Edit: looks like this might exist already: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/
Between this and "track me not" i've been fighting back against ads and connecting my "profile" with any habits since 2016 or so. I should also note i have pihole and my own DNS server upstream, so that's thiry-eight grand in ad clicks that got through blacklists.
I manage a Google Ads account with a $500,000 budget. That budget is spent on a mix of display ads, google search, and youtube ads.
If I knew that 10% of our budget was wasted on bot clicks, there's nothing I can do as an advertiser. We can't stop advertising... we want to grow our business and advertising is how you get your name out there. We also can't stop using Google Ads - where else would we go?
$38,000 in clicks boosts Google's revenue by $38k (Google ain't complaining). The only entity you're hurting are the advertisers using Google. Advertisers might see their campaigns performing less well, but that's not going to stop them from advertising. If anything, they'll increase budgets to counteract the fake bot clicks.
I really don't understand what Ad Nauseam is trying to achieve. It honestly seems like it benefits Google more than it hurts them. It directly hurts advertisers, but not enough that it would stop anyone from advertising.
Google has a system for refunding advertisers for invalid clicks. The $500k account that I manage gets refunded about $50/month in invalid clicks. I'm guessing if bot clicks started making a real dent in advertiser performance, Google would counter that by improving their bot detection so they can refund advertisers in higher volumes. If there's ever an advertiser-led boycott of Google Ads, Google would almost certainly respond by refunding advertisers for bot clicks at much higher rates.
No matter how secure your browser setup is, Google is tracking you. By filling their trackers with garbage, there's less that can personally identify you as an individual
https://web.archive.org/web/20200601034723/https://www.macob...
Carter invented it and got paid so they can bury it. Must be good tech.
You don't have to buy privacy violating ads. You don't have to buy targetted ads
Sadly, you do until the monopoly is broken up. Because as is your company probably won't survive in the market, nor you in your role, using anything else.
Then maybe that business isn't adding all that much value to society to begin with and it's just not that much of a loss if it goes away.
If a company cannot survive without shoving their product into the view of eyeballs appealing to our most basic monkey brain instincts, it's maybe just better if it dies.
An example of A: carmex
An example of B: Ball Homes (sixth largest residential builder in the country), pretty much any lawyer, a mom and pop that buys newspaper space, TV space or a bill board
Or.. you know.. offering a quality product?
GP fights agains ads, not Google. And not being able to win 100% of the gain shouldn’t restrain someone from taking action it they consider the win share worth the pain.
> $38,000 in clicks boosts Google's revenue by $38k
You should include costs here, and if (big if) a substantial part of the clicks comes from bots and get refunded, the associated cost comes on top of the bill. At the end the whole business is impacted. I agree 50/50k is a penny through.
> I hate ads […] I manage a Google Ads account
[no cynism here, I genuinely wonder] how do you manage your conscience, mood and daily motivation? Do you see a dichotomy in what you wrote and if so, how did you arrive to that situation? Any future plan?
I’m asking as you kind of introduce the subject but if you’re not willing to give more details that’s totally fine.
Google is part of the problem, but they're neither the only ones nor best to target through bottom-up approaches.
> It directly hurts advertisers, but not enough that it would stop anyone from advertising.
You know the saying about XML - if it doesn't solve the problem, you are not using enough of it.
> there's nothing I can do as an advertiser. We can't stop advertising...
We know. The whole thing is a cancer[0], a runaway negative feedback loop. No single enlightened advertiser can do anything about it unilaterally. Which is why the pressure needs to go up until ~everyone wants change.
--
[0] - https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html
I think the point made is that this adds no extra pressure.
> The only entity you're hurting are the advertisers using Google.
That’s fine. Advertising is cancer. Reducing advertisers’ ROI is good too.
You don’t hate ads if you’re spending $500k on them. You just hate receiving ads, which makes you hypocritical.
It's factually impossible to live in modern society without participating in ethically questionable activities at least indirectly.
They already have methods to detect a lot. Like you said yourself, customers have no alternative, so why would they refund money they don't have to?
Man scape? Nah, generic women's razers. Pcbway? Nope. JLCPCB.
Screw your ads. Find a better way.
> JLCPCB
If you can write this without seeing how you are the very worst of our enemies, then I do hope your business die, there is obviously nothing that will make you understand. I still can't believe you put those words together, honestly.
Do you see yourself as a separate breed from your lowly users or something? How can you inflict and even try to justify what you yourself avoid and say you "hate"?
In a way I get it, I wouldn't buy or recommend the product I currently work on. Still cash the paychecks though. I also am the stereotypical tech person who avoids technology. I can't exactly blame anyone for playing the game. The guy who works at the sausage factory but won't eat sausage due to what he's seen is a pretty common refrain.
Chrome banned it from their add on store but it can still be installed manually
I've already got most ads blocked by simply Piholing them, but GTM tracking my every move using first-party content is a different kind of interaction to attack.
Maybe I could manually improve a bit on that by deliberately register myself for various random services and just clicking around a bit to pretend I am interested in things I have no interest in. On the other hand with 20 years of tracking I think Google has all my interests and habits nailed down anyway.