A recently reported story on the BBC news website discusses the issues related to targeted internet advertising. A few weeks ago I made a post about my opinion of internet advertising and stated that:
adverts that are for products I have no interest in or products that I in fact dislike the very idea of, are where the frustration lies. Unfortunately that’s a subjective thing, and makes me think that perhaps much or all of current internet advertising should be axed or at the very least better targeted to the user
So I found it interesting that groups such as the Centre for Digital Democracy are building a movement against targeted advertising on the grounds of privacy.
However as I explored in my last post the alternative to adverts that are not targeted is shoving adverts that bear no relation to the user in their face. Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau told the BBC that
…the beautiful thing is they don’t have to click on that advert, or pay attention to it or do anything.
This statement aggrovates me just about as much as inappropriate advertising does because most online advertising demands you do pay attention to it, especially if it is animated. I defy anyone not to at least notice moving advertising on an otherwise static page, particularly if the advert obscures the content you are trying to read.
I fully understand the need for advertising to support online business, however I feel that people on both sides of this argument are missing the mark. There needs to be a compromise between privacy and how appropriate the advertising is to the user. And the visibility of internet advertising has gone way too far, with adverts even imitating common parts of the websites they appear on and sometimes requiring user interaction to minimise them otherwise they take over large parts of the page. In my view this is a borderline adware tactic.
Internet advertising needs to evolve in a more intelligent way otherwise it may suffer the fate of many ‘pushy’ sales techniques in alienating the potential customers and therefore websites declining to opt for it in fear of losing their user base. In my opinion there is nothing ‘beautiful’ about internet advertising in its current state, and simply saying it can be ignored is just the same as saying television and printed media advertising can be ignored. The difference is a computer is the domain of the user, they like to have control of what they are viewing and the world of the internet has the technical infrastructure to make this possible and could be a sophisticated medium for subtle and acceptable advertising. At the moment it is simply yet another annoyance built into our technology among many that will eventually fall prey to technological natural selection.
