this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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My mind added this to the end automatically.
"Let's be realistic!"
Nothing new under the sun
I feel like contextual ads, where you serve ads based on the surrounding content instead of who the individual user is would be about as effective and tremendously less expensive, complicated, and invasive.
Run football ads on football websites. Run music ads on music websites. That's how it works in TV, radio, and so on and has for years.
I remember this being the norm 15-20 years ago.
Yes. Those are the ones that made web ads revolutionary and replaced all of the ad industry. Those are the ones that gave all the clear results.
And targeted ads have been highly related to fraud since the beginning.
Web 1.0, booo!!!
But that would mean that some of the richest companies and arguably the biggest business on the planet would become obsolete!
Actually scratch that, it looks like AI saved the day for them.
I hope my darkest cynicism on this topic comes across, if not: ///sssss
There is actually an argument that advertisers like Google are abusing micro targeting to extract advertising revenue from clients while, at least in some cases, delivering few actual new customers.
Here's the process.
- Google sees that your profile (browsing habits, demographics, search patterns, etc) suggest you are interested in product A.
- Google blasts you with advertisements for product A, essentially marking your browser session and claiming you as a recipient of their advertising. Ever look at a particular product and find you are being advertised for that product incessantly for a while?
- If you happen to buy product A around the time that your session was shown an advertisement for that product, Google claims you as a conversion and gets paid for convincing you to buy the product. Advertising works!
So if Google's algorithm thinks you are already going to buy product A, they show you an ad for product A constantly because it means they'll claim you as an advertising success and get paid extra.
Ever look at a particular product and find you are being advertised for that product incessantly for a while?
No, I use uBlock origin and I only see online ads when I'm forced to look at someone else's computer.
I literally had bets on whether or not someone would respond exactly as you did, bragging about never seeing ads because of ad blocking.
What did ya win?
Extra jack session today, the literal bet was clearly with themself.
The left hand won this round.
It is like encouragement for the thing you were already likely to do, which is the goal of targeted advertising.
Now if you purchased something, then got the ads afterwards and they counted it retroactively then they would be abusing it. I'm 99% sure they do that.
It is like encouragement for the thing you were already likely to do, which is the goal of targeted advertising.
It's the claim of targeted advertising. The person I saw talking about this actually ran the numbers, comparing two very similar geographic markets. In market A they paid for advertising, but in B they did not.
When comparing market A to market B, market A had a marginal increase in sales for the advertised product vs. market B. However, they were charged for orders of magnitude more conversions than the actual increase in sales.
The idea is that when compared to something like actual click-through purchases, where a user literally clicks on an ad and then buys a product, it's extremely deceptive.
Now if you purchased something, then got the ads afterwards and they counted it retroactively then they would be abusing it. I'm 99% sure they do that.
That explains everything!
No doubt their ads are monthly/quarterly purchases. So Google reports the end of month "conversions" when in reality it's ads shown during the month but happened after the sale.
Me: "I am going to the grocery store."
Google: "Groceries, go go go!"
Me: "I've bought groceries."
Google: "Another win!"
Why... isn't he thrown out of a high building window in the last panel? I'm a bit disappointed now.
(OMG I sound almost like a Russian dictator).
Is this just a redrawn version of the boardroom meme?
https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/Boardroom-Meeting-Suggestion
Without violence and therefore for cowards
cookies are going away ?
This was a 2021 comic, which I think was the time when companies had to comply with GDPR regulations. Cookies didn't go away, but companies had to explicitly ask the user for consent to use them [or atleast can't hide that they were using cookies]; usually in form of popups.
ah, so that's why we get these notifications on every single website now ?
Yes, and you can use Consent-0-Matic to fill then out automatically (and reject cookies). Works on at least most of the annoying ones
I could kiss you right now.
I mean. I won't. You never consented to that. But if you're ever in Cleveland, and you wanna be kissed, well.....you know where to find me.
Actually you don't.
Ah, well, perhaps it wasn't meant to be. But hey! You listen to me right now! Keep on being you, and knowing things! The world needs more people who know usefull things! Thats how others learn.
And somewhere as a society, we've lost sight of that, by large. We've become distant as a people. We've lost the art of conversation! Gone are the days of people from opposite ends of the fence seeing each other as friends. Everybody is your enemy now, and everybody is divided. But why? Why now?
Money. Follow the money. If we're all fighting with each other, we can't fight with the rich. And who designed it that way? Certainly not the poor, or the middle class. We don't have trickle down ecconomics. We have gushing upwards ecconomics.
Like.....shits bad. This has to be late stage capitolism. The whole system is on brink of collapse. The rich can't take our money if we have no money. Which means they have no money. Nobody has money anymore, and we face a 1930s style great depression.
Actually, I was reading about the great depression. It didn't sound all that different from my life right now. And do you know what happened right after the great depression? We kicked the nazis asses!
So if there's one silver lining to how much shit the world is going through right now, it's this. There is a very non-zero chance I'll get to kick some nazi ass! Because god damn, are there a lot of them these days!
I'm generally pretty against murder. But killing a nazi? Well that seems more morally correct than NOT killing a nazi. So maybe I have that to look forward to. Yeah!
What was I talking about? Oh, right, yes. Thank you for the cookie tip. It's going to make my PC internet back to it's authentic self.
Yea I am using it ! But it works with only a subset of websites
thanks for the recommendation in any case
I've had better results with enabling the cookie-notice blocklist in ublock origin
Didn't know about that.... will check it out thanks
You might want to try Ghostery. It’s similar to ublock (probably I’ve never used ublock).
It auto-denies all possible cookies, randomizes your location and fingerprinting information, and blocks ads and stuff (good for if you use pihole but need to use a public VPN for something, or mobile browsing or whatever)
I’ve never found a site it didn’t work with, tho it’s possible, I’m sure. It’s also one of the only extensions available for iOS browsers that does all the things, at least that I’ve been able to find.
Prefer Privacy Badger over Ghostery. It's been a while but my understanding is Ghostery sells some data about your data blocking habits. I switched like 8 years ago so I don't remember the details. It's made by the EFF which is a very good organization.
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There is also I still don't care about cookies.
what is that ?
Same kind of addon as Consent-o-matic. https://github.com/OhMyGuus/I-Still-Dont-Care-About-Cookies
Works a bit differently.
Thanks !
I think he refers to the browser extension of the same name.
ok will look it up cheers
~~Of the same type. :-)~~
Edit: I thought you mean of the same as Consent-O-Matic, not what you actually meant.
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Let's be realistic. This will not stop under capitalism. Any company that doesn't exploit their users and employees for the most amount of profit will get outcompeted and driven out of the market by a different company that does.
Took me a while to realise they weren't selling cookies, but instead meant internet cookies.
No, no, we just add AI to the browsers, we don't need cookies when we're going.
Yeah Alan, be realistic. We are too addicted to sniffing up consumer data to just give up. Even if internet ads, targeted or otherwise, are not really liked by anyone.
He wasn't realistic. In the end they're trying to sell an undercooked product or service, preferably full of subscriptions, and these days likely AI slop held together with duct tape, so they don't have much choice but tricking customers into handing over money.
"But now we have so many other ways of tracking people on the www, we can finally give in on this one specific, somewhat outdated thing called cookies, we really don't need it anymore."
Why is there a random person off screen yelling "Tom Fish Burne" in the last panel? 🤔
Reject all is an instant click.
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