WEBVTT - The Problem with Ads Part One 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.920 Text Technology with tex Stuff from staff. Hey there, and 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.040 welcome to tex Stuff. I am your adorable host, Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.680 and sitting in the office with me, my good friend, 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.960 my co worker, Mr Ben Boland joins us again. Welcome Ben, Hey, Jonathan, 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.760 thanks so much for having me on the show. Listeners, 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.479 I hope you are well. I have a question for you. Yeah, okay, 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:41.760 So have you ever seen an advertisement and thought, yes, absolutely, 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.720 this is for me rarely, but it has been known 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:48.839 to happen. I can tell you right now. I can 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:51.319 tell you to ralf the top of my head. And 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.240 it's largely because of the tone of the advertising campaign. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:04.160 Old Spice theodorant, right right. Dollar shave Club, Okay, what 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.440 about Dollar Shape Shave Club. The commercials for a dollar 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.280 shave Club are kind of in that same tongue in cheek, 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.880 snarky sort of approach, a little not not so in 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:19.440 your face as to be truly obnoxious, but just barely 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:24.480 straddling that line between being charming and being arrogant. And 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.720 and I find it entertaining. And I thought, well, I 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.520 I shave quite a bit actually, because because I got 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.920 the head that I have to shave, because nature has 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.960 deprived me of some of my hair, but not all 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:39.480 of it, so I have to get rid of the rest. 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.920 And um, and I decided to try it out because 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.960 I thought the ads were really entertaining. The idea of 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.240 the subscription model was much more attractive to me than 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.000 having to go to the store and ask to unlock 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.800 the vault of razors. Yeah, and uh, it turned out 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.240 that I loved the products, so um, the ad did 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.160 exactly what it was supposed to do. It got my attention, 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:09.400 it made me remember the brand, and it it's ultimately 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.720 got me to act, which are That's exactly what ads 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.919 are supposed to do. Let me tell you what ads 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.520 are not supposed to do. What they're not supposed to 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.960 irritate the audience to the point where they no longer 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.480 ever want to buy anything ever again, and then they 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.680 rage quit the internet. Um. So today we're gonna talk 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.400 about ads and ad blockers and to kind of go 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.160 into the discussion that's been kind of going around recently 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.520 about ad blockers, including some of the stuff that's going 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:40.800 on in Europe. Uh, some of the stuff that you 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.320 might have heard about as far as ads and their 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:48.400 relationship to malware. Um, what exactly is going on and 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.480 where do we stand on this? And then you know, 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.080 you you do a lot of stuff here at how 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.040 stuff works, but I specifically ask you, in your capacity 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:57.880 as one of the hosts of stuff, they don't want 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.280 you to know because as the host of that show, 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:06.639 you've covered the topics surrounding privacy pretty extensively, right, and 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:12.200 privacy is one of the factors that comes into play 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.880 when you're talking about advertising, particularly today when targeted advertising 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:22.360 has become such a huge part of strategies. Now, to 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.160 start this off, before we jump into all of that, 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.040 I thought I would give kind of a really high 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.960 level explanation of what is going on behind the scenes, uh, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.760 technically with ads on web pages and thus how ad 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.160 blockers are able to work at all. You might think, well, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.920 how can an ad blocker recognize and block and add 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:49.320 but not the content I'm trying to see? So, Ben 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.840 you work? You work on the web? Yes, you you 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.960 you've visited a website or two. You probably know that 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.200 you do so through something called a browser. Yes, uh 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:11.280 for you know, something like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Edge and 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.680 if you are using Internet Explorer, I hope it is 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.400 only because some outside authority is making you do so, right, Like, 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.400 there's an intranet that you can only access with Internet Explorer. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.680 Do you remember those days? Yeah, there was there. That 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.520 was the only reason I had Internet Explorer installed on 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.160 my old computer list so that I could access our 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.320 company's former intranet, which is ridiculous. But here we are 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.159 nonetheless on a browser. Yes. So when you are visiting 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.800 a website using your browser, you type in the r 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.480 L type and you put it in the address bar 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:46.880 and you hit that inter button. What is happening is 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.160 your browser is sending out a request over the Internet, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:54.000 and it's essentially saying, Hey, the jerk on the other 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.960 end of this keyboard wants to see you know. Uh, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.120 I don't know what's a good website. Let's say a 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.320 Wired dot com. That's a great example, because Wired is 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.640 going to come up and in other parts of this discussion, 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.760 and Wired, by the way, I love Wired. They do 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:11.360 great work, and I've got a lot of friends who 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.640 have worked for Wired, either in the past or currently 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.720 love their stuff. So you're going to Wired dot com. