[spuz]

> and then there are people who say, you can turn off ad personalization, I did since last 5 years and you know what I see. Some Scam apps/NSFW ads content.

I don't want my personal data to be in the wrong hands and that's why I disable ad-personalisation. But I don't agree that seeing ads for scam apps, NFTs, gambling or get rich quick schemes is better than personalised ads. The reason you are seeing those ads when personalisation is turned off is that they are the only kind of scheme which can scattershot their advertising while still remaining profitable. I'd much rather live in a world where the ad system knows exactly what I need or want and shows me appropriate ads. That way advertisers waste less money and there is more money available for the service provider or the content creators to provide value back to me. The only reason we don't live in that world is that Google and other companies have been shown to be untrustworthy when it comes to handling their customers' personal data.

[Ylpertnodi]

>I'd much rather live in a world where the ad system knows exactly what I need or want and shows me appropriate ads.

Er...just fucking no thanks.

[spuz]

Can I ask why? Is it because you find ads for things you don't want easier to ignore? Or is it because you'd prefer to see no advertising at all?

[travoc]

I prefer not to have my children psychologically manipulated into unhealthy behaviors for the financial benefit of others.

[PH95VuimJjqBqy]

assumed in your logic is the idea that we should care about being fair to people who pay for advertisements.

[spuz]

I don't mean to make that assumption. I'm only interested to know why people would prefer to see ads for things they are not interested in vs things they are interested in.

[_Algernon_]

If I'm truly interested in an ad I probably already knew about the product category and would look up the information I need without an ad. If I didn't know about a "need" the ad has effectively induced a demand in me, which means that it probably did one of (a) emotionally manipulating me (by inducing subconscious fear, or FOMO).

If anyone in my personal life did that in order to achieve a self-serving goal I'd call them emotionally abusive. But suddenly I need to accept it because someone paid for it? What?!

[jacquesm]

Fantastic summary of why advertising is inherently immoral. And if they just stuck to the facts that would be that but they just can't help themselves on the manipulation front and it's so incredibly obvious that they are doing that. Guilt tripping people and making them feel bad about themselves is apparently perfectly ok if you are in advertising.

[spuz]

I like these points. Would you expand that to talk about targeted vs untargeted advertising? For example, does a targeted ad feel more manipulative or less? Is a targeted easier to ignore or less?

Personally, I find untargeted ads more obnoxious but perhaps that's because of the point mentioned earlier that they tend to be for more obnoxious services such as gambling.

[PH95VuimJjqBqy]

people don't want to be spied on, if they have to suffer ads they'd rather suffer generic ads than be spied on.

[jimktrains2]

Or ads, like many online ads were originally, could be based on the content surrounding them rather than the person looking at them. Ads need not be scatter-shot without personalization.

[scbzzzzz]

true I agress, I hate facebook/google a lot for developing tools to track users and target ads based on their personal data. yes, it optimized advertisers money but at the cost of our privacy. I know, If it is not fb/google someone else will develop the tools. I wish world governments will establish some doctrine on targeted ads and ads in general.

I am ok with seeing scam ads on shady small website, but for a company of google/FB scale . No. they should be more responsible. they have tools/money to be more responsible and yet they are not. the only reason I think is they are forcing people to turn off ad-personalisation this way.

by responsible I mean, we should have ability to report scam-ads even if we didn't sign-in/opt out of ad-personalisation.

every time , i try to report a scam-ad on youtube, it asks me to turn off ad-personalisation to proceed.

[usefulcat]

> The reason you are seeing those ads when personalisation is turned off is that they are the only kind of scheme which can scattershot their advertising while still remaining profitable.

Do you know this for a fact, and if so, how?

[spuz]

I could state my claim more precisely and say that the services you are more likely to see advertised to large audiences are those with broad appeal or with high profit margins. In my experience those services tend to be things like banks or morally questionable things like gambling.