Mastodawn

Jon S. von Tetzchner Mar 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

Dan Seitz Mar 21, 2025

@jon Having worked in media I'd LOVE to blame Google et. al. But the basic reality is that the whole ad side of the industry was rotten well before Google sold a single ad. Jim O'Shea's "The Deal From Hell" is a must-read in this regard.

Show thread

Dan Seitz Mar 21, 2025

@jon There are three big problems here:

1) Ad sales cannot support a publication at this point.
2) Ad tech/profiling does not work.
3) The data we get from advertising tells us the whole ad model is flawed.

Show thread

Jon S. von Tetzchner Mar 21, 2025

@Dseitz

When we had contextual ads, things worked better. IMHO we should go back to that by banning user profiling and thus surveillance based ads.

Show thread

Jack Yan (甄爵恩)

@jon This works for me. I block trackers, not ads. This always triggers the message that I am blocking ads. No, itʼs not me, itʼs actually the site. Because none of their ads are untracked, they wind up serving nothing. But if they had some contextual ads, then they would appear.

@Dseitz