on several dozen occasions. All of them via ads on Google pages (search, gmail, &c.). Then again I have my accounts highly segregated so the profile they are using (I check regularly) is relevant, therefore the ads are what I'm interested in. My other accounts (MS, Yahoo!), not even and their ads get the kill switch aside from being too "loud." Facebook is by far the worst offender, so far off to not even being in the same universe.
I understand the privacy/utility trade-offs and if you're not rude, I'll even cooperate to help you make expenses, even a huge profit. The same is true business for any business [Reg, Ars], even the government. You just have to openly engage my cooperation. Sadly, the rape model of business and government seems to be the first choice selected. FB obviously has been paying attention to MBA's/Marketers again. Good-bye Facebook: It wasn't nice meeting you.
The point of advertising is usually less getting a sale right away and more preventing ones competitors from having a message reach consumers. That a company can advertise is more a subconscious trigger about them being around for the long run. Ad clicking is not required for the ads to 'work'.
Almost as pointless as Amazon's insistence on bombarding me with ads for things I've just bought from them. Obviously I know that they stock whatever it is BECAUSE I'VE JUST BOUGHT ONE FROM THEM! And there are some consumables which one may buy at frequent intervals, but if I've just bought a car stereo fascia surround then I'm not likely to need another one in a hurry and I don't really appreciate half a dozen emails with "Amazing offers on car stereo fascia surrounds!"
Sorry, rant over :-)
Yeah that is annoying... just bought a laptop for nearly 2000 euros... and amazon think I may want to buy another *slap_face* so now that is all I see.
And from a paying advertiser's point of view, this pointless Amazon ad is blocking the display of an ad from someone who wants to target consumers who have just bought a laptop. Perhaps there are none so Amazon is just filling the gap on the screen? Or maybe Amazon's ad system is really, really unsophisticated and not worth the money being charged? Perhaps we could interest one of the ad industry's trade magazines to run an expose so the people booking ads can see how they are being ripped off?
"but if I've just bought a car stereo fascia surround then I'm not likely to need another one in a hurry and I don't really appreciate half a dozen emails with "Amazing offers on car stereo fascia surrounds!""
To be fair to Amazon they probably thought your IP address was from Liverpool and assumed that you were in the business of acquiring and fitting new stereos on a regular basis and need to cover up the "scuff marks" from removal.
*This joke bought to you by the 1980s...Tips welcome...
@PerlyKing - I also hate adverts, but to be fair to Amazon you can turn all of the email trash off. Go into your settings on Amazon and change the Communication Preferences. It can all be disabled so you only see info on transactions. Same with EBay\Papal.
I am always amazed when I see other people's inboxes full of this kind of "spam". It is all opt-outable. You can get rid of the lot. Buy something from Tescos and forgot to opt-out? Then hit the unsubscribe link and say bye-bye to their trash.
Some of my clients have mailboxes full of this kind of ham\spam. They must waste hours a month wading through it instead of hitting unsubscribe. Madness.
On another similar thread, I never understand when you buy a new computer it has the home page set to the manufacturers website where they try and sell you a new computer....
The trouble is that unless you check very carefully, hitting the unsubscribe button can be a VERY BAD THING because that email isn't from Amazon/Tesco/Ebay/whoever and you have just confirmed that they have a live email address to sell.
Simpler/safer just to set up a rule to delete them without downloading.
And people keep complaining about adverts on websites.
Haven't they heard of adblock?
It keeps the ads in your face. This is particularly true for the interwebs where people have short attention spans and only stay on a single site for a short while.
I was recently looking for a hunting torch and ended up on dx.com. For a while I just got served lots of different dx.com ads for various torches. After I bought one (from dx.com), they stopped with the torch ads and started with other dx.com tat.
These people know how to use their data to their best advantage.
Don't feed it any data... except perhaps your IP address and that can be hidden via proxy.
Coookie Monster, RefControl, Adblock, NoScript, User agent control.
I really don't care if those not informed enough don't employ such measures. There are enough of them to make it uneconomical for websites to counter people like me. So I thank the clueless, long may they continue to take the flak.