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.960 What happens is the uh, this request goes out over 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:26.159 the Internet and it's routed through a series of connections 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.799 until it gets to the server where wired dot com lives, 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.760 which is like the vault of their information. Yeah, it's 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.679 a it's a it's an actual physical computer that has 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.120 the instance of that website stored on it. And then 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.400 when the request comes in, it serves, thus living up 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.360 to its name, the information to you, and it goes 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.240 back across the Internet, not necessarily in the same pathway 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.760 that your request came through. That gets into a discussion 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.640 of packets that really is immaterial for this. Yeah, I've 0:05:57.640 --> 0:05:59.800 talked about packets in previous episodes. So if you really 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:01.920 want what packet switching is and how all that works, 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.680 go check out the archives of tech stuff and it's 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.280 out there. But the information comes to you, and your 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.760 browser puts it together and displays it for you, and 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.039 it does so based upon the rules set up by 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.599 the web master rights whoever put it together. There there 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:21.000 are there's language tags that that explain how it's supposed 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.240 to look when it's displayed on your browser, and that's 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.480 how it works. And so you think, okay, so so 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.000 it's really just a request and then a response. But 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.240 then you have ads. Now with ads, the content for 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.800 the ads comes from a different place than the content 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.000 for the web page itself. So those ads that are 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.520 on Wired dot com, they're actually coming from different servers. 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.919 They're not coming from Wired server, and the web page 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.560 just has a space dedicated or some form of UH 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.880 relationship there that's dedicated to the ad that says this 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.440 is where the ad will go when it's served to 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.279 the the viewer, and that depends on the arrangement between 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:08.279 the advertiser and the content creator. Yeah, so you could probably, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.400 I mean, we could really dive down into this and 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.680 say all these different types of ads have different UH rates, 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.560 Like a banner add at this point is almost considered 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.120 to be worthless, and a banner AD is a term 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:27.040 describing those long horizontal ads you will see the take 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.840 up UH an entire row I guess of a website, right, 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.400 and you can say, like a rail would be UH 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.760 the vertical version of that, either on the left or right. 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:37.800 And then there are other things like they're pop ups 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.360 under tons of different types and they all have different 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:47.120 rates depending upon the lots of factors. How popular is 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.800 the website UH and how effective are those ads considered 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:52.840 to be, Like the least effective are the ones they're 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.440 going to be the least expensive. Uh. And and in 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.720 some cases you will find web pages that have completely 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.680 abandoned some of the cheaper one because they don't really 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.160 work anyway, and you might as well try and command 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:09.400 a higher price. So those impressions, those those that data 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.880 is actually coming from other servers, and they're the advertisers 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:17.400 servers are the more likely advertising agencies servers where that 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.480 data lives. So as the page is loading up the 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.040 sections for the ads, that gets another request saying, hey, 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.040 send me the the information that's supposed to go here. 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.000 It's coming from this other server that gets sent to 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.839 your computer and is inserted into the appropriate section by 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.880 your browser when it's constructing the whole thing. Uh. The 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.520 way ad blockers work is essentially it has a filter 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:47.040 list saying anything coming from these particular servers, don't let 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.320 it show up. Just don't even let it through the door, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:56.480 like mad ads dot com, which I just made up, right, So, 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.839 so anything that would come from that server would automatically 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.640 blocked and not be incorporated into the web page as 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.840 you're displaying it. So that's the general way that most 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.640 ad blockers work. There's another way to the ad blockers 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:14.120 can also look for certain tags that are associated with advertising, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.360 like there's actually a tag for ad that kind of stuff, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.760 and just block anything that that shows up under that tag. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.200 But generally speaking, the idea is just kind of a 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.200 bouncer that says anyone from this neighborhood is not allowed 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.079 into the club, and um so checking your checking all 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.360 the I d s and saying I'm sorry, you're from 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.760 a part of the neighborhood where we don't let you in, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.560 and so discriminatory. That's the way. That's that's how an 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.280 ad blocker has to work, right. It has to discriminate. 