Got this notification when I opened Chrome when coming back to my desk after lunch.
“We changed our privacy settings to allow us to snoop on what you’re looking at and shove you ads accordingly. Feel free to opt out, but we’ll probably opt you back in when you aren’t paying attention.”
I’m always a bit amused when these sites and apps say things like, “If you turn off ad personalization, the ads you see won’t be as useful to you.”
My dude, I don’t think I’ve ever willingly clicked on an ad in my entire life. “Personalizing” them won’t change that.
I used to sometimes. When there was a simple, clean ad for something I was interested in, I would click through.
Mind you, this was in an era when the internet amounted to strings and cans because I’m a fucking dinosaur. Since then, ads first went obnoxious and loud, then they got plastered everywhere, then they started being invasive.
Fuck ads at this point. There’s nothing good in them for us at all.
I don’t know, ads were always dog shit. Yeah you had your static banners and what not, but I remember the popup wars from the 90s.
Even if any of these companies were any good at ad targeting, I wouldn’t want “personalized” ads anyway cuz I’d just spend more money.
but but but but you’d get something good for it! You would never have missed it, but maybe you just didn’t know you wanted it? Come on, I’m sure consuming shit that will make you happy twice for two minutes each (once when clicking buy, once when getting and opening the package) will fill that hole in your soul! Spending money on stuff you don’t actually need is good!
(That was sarcasm, if it wasn’t clear enough.)
True. The only personalized ads I ever receive are for products I literally just purchased.
I don’t know how there’s so much money in the ad space. It just seems like a huge waste.
A lot of times people will visit a website for a product they’re interested in and may not immediately pull the trigger. When they see it later 3-4 more times, the chances of conversion are way higher.
Google probably doesn’t really know if you purchased the product, and may not care, as you may want to purchase another.
I’m sure it’s like gambling and microtransactions where the vast majority of income is derived from a small minority of people who aren’t bothered by the onslaught of ads shoved down their throats.
Used to think otherwise, that I was immune to the phenomenon that you’re describing. But then the other day I realised my shoes were hurting my feet. I was seriously considering buying shoe inserts (if that’s their English name), even had the brand in mind, until I realised what was happening.
I’ve seen ads for this brand on tv like a decade ago. Before that, I honestly had no clue such things existed, I’d seen them in a store like, twice. Never seen anything related to them ever since. Literally forgot about them until I felt the slightest urge to buy them. I was really taken aback when I realised what had happened in my “advertising-immune” mind
I’m not sure this applies to stuff like ads. Like, if you always prioritize foss and ethically sourced products, ads can’t really persuade you to buy certain things. And you make those decisions by doing research and buying local, or even better, making as much stuff as you can yourself.
I don’t think I’ve ever willingly clicked on an ad in my entire life
Same here and I’ve certainly never purchased anything through an ad. You’d think there’d be some advantage for advertising networks to identify people (there are dozens of us!) who never click on ads and refrain from serving any to them - and use this as a selling point for ad buyers so that their expenditures are not wasted.
Just because you don’t click on an ad doesn’t mean it didn’t work though. If you see an ad for Coke you may not click on it to order a case of Coke online right away, but when you go out to lunch maybe you’ll fill your cup with Coke.
I mention food ads because I feel they are particularly effective for this type of behavior. You don’t need to click on a food ad, but I know I’ve had a craving for a certain restaurant or food from seeing it mentioned online (whether an ad or just a comment/post) and then gone to get that food for dinner.
Of course, this type of ad result is very difficult to track.
Only did it once. The Rest EverCool comforter ad I kept seeing. Looked up a bunch of reviews and as someone who is a very hot sleeper. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s the softest coolest blanket I’ve ever felt. Every square inch is as cool as the other side of the pillow.
Upvoted for saying the phrase “as cool as the other side of the pillow”. Heard that once when someone was talking about a sports commentator and haven’t forgotten it in probably 35 years at least.
“new privacy feature” and then “sites you visit can determine what you like”
translated: “this new privacy feature reduces the amount privacy you have!!! what a great thing you like!!!”
Idk why the heck you just got downvoted into oblivion for pointing out the irony in google calling this a “privacy feature.” Good old reddit moment it seems.
lol it’s no worries. actually I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I’m just an asshole.
