Disgusting paid adverts on Boards

Cee-Jay-Cee

I'm sick to death seeing the bloody earwax ads on the top of Boards. Its disgusting and unnecessary. Can some of the mods pass it onto the powers that be that there has to be a less disgusting way of generating revenue other than those f***ing ads. :mad:

Yes I click them away and leave feedback that I don't want to see them and yet they still appear multiple times every day!

dan1895

I love it when the universe aligns like this

dorothylives

That's what adblock is for. Can't remember the last time I saw an ad.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I'm sick to death seeing the bloody earwax ads on the top of Boards. Its disgusting and unnecessary. Can some of the mods pass it onto the powers that be that there has to be a less disgusting way of generating revenue other than those f***ing ads. :mad:

Yes I click them away and leave feedback that I don't want to see them and yet they still appear multiple times every day!

You’re aware that the ads are targeting you based on your browsing history?

dan1895

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You’re aware that the ads are targeting you based on your browsing history?

Which is interesting in my case as the ad I showed earlier was for a betting website. Personally I'm against gambling advertisements and any time one pops up on Twitter I block them but they keep coming. Either new versions of old ones or random companies I've never heard of from the middle east.

Snotty

Reminds me of the woman complaining that all the adverts on her facebook page were for sex companies, she quickly shut up when she found out this is all targeted advertising and based on her internet usage:pac:

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You’re aware that the ads are targeting you based on your browsing history?

Clearly the ad companies are telling cee that they’re not listening to all the other targeted ads they shown her so she/he needs to clean their ears out so they can target him/her correctly again.

Cerveza

I’m seeing nudey ads.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

You’re aware that the ads are targeting you based on your browsing history?

I work in online advertising, and that is only partly true. Opportunistic ad placement for things like earwax removal are bought in bulk and displayed on sites that SEO deem as low quality. If a user clicks on the ad then that gets added to their advertising profile. It's wholesale advertising as opposed to targeted advertising. Dubious health cures, online gambling, celebrity gossip, and cheap sun holidays would be some popular categories for this type of a 'mile wide and an inch deep' advertising.

TheBoyConor

I think the internet was in a much better place before it got taken over by advertising. probably stated in the mid noughties.
Nowadays it is often hard to navigate your way around because every site is just plastered with ads and ads slyly disguised as links to what you want to read or look at.
And as above, it is 99% ads for bullshít like gambling or "this one weird trick all doctors hate" nonsense.

jam_mac_jam

I have got them the past few days. They are gross and I wish it would stop. They are sickening.

I can't really see what I am browsing that would correlate with ear wax. I don't think I have ever seen a google ad of remote interest to me which makes me wonder on the power of their fantastic algorithms.

McDermotX

3 hot single women near my location right now tell me you're full of it, OP.

cj maxx

I haven't see these ear wax ads , which is a pity as I need it

Gatling

Wait till the just for men Tampax ads pop up !

cj maxx

Gatling wrote: »

Wait till the just for men Tampax ads pop up !

Then I'll tell them to stick their ads up their ass

Potential-Monke

Deleted User wrote: »

You’re aware that the ads are targeting you based on your browsing history?

Doesn't stop there, your phone actively listens to you and then bases ads on that. I wouldn't believe it myself, having slightly more knowledge in the area than a lot of people (only slightly though), I have first hand experienced it. It's weird and useful tbh! The father was only asking me for a knife sharpener the other day, following day Facebook is every second ad with a knife sharpener. Also happened with a car part, a laptop, LED facemask, wallet, and on.

But I somehow get very little porn and/or related ads considering how much I search for it.

dorothylives

dorothylives wrote: »

That's what adblock is for. Can't remember the last time I saw an ad.

I didn't even know Boards has ads haha.

Snotty

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Doesn't stop there, your phone actively listens to you and then bases ads on that. I wouldn't believe it myself, having slightly more knowledge in the area than a lot of people (only slightly though), I have first hand experienced it. It's weird and useful tbh! The father was only asking me for a knife sharpener the other day, following day Facebook is every second ad with a knife sharpener. Also happened with a car part, a laptop, LED facemask, wallet, and on.

