Why are we still putting up with scam ads and fake news stories?

One specific type of advertisement comes up repeatedly in this article: link syndicators, like Taboola and the like. They're responsible for a lot of the most deceptive and lowest quality advertising content on legitimate sites.

These advertisers often claim to be recommending "related articles" or syndicating content from "around the web", but this is simply not the case. Their "sponsored content" is almost always very low quality fake news articles that would have a hard time buying advertising through any other outlet -- many of them are for outright scams, like make-money-at-home schemes, win-a-free-product schemes, or dubious dietary supplements.

The Internet as a whole, and especially news sites, need to stop working with these advertisers. Their advertisements masquerading as content are bringing disrepute to the sites running them, as well as to advertising in general.

The advertising industry is not capable of self-regulating. Advertising will change when technology forces it to change.

This is also the #1 reason why most people who may not want to use adblockers, use adblockers.

It's not the ads we want to block, it's the scams, malware and unwanted flash.

For me, as the free market has obviously failed in keeping consumers protected from abuse, this screams for advertising regulation by state agencies and laws with harsh penalties.