Just so you know. I don't particularly mind many ads, even targeted ads; on rare occasions I've even found them helpful. I do mind being followed around and stalked though.
By obtaining permission or establishing a mutually beneficial relationship that is fully disclosed, revocable, and that I have some degree of control over. Not with some catch all disclaimer "By continuing to use this site you hereby agree to allow us or our partners to follow you around and log your behavior and sell your dossier as a product and or service..." Most of all, by fucking off if I tick the box that says fuck off I don't want to be stalked right now/ever.
An example of a thing that I don't mind is if Amazon or some company that I have a relationship with noticed the frequency that I buy certain things like pet food or some other consumable and started placing relevant ads at about the time I might need to buy it again. I'd also like to be able to reject certain suppliers. I don't necessarily want them selling that info to the vendor(s), at least not without anonymizing it.
An example of a thing that I recently found amusing/annoying is that I purchased a large ticket home appliance recently, and for a week or more after that purchase there was a huge increase in ads for that particular large ticket item, as if I might buy more of them or something.
An example of a thing that I absolutely don't want is to tracked by companies / affiliate networks / whatever that I have no relationship with, and who basically just follow me around and sell a dossier of my browsing habits to anyone and everyone who wants it. Even if that means I can't have cat videos for free, or have to pay a little more for stuff.
I agree with all of this. It is just impractical - hence adblocking...
> An example of a thing that I recently found amusing/annoying is that I purchased a large ticket home appliance recently, and for a week or more after that purchase there was a huge increase in ads for that particular large ticket item, as if I might buy more of them or something.
This is actually solid marketing. They are trying to re-enforce in your mind that you made a good purchase. This should prevent buyers remorse and is aimed to manipulate you into telling other people how great your new whatever is.
>This is actually solid marketing. They are trying to re-enforce in your mind that you made a good purchase. This should prevent buyers remorse and is aimed to manipulate you into telling other people how great your new whatever is.
Well in that case, they don't know me as well as they think; because it does not do what they think it does. They also run a risk doing that kind of thing. Last year I bought two monitors, and within a week the price dropped by a large amount. I might not have have noticed that if they hadn't been spraying ads for the products I'd just bought in my direction. Amazon didn't want to honor the price-matching guarantee. I almost cancelled my Prime account over it. Now, I make a point to watch for price changes immediately after purchase.