Damn, you’re still copy pasting that? That link doesn’t even go anywhere lol
It’s funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people. Everyone uses chrome and rarely types in a web address, they just type the name of the thing into Google and trust mommy to show them what’s appropriate. They’ve back doored the entire population into basically what AOL was trying to be 20 years ago.
“we are going to help protect your privacy” from WHO Google? Is it from you? Because it seems like we need protection from you most of all. Constantly being gaslit by mega-corporations is the new American dream. It’s okay because they love us, deep down, and we know that even though they don’t show it.
It’s funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people.
In a microcosm of the same kind of creeping normalcy, Bethesda charging a few bucks for horse armor in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was once a reach too far, until it wasn’t.
Now we have Star Citizen levels of grifting as well as ActiBlizz “buy a currency to get a currency that is leveraged as currency to get credit toward a currency in a battle pass” layer cake grifting.
EDIT: Typo’d on the sequel count.
Can you expand on the last paragraph? I am not a gamer, so although I understand most words in that sentence I really have no idea what you’re referring to.
Well, to put it simply there are these things called microtransactions, basically you want items in a game or extra lives or something like that, you can pay for them instead of earning them, sometimes they make it so that certain items can only be paid for, worse they make it so that certain items can only be paid for and will only be offered for a limited amount of time. If you miss the window to buy them now you will never be given another chance. Normally this is something cool like a tie in with a new movie that came out or something of that nature. Fortnite does this a lot, hope you got those Marvel characters when they were offering them cuz you’re not getting them now.
But as if that wasn’t bad enough there was another layer to it, one of the things you can buy with microtransactions, using real money, is a form of money that can only be used in the game.
So, what you give them a dollar, they give you 100 coins, and there isn’t even exchange rate? Of course not
There are various bundles where you can buy the premium currency as it is often called. Typically the more expensive bundles give more, and it’s not tiered properly, so let’s say $5 gives you 800 coins, but $10 gives you 2,000 coins, it’s to goad you and to always buying the higher amount, even if you only want that one item.
But it can get worse, they can set the prices so that you can just barely afford the item you want with that $10 tier, so the next year is 5000 coins for $20. And with that you can get enough coins to buy the item you want and have just a little left over, but not enough for you to do anything with unless you buy a lot of coins to supplement that amount, which can trick you into thinking that you’re getting a good deal when you are actually being fleeced pretty hard.
Fortnite is so bad because despite it being a good game, it does all of the above and targets to children who don’t know anything about money.
There are cases where you can buy one form of Premium currency with real money, so that you can buy a higher tier of Premium currency with the premium currency you bought with real money, forcing you to pay even more.
And this is one reason why modern games suck, the other reason is that everyone is using the same Engine.
small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up
I (and many others I presume) has been saying Chrome is shit since the beginning. It didn’t feel like nothing was happening, it felt like we were slowly getting to the old days of IE and Netscape.
There are always a few that see this stuff coming, but they usually get looked at like a crazy person shouting about the sky falling.
It also feels like they really push a lot of the terrible on mobile first, get people used to concepts with the “that’s just how mobile is, it’s a different world” and then when most are accustomed to it they move to regular pc enshitification.
I do not like how websites prioritise the mobile view over desktop view even when it is on a desktop. You have a widescreen and want to waste all that horizontal space? Just ridiculous!
Yeah yeah, I understand it is less maintenance from a developer point of view, but still it is infuriating as a user.
This is why I use Linux at home, along with TOR and a VPN. I’m not doing anything other than looking up woodworking and camping stuff, but fuck all ya’ll for being nosy.
My dude. All the feels right here.
That really depends on what you’re trying to do.
A VPN just makes it look like you’re somewhere else, but it doesn’t really add any amount of anonymity. You’ll still get tracked around the Internet like you normally would, but sites will just think you’re somewhere else.
Tor is an anonymizing network, so your traffic gets mixed with a bunch of other people’s traffic so websites get really confused about where you are. It’s almost impossible to track someone using Tor because Tor will change how your packets are routed from request to request.
So if you just want to get access to different Netflix shows, a VPN is probably what you want. If you want to truly be anonymous, you need Tor. Just know that anonymity through Tor comes at a price, a lot of sites block Tor traffic, and performance is nothing to write home about because your traffic is routed through a bunch of other people’s machines.
Use Firefox