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:44.800 Otherwise you don't get You either get everything or you 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.360 get nothing. So it has to discriminate. And we should 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.199 do a disclaimer, yeah, which is what Oh, okay, I'll 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.439 do it, yea. So we are fully aware, ladies and gentlemen, 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.920 that we do work for an internet company how stuff works. 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.120 It's our parent company for our range of podcasts, and 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.000 it is AD supported, and it is AD supported, and 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:12.760 quite a few things online are AD supported. However, I 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:18.120 will confess to my hypocrisy because I am an enormous 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:25.880 fan of certain ad blockers, and I completely understand why 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:31.440 another person would use an ad blocker, especially given as 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.960 you mentioned, the privacy concerns that will get to. Yeah, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.120 so there's a whole lot of stuff going on for 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.439 reasons why people would consider using an ad blocker, and 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.800 to your point, but not to leave you hanging out there. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.200 I use ad blockers too sometimes. I sometimes I will 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:56.079 set exemptions for websites that I think are handling advertising 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.600 in a responsible way, in a non invasive, non uh 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.559 potentially harmful kind of way. So you can you can 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.960 with most ad blockers set filters and say anything on 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.240 this page, go ahead and show me the ad. It's fine. 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.680 White list stuff exactly. So wire dot Com there's an example, 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.760 uh that's on my white list. A couple of others too. 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.080 There's some that want to be on my white list 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:24.480 that I have not put on there. Cough Forbes cough. Um. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.760 But we'll get into that too. So there are a 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.040 lot of different reasons, and some of them you could 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.160 argue are more valid than others for people to want 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:33.960 to use ad blockers. So I'm gonna run through a 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.079 few of those. And also I could say that there 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.680 there's other things you can do, like through your browser itself, 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:45.120 that that don't necessarily block ads, but block elements of 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:50.959 ads that you might find particularly irritating. Like yeah, yeah, 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.080 like you can disable video or audio or flash animation, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.160 or you can not even have flash installed, So that 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:02.520 also helps. That's tough. That I don't know is, yeah, 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.880 there's a lot of content out there that is dependent 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.920 upon flash and without it, without flash, it makes it harder. 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.840 Another some things have definitely helped by moving to h 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:15.560 g mL five. Um So, uh, at any rate, let's 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.679 talk about some of the reasons folks block ads. Uh. 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.679 Some of them, like we said, are just obnoxious. They're intrusive. 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.280 They ruin the experience you're trying to have. If you 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.439 are trying to read an article and as you scrolled down, 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:34.120 a window slides into view, covering up the text you're 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.080 trying to read, and his auto playing some commercial that 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.040 has no bearing on your life whatsoever, that's a bad experience, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:46.040 right Like if if I were going on a page 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.160 about a technical gadget and I'm reading and as I 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.840 scrolled down, an ad for diapers comes on, I'm gonna 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.959 be irritated. I don't have a baby, I don't need 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:01.240 diapers myself. Yet you're not reading about something related to diaper. No, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.319 I'm not reading about the latest in diaper tracking software, 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.000 you know, getting that notification on your app that's time 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.680 to change the diaper. I'm not reading any of that. 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.120 That would be a very bad experience. It could be 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.559 I poop, I mean I do. That's I don't want 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:22.480 to get into it. Yeah, that's uh, probably one that 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.800 we will not pitch that show. Yeah. Uh so that's 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.199 one reason. Just just because it's an it can be 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.200 an unpleasant experience, depending upon the way the ad is presented. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.600 It's disruptive, it is, it is disruptive. Another is that 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:42.040 it slows downloading time, right because there is this additional 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.600 uh communication that has to happen to pull that information 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.360 in while the page is loading. And we all know 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.120 that we have very little patients to wait around when 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.640 loading website. If you've ever had one of those days 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.560 that here at work where occasionally our network gets a 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.120 little sludgy pandemonium, Oh yeah, you're like you're like typeing 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:01.680 in even if you're just typing in something like I 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.079 just need to Google something and you're typing in your 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.680 Google search and you hit inner and it's not that 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.040 Point three second response and it takes like a couple 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.560 of seconds. You go nuts. You're like, what is happening? Bandmonium? 