It is a well known fact that Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Amazon among others, receive revenue in part or in total from Advertising. What many people don't know that the biggest online company, Google, is providing detailed files on each user that use, or have used Google, or Google related products such as You Tube, Google Maps, Android OS, the Play store, Gmail, Google drive, talk, news, translate, Google Plus... the list goes on. All this data Google is collecting is so it can ''Provide Appropriate Advertising'' or Aimed Advertising.
How it works is complicated, but the simple answer would be. If you watch a video about Dog's, Search Google for Dog's or spend a certain amount of time on a news article about dogs, the advertising you would see would be dog related. And if you are using YouTube or Google+ and have a full profile, it can place age appropriate advertising on your screen, such as pet insurance for anyone over 18 and puppy videos for those under 18. see what I mean? Apple do the exact same thing but collect fingerprints and pictures from there security software on their phones and other devices.
(If you want to know more about Data Collection, Read Google's Privacy Statement here)
(And here is Apples)
Advertising is getting a little out of control, yeah its big money for those at the top, its OK for mid level companies, it destroys small business and it is fucking annoying for the rest of us.
I don't know about you, but I hate seeing advertising about new trucks, desk chairs, bearded dragons or whatever else that is in my search history. So I put a stop to it. And many more people are doing the same.
I suppose you could use Add Blocking Software, but if a company pays enough, that same add blocker will show that well paid for add. There just isn't that much you can trust any more unless you don't care about privacy.
The way I see it, Google, YouTube and any other online company that derives its revenue from advertising is coming to an end... Maybe...
Lots of people such as myself, are making the shift from using Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google search engine, and I love it.
2 Things I've done really, and I haven't seen an Aimed Add for a while now.
All you have to do is download a new Browser called Brave and use a different search engine such as Duck Duck Go.
Brave is one of a new bread of Browsers that are becoming available and I have been using it for about 4 months now with huge success.
This is a screen shot of my landing page in brave.
Image Source @TechMojo
As you can see, just over the last 3 weeks since I reinstalled windows 10, I have.
25'870 trackers blocked.
19815 ads blocked.
10'391 HTTPS upgrades.
and saved about 39 minutes of loading time.
Not only this, but Brave has some cool built in features, such as micro payments so you can fund sites you like. It has about 20 search engine options to choose from, you can sync your pc brave browser to another brave browser on your phone, laptop or another pc and the Privacy options are just awesome, you can clear your browsing, download, site cookies every time you close brave. It has a password manager and so much more.
It is also aesthetically pleasing and very easy to navigate.
To find out more and to download, you can find their site here
Now we've taken care of the browser, we can now concentrate on limiting the amount of data that is collected on us. Google and Yahoo search engines are forever collecting data, so I made the shift to DuckDuckGo.com Unlike Googles 20+ paged Privacy statement, there privacy statement is short and oh so sweet, ''We don't Collect or share any of your personal data''. It is that simple. They don't have any adds and don't track anything. What more can be said.
When combining these 2, I have not seen one add. Even the adds at the beginning of every YouTube video is gone.
From my own personal beliefs and what I think may happen, if ad Blocking browsers and search engines like Brave and DuckDuckGo continue to expand, Google and YouTube could see a massive fall in revenue, investors will back out and advertising will seek alternatives to online advertising. Effectively stripping the foundation on which companies like these were built on.
However, Humans are fickle, easily corrupted and easily swayed. Those in the know like myself know the dangers surrounding privacy concerns, others will simple not care or just out right not believe anything outside of their little social bubble and go back to watching teen pop factor idol, or whatever.
Maybe it could happen, I would like to believe it could happen. What do you think?
Thanks for reading.
Stu @TechMojo