News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Privacy-Preserving Ad Click Attribution for the Web. Parent comment

Re:Privacy-Preserving Ad Click Attribution for the Web by munk-a on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @02:58PM (#19984327)
Except we can actually win the war on advertising if we chose to do so. Making large swathes of the back-room tactics advertisers rely on illegal is absolutely do-able and provides more value to all of us - any companies that contract with bad actors can be punished and we could move into an age where we just forget what popups even were.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Privacy-Preserving Ad Click Attribution for the Web by johnfactorial on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @04:30PM (#19985118)
What we need is a new paradigm for making money on the Internet. Advertisements are psychological tricks users are forced to experience, designed to make that person think they need to spend their money on something they didn't need before they saw the ad.

It's infected our news media, with ads masquerading as real news articles and news providers dripping with desperation to keep you frightened of the BREAKING IMPORTANT NEWS you MUST KNOW ABOUT right after this attempt to sell you razor blades.

It's infected our social media, where avatars that bear only the slightest of photoshopped similarity to the person they claim to be pretend to live a high-life, hiding their broke reality while trying to sell you herbal detox teas produced by failing corporations.

It's infected our telephone system, spammers trying to sell you a new rate on your student loan debt calling you 100 times more often than your own mother.

It's infected our email system, where no client without robust spam filtering is even usable, and you will delete 100 times more emails you never wanted to get than you will receive from your best friend.

Text messages. The postal system. Light polluting billboards on highways. You name it, if advertising has gotten its claws in it, it has either ruined or is ruining it.

Selling ads and selling users' PII are the two primary methods by which a website makes money. Both need to die.

[ Parent | on HN ]