Jon S. von TetzchnerMar 21, 2025

The damage that Big Tech has done to news sites and media should not be underestimated.

It used to be that you would buy tech ads on tech media outlets. That was the best way to reach that audience. Now Big Tech makes a profile on you, which notes that you visit tech media sites. That information is then used when selling ads based on your profile.

The only real solution is to ban user profiling and go back to context sensitive ads. I think that kind of ads, as long as they are not using popups and the like, would be more acceptable to the public as well. People just do not like being tracked. Who would have thought?

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/21/google-claims-news-is-worthless-to-its-ad-business-after-test-involving-1-of-search-results-in-eight-eu-markets/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=threads

#BigTech #Google #Microsoft #Regulation #surveillance #Technology

Google claims news is worthless to its ad business after test involving 1% of search results in eight EU markets | TechCrunch

Google has reported the results of an experiment it ran which removed news from search results for 1% of users for 2.5 months in eight* markets in Europe

TechCrunch
Show thread🐈‍⬛David Sommerseth

@jon I could probably be acceptive to ads if they weren't so attention seeking. Animations, contrast colouring, taking a lot of screen space ... All of that just makes me really annoyed (to say it very politely).

If an ad would blend in like other posts, I would still spot it and more likely click it if it would match my current needs.

I don't want or need ads telling me what I might want or push products into my face.

And that's why I block all ads. Because too many just do the latter and it's easier to just block it all at once.

And of course your points on tracking users, that goes without saying. Such tracking is ruining everything even more.

Mar 21, 2025 at 5:06pmWeb