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.920 We're one slow internet connection from Sie away from a 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.280 series of knife fights. Yeah no, I mean we have 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.640 the knives here in the office. Right. Um, I personally 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:28.720 plan on hiding because there's some crazy people in this Yeah, Scott, 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.040 Benjamin's got some moves. He's got to reach to man, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.160 he's got he's got that armspan. So ads also can 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.240 can take up a lot of bandwidth. Right. That's another 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.360 huge problem because a lot of I s p s 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.600 are using bandwidth caps, especially in the mobile world. So 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.560 both in mobile and my home I s P technically 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.280 have a data cap. Now I have paid extra to 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.120 get out of the cap on both sides, but that's 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.080 because I make enough money where I can pay a 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.760 little extra to do that. That should not be something 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.880 I don't think that should be encouraged. I think that 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.120 that there's no real good reason for data caps, particularly 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:12.120 for home networks. Um, but if you have ads activated, 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.200 that's more data that's coming through. That means that not 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.680 only do you not want to see these things, but 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.600 it's taking away your opportunity to see other stuff exactly. Also, also, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.040 are have you done a data caps episode, Jonathan, I 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.760 haven't because I probably would be frothing at the mouth 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:33.280 about that the Emperor has no clothes. Yeah, let's just 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.520 say that. Uh, I think some companies can be a 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:41.520 little bombastic, which rhymes a lot with a certain I 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.200 sp that I'm not happy about. Right, But as you're 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.480 saying that's that's an excellent point because you know, let's 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.400 say you see this ad for diapers and it's a video, right, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.680 it's an AutoPlay video while you're reading about your latest 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.960 gadget that you're doing research on, and then the chance 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.360 instans of this happening we're very small. But what if 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.480 it's the proverbial feather on your Internet camel back, you 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.440 know what I mean, Like, if that's the thing that 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.520 happens and then the camel just collapses and you get 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:18.960 the pop up warning, and if it's a video based advertisement, 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:20.520 that kind of stuff, I mean, that takes up a 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.360 more data and and I mean you think about how 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.320 much browsing you do in in a typical month. If 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.440 you are already bumping up against that data cap towards 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:33.960 the end of the month, like in that last week. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.400 Ads could be accumulatively across the rest of the month 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.960 be enough to make that happen in the middle of 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:47.680 the month, a problem magnified or exacerbated for mobile users exactly. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.880 So that's a reason some people use ad blockers. They say, listen, 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.440 I have a limited amount of data I am allowed 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.280 to access, and I'm bumping up against it, and I 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.280 don't have other options, I mean, other other than just stopping. 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:09.520 But that's crazy talk, is what that is. And also, finally, well, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.680 two other things. One is that targeted advertising some people 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.280 find it very off putting, right the idea that let's 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.200 say that's the it's not an ad for diapers that's 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.160 completely irrelevant to my life. Let's say it's an AD 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:26.359 that's very relevant. Maybe it's I don't know, head wax 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:28.680 so that I can get my head up to a 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:35.879 nice glossy finish um. Or maybe it's Hamilton's conversation about Hamilton. 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.119 It could be that, yeah, Hamilton is coming to Atlanta, 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.960 the musical Hamilton's coming to Atlanta, buy your tickets. That's 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:48.520 an AD that would be precisely targeted to me, and 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.240 I would freak out. I'd say yes, yes, yes, and 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:52.600 that would be an ad that would work on me 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.959 because I would love to see that show. Um uh, 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.240 if you have Hamilton's tickets, I will happily take them, 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.639 all right. So, uh, that's a great example. But there 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.960 are other targeted dads that can be a little scary, right, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.520 especially for people who are trying to research something that's 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.480 really sensitive. The example that we have given many times 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:19.040 on this show is the one about Target, where a 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.600 young woman had been browsing Target ended up sending information 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.840 to the young lady about coupons related to being pregnant. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:33.160 Her father, uh intercepted essentially the coupons and got very 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.399 mad at Target, saying, how dare you insinuate that my 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.320 daughter is pregnant, and then later contacted Target again and said, 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.480 I would like to apologize to you. I had a 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.240 conversation with my daughter and it turns out that I 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.320 didn't know about it, but turns out my daughter is pregnant. 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.119 But that was one of those instances where you know 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:58.960 your your online activity might indicate something you're not comfortable 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.760 sharing with the world at large, and even if your 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:06.320 personal identity is not part of that, it that almost 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.040 doesn't matter, right, Like your name is the least important 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.560 thing about your personal data. What it is you want 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.720 and need that's way more important to advertisers, right, And 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.560 your your habits, your frequency of wanting, needing, and acquiring 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.440 those things. And sometimes that's helpful. Like if you go 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:31.080 onto a shopping site like Amazon and you it starts 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.560 giving you suggestions based upon things you bought in the past, 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.159 and you might