But I somehow get very little porn and/or related ads considering how much I search for it.

Well I have a lot more knowledge on this, mainly from my job and its rubbish. What you talk of here is the "Seeing my new car everywhere" phenomenon.
If you buy a white Nissan tomorrow, suddenly you see white Nissans everywhere, same with your knife sharpener, you speak about it and so you notice it, if you didn't speak about it, you wouldn't pay any attention to a knife sharpener advert. Look at all the adverts on here or some feed, is every advert something relevant, doubt it, but the fact that you think it's listen and it knows what you have been talking about just goes to show how good these companies are at targeting their junk at you.

But don't get me wrong, Google and Co can certainly implement the technology and have researched it in depth, regardless of the legal or ethical ramifications, its actually not good target marketing (which is the most important thing to them) for example they could hear a conversation on a negative topic and they wouldn't know it was spoken about negatively, so wasting that advertising on you.
They have so much information, your social media interests, your browsing history, your demographics, your purchasing history, they have all they need and it's much more reliable than trying to listen to something that could be meaningless.

Potential-Monke

See, I was the same as you. I didn't believe it. But only for the fact that i've a sad life, I get the same ads over and over and over. I know the new car phenomenon (but I've just about beat it this time around, yay for coupes!), but I genuinely don't believe this is it. Another thing I've never googled is a cover for a couch, but the mother was talking about it to me and lo and behold there it showed up on Facebook ads soon after. I do still hope that Google are not doing this, but it's happened too often that I'm genuinely unsure now. No doubt they'll deny and cover as much as they can until they're caught though. Or you've already allowed them to do it by accepting one of the 6 billion terms across all the products/services they own.

We never believe something has happened or something is possible until it's proven, by which point it's probably been happening for ages anyway. No tin foil hats, just what I believe and tbh, it doesn't bother me. It's more useful than anything I've found.

For Android, blokada is a handy way to stop most ads. It isn't in the play store so you have to go to blokada.org. It sets up a virtual VPN and filters that way.

For Windows, ublock origin and sponsor block. The latter auto skips ads in YouTube, as in the ones by the YouTuber themselves that are part of the main video.

riffmongous

Potential-Monke wrote: »

See, I was the same as you. I didn't believe it. But only for the fact that i've a sad life, I get the same ads over and over and over. I know the new car phenomenon (but I've just about beat it this time around, yay for coupes!), but I genuinely don't believe this is it. Another thing I've never googled is a cover for a couch, but the mother was talking about it to me and lo and behold there it showed up on Facebook ads soon after. I do still hope that Google are not doing this, but it's happened too often that I'm genuinely unsure now. No doubt they'll deny and cover as much as they can until they're caught though. Or you've already allowed them to do it by accepting one of the 6 billion terms across all the products/services they own.

We never believe something has happened or something is possible until it's proven, by which point it's probably been happening for ages anyway. No tin foil hats, just what I believe and tbh, it doesn't bother me. It's more useful than anything I've found.

Yeah like what are the chances of getting a random ad for a knife sharpener of all things.

One time I was talking to my brother about our upcoming trip to Berlin and then an hour later I got a "things to do in Berlin" add on the xbox, no way it's a coincidence

Tails142

Yes I was complaining to my friends on whatsapp recently and we all agreed about the ear wax ads being disgusting. One of the guys said he didn't get them and all he gets is ads to increase sexual performance, we were trying to work out what he'd been googling lol

Cee-Jay-Cee

Deleted User wrote: »

You’re aware that the ads are targeting you based on your browsing history?

I can safely say with my hand on my heart that I have never browsed anything to do with ears/hearing or earwax, ever so that is not true in my case.

ELM327

1 - ads are based on search history and cookies
2 - Use the classic site, there are no ads there (I never see any ads)

EmmetSpiceland

All I’m getting are hotel offers and leadership “skills” courses. Happy enough to not see ear wax ads, I clean my ears quite regularly.

Find it hard to believe that we’re only being listened into for “quality control” purposes. Especially when the ads get a little “niche”. You can call it coincidence or ‘Baader-Meinhof’ or whatever but it stinks a bit to me.