I do try to educate but all to often I am met with blank stares. I never see an advert on a website more than once. I do visit Facebook, I use it to promote my business. I have put nothing on there that I do not wish to be made public. Facebook is the only place where Facebook scripts are allowed to run. As for doubleclick and googleadservices they are blocked at the router.
So I am a leech, like I give a fuck, my life, my eyes, my mind, my computer. That said I will pay subs to a site with something more than advertising to offer. Cue the down votes yay, like I give a fuck about that either. if you down vote me you must be one of the leeches that uses advertising and privacy invasion to make a living... Shame on you... The Golgafrincham B Ark is waiting for ya.
"BUT DON'T LET THAT GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR ANTI-MS AGENDA!!!!"
Ah but you chopped the beginning of of that sentence and all of the following one. Here it is again in full:
"Meanwhile, in what appeared to be a clear snub to Microsoft, Facebook confirmed it will ignore the do-not-track mechanism in browsers including Internet Explorer, AdAge reported. However, it will apparently respond favourably to ad-tracking limitation settings on Google's Android and Apple's iOS"
>>ad-tracking limitation settings on Google's Android and Apple's iOS<<
But what does that mean? The first sentence is about browsers, the second is about OSs. It doesn't sound like that means "We respect Do Not Track on Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS but not IE", it sounds like "When you run our proprietary apps on Android and iOS we respect the built in privacy settings".
None of which addresses my point, directed at the Register, and clearly not facetious enough, that to single out IE in this case is misleading. Facebook seem to be saying "we ignore the Do-not-track header on browsers but respect our app settings". As IE is nowhere near the most popular browser, why mention it? See! Clear anti-ms agenda! AGAIN!!!!
> As IE is nowhere near the most popular browser, why mention it?
IE has the Do Not Track turned on by default. The ad industry spit their dummy because it meant the sheep didn't have to engage a brain cell and turn it on (which they knew none of them would do), so decided to ignore it.
AFAIK the other browsers have Do Not Track off by default. The ad industry is happy to respect anything that makes no difference to what they do.
Host.txt is old - this house has six laptops, three tablets, four phones and a desktop, so using a hosts file on them all would be impractical. I just have a transparent proxy on the router computer which handles the blocking.
All targeted advertising is probably fairly pointless, a scattergun approach may be more useful!
Case in point, I generally ignore all adverts and use Adblock but I saw an ad for the Magnum ice cream with Marc de Champagne on TV, that sounds nice, I thought, so bought one. There is no way that could have been targeted at me through my browsing habits, I buy ice cream maybe three times a year!
I got laid off at work after 11 years at the same job. I figured I needed to establish a "social presence", so I created a facebook and linkedin account the same day I lost my job. I don't think I have seen any ads anywhere since being on those sites. I have been blocking for years though.
The very idea of so-called "social networking" leaves me absolutely stone cold. The very thought of exposing every minute detail of one's life to others on a whim or airing dirty linen in public seems to me to be so much dross and triteness in the extreme. Mind you, judging from the odd clips I have seen elsewhere made by the ever-nimble fingers of what appears to be a collection of mindless apes, I would imagine that the types that frequent Facebook, Twitter and the like probably get what they deserve.
For a long time I naively assumed 'targeted ads' meant fewer ads.
It's not being fed ads per se that annoys me (with at least AdBlock installed you hardly see any), it's the deviousness and obfuscation on the part of ad slingers that has got my goat. If people like ads so much, why can't these organisations be open about their policies (more open than they think they are, that is)?
I don't use Facebook, so I block facebook.com at the router. That way no tracking information goes back to them when I surf pages that have hooks back to Facebook. And the Facebook app on my phone that I don't use and can't remove can't connect back to them every night. (Use the Android development tools logging to verify that.)
Article doesn't explain how FB would know about smut. Do smut sites have facebook Like+1 beacons on them now?
EDIT: Ok read the adage article again, facebook ad exchange could mean many different advertising systems can linkup with facebook and find you on facebook's ad network.
Another reason to block -all- networks not just the ones you don't like.
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