see something it's like, oh, you know what, 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:36.840 I do need that or I didn't even know that 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.720 existed and now I want it. Like based on your 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:45.560 preferences for the following science fiction stories, we think these 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.959 are novels that you will find of interest. Right Hamilton's space, 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.959 that would be right up there. Um. But but there 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.160 are other cases where targeted advertising you might feel that 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.959 that's too much of a threat to your privacy. And 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.280 I mean, I can't I can't fault anyone for feeling 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.119 that way. And you might say, look, I don't I 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.600 don't allow cookies. I don't allow any of that stuff 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.919 to kind of trace my my my online behaviors because 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.440 I want it to be just me. Whatever I need 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.480 to research or access, that's it. And that would be 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:20.439 a reason to install an ad blockers so that you 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.200 don't have that following you around. And then finally, ads 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.200 can sometimes be a vector from malware, and we'll talk 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:32.320 about that specifically in just a little bit. So that's 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:34.119 to me, like, those are the reasons a lot of 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.520 people give for why they install ad blockers, and I think, 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.199 you know, again to varying degrees, they're valid. Uh. And 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:46.000 there's some interesting arguments about why ad blockers shouldn't be 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:52.800 condemned or outlawed, why they they serve a purpose and 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.960 content providers should not make a big deal out of this. Now, 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:58.560 the reason we bring this up is that more and 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.439 more content providers are using means to detect when an 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.800 AD blockers in place, right, and you'll get a notification 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.760 uh that says we see that you're using an ad 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:17.160 blocking service, right. And this this notification from the website 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.600 has has a range of responses, so you may see 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.040 something that says we see your using an app blocker. 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.960 We get it. Ads are annoying, but this is our 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.480 business and this is how we make money. To the 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:38.720 furthest extreme, which which I think we already alluded to Forbes. Yeah, 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.840 where the website is crippled or restricted unless you turn 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.360 off an app block And I get it again. We 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:50.760 work for a company that makes money through advertising, and 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.680 I I get the need to say, look, I gotta 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.720 protect my business. I can't just let people quote unquote 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:02.119 steal stuff, right. I can't let people walk in take things. 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.040 And there's no means for me to generate revenue because 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:06.879 then I can't pay the people who work for me. 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:08.879 If I can't pay the people who work for me, 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.720 I go out of business. And then you don't have 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.439 the content in the first place. That is a valid argument, right, 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.120 that's valid to say, Look, I have to be able 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.320 to generate revenue in order to do the thing you want. 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:26.080 You came to me buster, you put in my address 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:28.200 in your little U r L bar, or you did 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.359 a search and followed the link. So I have something 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.359 you want, but you want it for free, and I 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:39.760 can't perpetually give it away for free because then I 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:42.879 can't pay the rent, I can't buy food. I we 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:45.199 have to have this exchange for this to work. I 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:49.600 get that. But some people say, listen, condemning the ad 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.679 blockers is the wrong way to go. And here is 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.440 the reasoning it sounds a lot like the same reasons 0:22:55.760 --> 0:23:01.840 people say piracy doesn't ultimately matter that much online. What okay, 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.320 I'm scooting to the edge of So here's the argument. 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.480 The argument is that the people who install ad blockers 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.240 are the people who would otherwise be ignoring your ads 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.959 anyway a self selecting sample. Yeah, they would be. They 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:17.160 would be the ones that ads would not be effective 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:19.640 on them. They don't want the ads, they don't see 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:23.280 the ads. They're blocking the ads mainly because they just 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.920 don't even want the distraction there. So these are these 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:31.480 are lost revenue. They're never going their impressions don't matter. 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.520 They are never going to buy those diapers. Yes, and 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:37.520 so the argument is that if you factor in their impressions, 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.240 if you were to say, okay, no ad blockers, then 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:44.199 the people who figure out the rates for advertising, the 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:47.080 ones who say, here's how much it's worth to display 0:23:47.119 --> 0:23:49.560 an AD on your site. If they say, well, you 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.560 don't allow ad blockers, and you've got exper you know, 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.080 X number of visitors per month, we estimate that a 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:01.280 certain percentage of those let's say thirty would normally use 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:05.480 ad blockers if you allowed it, that is worthless to us. 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:10.920 So it dilutes the value of advertising on your web 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:14.479 page because you're forcing them to look at something that 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:18.240 doesn't work for them, which means it's it's a lost 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:21.520 cause you can't count those numbers and say that's a success. 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:24.840