Snotty

Snotty wrote: »

Well I have a lot more knowledge on this, mainly from my job and its rubbish. What you talk of here is the "Seeing my new car everywhere" phenomenon.
If you buy a white Nissan tomorrow, suddenly you see white Nissans everywhere, same with your knife sharpener, you speak about it and so you notice it, if you didn't speak about it, you wouldn't pay any attention to a knife sharpener advert. Look at all the adverts on here or some feed, is every advert something relevant, doubt it, but the fact that you think it's listen and it knows what you have been talking about just goes to show how good these companies are at targeting their junk at you.

But don't get me wrong, Google and Co can certainly implement the technology and have researched it in depth, regardless of the legal or ethical ramifications, its actually not good target marketing (which is the most important thing to them) for example they could hear a conversation on a negative topic and they wouldn't know it was spoken about negatively, so wasting that advertising on you.
They have so much information, your social media interests, your browsing history, your demographics, your purchasing history, they have all they need and it's much more reliable than trying to listen to something that could be meaningless.

My mate was looking for a 2nd hand Qashqai and I agreed to go on a Saturday to look at a few he had selected. After the trip my phone and Instagram was littered with Ads for Qashqais. Strange as I hadn't done a search.

After that, I well believe the phone is picking up conversations. Maybe if you buzz a particular word a few times it picks up the product.

Some of the goings on and uses of our data are becoming more sinister. It's not a huge stretch in 2021 to think voice data is being used in the same way as targetted ads from online searches. It seems like the natural progression.

Dunno how you manage it... I rarely even notice ads online anymore unless it's a pop-up of some kind. The eyes/brain automatically dismiss it as being irrelevant.

Badly Drunk Boy

Snotty wrote: »

Well I have a lot more knowledge on this, mainly from my job and its rubbish. What you talk of here is the "Seeing my new car everywhere" phenomenon.
If you buy a white Nissan tomorrow, suddenly you see white Nissans everywhere, same with your knife sharpener, you speak about it and so you notice it, if you didn't speak about it, you wouldn't pay any attention to a knife sharpener advert. Look at all the adverts on here or some feed, is every advert something relevant, doubt it, but the fact that you think it's listen and it knows what you have been talking about just goes to show how good these companies are at targeting their junk at you.

I usually only get ads for stuff I've searched for, or more stupidly, stuff I've just bought so wouldn't need to buy any time soon.

However, I believe that sometimes phones can listen for words to target ads at you. I couple of years ago, I got a hologram-type lamp as part of a birthday present for my nephew and after giving it (and talking about it), my sister started getting ads for holograms, which isn't quite in the same category as your white Nissan example.

My brother regularly gets these sort of ads too, after speaking about something very particular. I reckon I don't because I wouldn't really use much social media, but I'm also a low talker.

VG31

Dallas Brief Schoolmarm wrote: »

My mate was looking for a 2nd hand Qashqai and I agreed to go on a Saturday to look at a few he had selected. After the trip my phone and Instagram was littered with Ads for Qashqais. Strange as I hadn't done a search.

After that, I well believe the phone is picking up conversations. Maybe if you buzz a particular word a few times it picks up the product.

I would have been dubious of this myself before. However a few months ago I was saying something about potatoes and later that day I saw an ad for potatoes on my phone! I had never searched for potatoes recently and definitely never had ads related to them before. So unless it was a bizarre coincidence my phone must have been listening.

Cee-Jay-Cee

VG31 wrote: »

I would have been dubious of this myself before. However a few months ago I was saying something about potatoes and later that day I saw an ad for potatoes on my phone! I had never searched for potatoes recently and definitely never had ads related to them before. So unless it was a bizarre coincidence my phone must have been listening.

I have tried this several times and it always plays out. Mention something very obscure that you would never previously mentioned or searched for and within 24hrs ads relating to that thing will appear on your phone however I have never searched for earwax/hearing or anything else related and have never spoken about it (like why the hell would anyone talk about ear wax!) yet I was getting them almost every day both on my computer at work, my ipad and my phone and they are disgusting/horrible ads than I click away immediately.

