I dislike ads, and not just because they are intrinsically rude: they want to grab people’s attention when that attention is rightly placed elsewhere. Ads are egotists, ads are motivated by self–aggrandisation, ads are cons, ads are liars, ads are misinformation. If an ad were a person in normal conversation, you’d rapidly coventry its raging me–me–me–ness. Ads are antisocial egoists. Ads are to polite society what woke–ragers are to common decency, infections on societal health.
So you understand one reason why I use ad blockers. But those are not the best reasons. A sentence in the article Mac users served info–stealer malware through Google ads in today’s Ars Technica says it all: “Like most other large advertising networks, Google Ads regularly serves malicious content that isn’t taken down until third parties have notified the company.”
Neither google nor their competitors properly sanitise the ads they shovel onto our computers. To quote, “Google Ads takes no responsibility for any damage that may result from these oversights.” They mega–profit and we suffer the consequences of their refusal to do their job properly. They are a serious security risk to your computer, your money, your confidentiality, to everything you value.
Regretably, this is nothing new, it’s even got its own word. What’s new, to me at least, is my complete shock at google’s irresponsibility; their business is built on advertising, they have some pretty shit–hot security teams, yet they couldn’t be arsed to issue an insurance–backed guarantee that the ads they propel across the internet onto everyone’s computers aren’t dangerous? Good God! I’m surprised this degree of irresponsibility is legal.
So, advertising is not only wrong because it rudely attempts to steal attention, and because it downright lies, but it’s wrong because it is actively dangerous. A responsible computer user has no choice but to suppress ads.
The income of a good number of organisations depend on the traffic generated by their ads. The honest organisations amongst these, which won’t be that high a proportion given ads are intrinsically dishonest, also suffer from google et al’s failure to do their job properly.
As an computer user, I suppress ads, I have no choice. I do attempt to compensate those organisations whom I find do a good job, whose income depends on those ads, by subscribing to them—including, ironically, Ars Technica.
I don’t have an objection to ads per se, I object to egomaniac ads, I object to insecure ads, I object to liars, I object to cons. I would accept, without any problem, honest simple text ads: indeed, I’d be willing to post them here on arts & ego. I could be persuaded to accept text ads with explicit links, provided the ad provider gave an insurance–backed guarantee that those links were properly kosher. But that’s all: I would never accept anything that interferes with this site’s design.