Tpcl20

Use Brave browser. Not only will you not see the ads, you also get paid for supporting their advertisers. It's just like Google Chrome without the ads. I just got my monthly Basic Attention Tokens for January and they're worth €15. I can withdraw that money or support websites that I enjoy. It also blocks trackers, motion sensors, fingerprint detection and all the other creepy things that follow us around the internet.

Snotty

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I have tried this several times and it always plays out. Mention something very obscure that you would never previously mentioned or searched for and within 24hrs ads relating to that thing will appear on your phone however I have never searched for earwax/hearing or anything else related and have never spoken about it (like why the hell would anyone talk about ear wax!) yet I was getting them almost every day both on my computer at work, my ipad and my phone and they are disgusting/horrible ads than I click away immediately.

Is there any chance when you were trying to click the X on the advert your clicked the advert itself by mistake? Click on an advert once and it will spam you to death.

Government buildings

Does making phone calls and sending messages over WhatsApp make them more secure?

Government buildings

Government buildings wrote: »

Does making phone calls and sending messages over WhatsApp make them more secure?

Watsapps latest change to privacy policy is to share data with parent company Facebook so I believe that will open the floodgates to further targeting of ads based off conversations with mates.

The cynic in me says that this is another sinister move they tried to sneak through just after the Capitol was stormed. Good time to bury bad news etc...

Facebook are all too powerful at this stage and should be broke up for sure.

Brendan Flowers

A few people have mentioned using ad blockers. To those people that do use ad blockers, if you were to go to a sports event or a concert would you go around covering up all the advertisement boards? Next time you're able to go into a shopping centre, will you rip the advertisement posters off the sides of bins, benches, etc? I'm guessing the answer is "No"? So why do you think you've the right to hide ads that the people who run Boards.ie have intentionally placed on the site? If you can't use the site as the developers wanted you to use it, maybe you shouldnt use the site at all.

Hodors Appletart

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

A few people have mentioned using ad blockers. To those people that do use ad blockers, if you were to go to a sports event or a concert would you go around covering up all the advertisement boards? Next time you're able to go into a shopping centre, will you rip the advertisement posters off the sides of bins, benches, etc? I'm guessing the answer is "No"? So why do you think you've the right to hide ads that the people who run Boards.ie have intentionally placed on the site? If you can't use the site as the developers wanted you to use it, maybe you shouldnt use the site at all.

:D

loyatemu

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

A few people have mentioned using ad blockers. To those people that do use ad blockers, if you were to go to a sports event or a concert would you go around covering up all the advertisement boards? Next time you're able to go into a shopping centre, will you rip the advertisement posters off the sides of bins, benches, etc? I'm guessing the answer is "No"? So why do you think you've the right to hide ads that the people who run Boards.ie have intentionally placed on the site? If you can't use the site as the developers wanted you to use it, maybe you shouldnt use the site at all.

Boo hoo for the advertisers. I would have no problem with a few ads, but I don't want to see huge pictures of earwax being extracted taking up half my screen.

Many websites are now virtually unusable with intrusive pop-up ads that obscure the actual content and slow down or even crash your browser/device; and they're surprised that people use ad-blockers?

Tpcl20

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

A few people have mentioned using ad blockers. To those people that do use ad blockers, if you were to go to a sports event or a concert would you go around covering up all the advertisement boards? Next time you're able to go into a shopping centre, will you rip the advertisement posters off the sides of bins, benches, etc? I'm guessing the answer is "No"? So why do you think you've the right to hide ads that the people who run Boards.ie have intentionally placed on the site? If you can't use the site as the developers wanted you to use it, maybe you shouldnt use the site at all.

Personally I would rather there were no advertisements in public places or venues where you already pay admittance.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-kick-ads-ban-urban-billboards

Brendan Flowers

loyatemu wrote: »

Boo hoo for the advertisers. I would have no problem with a few ads, but I don't want to see huge pictures of earwax being extracted taking up half my screen.

Many websites are now virtually unusable with intrusive pop-up ads that obscure the actual content and slow down or even crash your browser/device; and they're surprised that people use ad-blockers?

Using this website as an example, what gives anyone expect those that work for Boards.ie the right to decide how pages should be displayed?

Also maybe sites wouldnt need to display so many ads if half the users weren't using ad blockers.

Gregor Samsa

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Using this website as an example, what gives anyone expect those that work for Boards.ie the right to decide how pages should be displayed?

I don't use an ad blocker myself, as I recognise that advertising is one of the few revenue streams many sites have, and they wouldn't exist without it, but I don't agree that people don't have the "right" to do whatever they want to any web page being displayed on their own device. It's the same as people changing channels during the ad break on TV, or getting up and making a cup of tea at that point, and not watching the ads.

So what gives people the right to decide how pages should be displayed is that it's their equipment displaying the page, their electricity bill being charged for doing it, their time being spend looking at the add. Media companies certainly have the right to display ads, but they thankfully don't have the right to force us to watch them.

growleaves

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

A few people have mentioned using ad blockers. To those people that do use ad blockers, if you were to go to a sports event or a concert would you go around covering up all the advertisement boards? Next time you're able to go into a shopping centre, will you rip the advertisement posters off the sides of bins, benches, etc?

Yes.

I'm guessing the answer is "No"?

You guessed wrong.

Hyperbollix

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Also maybe sites wouldnt need to display so many ads if half the users weren't using ad blockers.

There are no ad blockers on live radio yet commercial stations like Newstalk break 3 to 4 times an hour and crowbar in more ads before the news, after the news and before the weather/traffic and before they return to the show.

Never heard of a business that said, "Oh, we've enough of that revenue stream"

Government buildings

Dallas Brief Schoolmarm wrote: »

Watsapps latest change to privacy policy is to share data with parent company Facebook so I believe that will open the floodgates to further targeting of ads based off conversations with mates.

The cynic in me says that this is another sinister move they tried to sneak through just after the Capitol was stormed. Good time to bury bad news etc...

Facebook are all too powerful at this stage and should be broke up for sure.

I think WhatsApp phone calls and messages are encrypted. What does this mean?

Potential-Monke

My problem with online ads specifically is that sites are now designed to load the ads before the content. Screw that.

Brendan Flowers

growleaves wrote: »

Yes.



You guessed wrong.

Definitely agree that phones are listening. Same as others, get told by a friend about some product I'd never look at and next thing I'm getting ads for it.

Ghost Train

My theory on these sort of ads is that you get them when you opt out of targeted advertising.

If you find them disgusting there is option to click on the corner of the ad to report it. Although if google isn’t tracking or sending you targeted ads, they mightn’t be able to stop it appearing again in the future?

Gregor Samsa

Ghost Train wrote: »

My theory on these sort of ads is that you get them when you opt out of targeted advertising.

I think that's spot on. Clicking to report the ad so you don't see it again doesn't work - the excuse being that since you haven't enabled targeted advertising, they aren't tracking you in such a way that they can't guarantee that you won't see the ad again. It's a flimsy excuse - they could do it if they wanted.

Plus I suspect they're deliberately serving up revolting ads like the earwax one and the tonsil stone one to try to get people to opt in to the targeted advertising, which is much more lucrative. There's no way anyone is actually buying the products that they're selling in these ads, so there's no way that they're paying for the massive amount of advertising space that they're obviously getting.

It's a pretty horrible business practice; deliberately and constantly showing people disgusting pictures just so they'll relent and sign up for the feature that makes the company more money just to make the pictures stop.

Capt'n Midnight

cj maxx wrote: »

I haven't see these ear wax ads , which is a pity as I need it

Fr Jack Hackett had plenty of ear wax to spare if you need some.

PatrickSmithUS

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I'm sick to death seeing the bloody earwax ads on the top of Boards. Its disgusting and unnecessary. Can some of the mods pass it onto the powers that be that there has to be a less disgusting way of generating revenue other than those f***ing ads. :mad:

Yes I click them away and leave feedback that I don't want to see them and yet they still appear multiple times every day!

Would you not just use a decent internet site blocker?

fryup

anyone else getting ads on boards lately with kids with swollen eyes?? its very off putting seems to be in polish