TL;DR: found this ad company that seems to have the right ideas and values compatible with the community here. Posting for feedback on whether to go deeper in the topic.

A while back I came across EthicalAds which, in my undestanding at the time, used to show ads based strictly on the site’s content, i.e. it used no information about the user whatsoever. I just looked at the EthicalAds site again today and noticed two things: they now brand themselves as ads targeted to developers, and they use geolocation information for showing the ads.

I’m interested in this topic because of my more general interest in the growth of federated social media and the understanding that servers cost money. I’ll express here my current take on the subject, and if there is enough interest I’ll be compiling more information on the subject.

Ads are the most commonly recognized way of monetizing content that is free to access, including much (most?) social media today. The main perceived issues with ads are tracking (by which I mean the collecting of identifiable information about the user) and visual polution. The matter of visual polution (including information overload) works on a spectrum, as any who went through the pop-up age of the internet must admit. Where to place ads is something that can be managed by a site’s admin, even under the constraint that less convenient locations (from a content consumer perspective) may be better monetized. If ads are poorly placed, I’ll be anoyed when trying to get to the content I’m looking for, but that’s really the extent of my issue. All in all, visual pollution seems simple to consider and deal with.

Tracking, on the other hand, seems like a whole different beast. The first important difference is lack of transparency: it’s hard to know what data is being collected, when, for what purpose, how it’s being processed, as well as tangible and potential impact of the use of this data. The impact of my data being collected is so indirect to me, that my worry about it feels irrational at times. Yet I’m convinced enough that data can be turned to power, and the way this power is centralized today makes me uncomfortable.

If visual pollution can be handled by the platform, the tracking issue is where EthicalAds might come in. EthicalAds collects location information about the user, but not much else that I could identify. So here we have a first issue of determining with certainty that no more information is being collected. On their pricing for publishing ads, they have two regions:

  • US, Canada
  • UK, W. EU, Australia, New Zealand This suggests the location information collected is not necessarily sufficient to pinpoint any user’s location, again without certainty on the matter.

Furthermore, EthicalAds has a minimum ad buy of $1000.00, which ads up to at least 166.000 ad impressions (at $6,00 for 1000 ad impressions as the most expensive available). The large volume of ads distributed over large regions without granularity seems conducive to maintaining audience privacy.

There is also the matter that they use Machine Learning on contracting sites’ content in order to choose which ads to show. With my relatively shallow understanding of ML I am not very worried about this point, but the existence of what may amount to a black box consuming user information seems worth pointing out.

Based on all of the above, I am personally mostly comfortable with seeing EthicalAds used for financing proper FOSS and federated projects. I would, however, like others’ opinions on the topic (both from technical expertise different from mine as well as just the perspective of others).

As a last note, EthicalAds is a company, which I cannot say for sure whether is for profit. Also, I have no affiliation with them and would be glad to learn about competing alternatives.

  • BOMBS@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    That sounds like an interesting and possibly effective way of helping this community to grow and sustain as successful. However, I personally have a strong disdain for advertisements to the point that when given the option, I rather pay for no ads rather than endure them for free. I mean this. I rather not use a service than see ads. So much so, that I pay for YouTube Premium, don’t watch cable TV nor use Hulu. I’ve been this way for so long that whenever I go to a friend’s house that has cable TV or YT ads, it mentally hurts to watch them.

    Here are some ideas I came up with that may help with this.

    1. We can have an option for a pad premium subscription that removes ads while the non-paying user population gets ads.

    2. Instances could be publically transparent with their finances so that users can choose to donate. This would need some considerable brainstorming as to how to implement, but I think it’s a possible option that would avoid the use of ads.

    3. If the ads weren’t intrusive and manipulative, then that might help people tolerate them. What I mean is that they aren’t loud, bright, obnoxious, and distracting ads. Instead, they are objectively informative. Here is an example to contrast them. Warning: It’s a bit of a rant on ads, so I hid it as a spoiler.

    spoiler

    Obnoxious: Auto-plays video. Person walks up to you holding a football and starts talking. “You know, ever since I was diagnosed with [autoimmune disorder], I had been missing out on life.” Shows the person alone in a dark house miserably looking out of a window. “But now that I’m on Fixitall, I can have the amazing life I used to.” Shows them happily playing ball with their kids. “Fixitall has managed my auto-immunity so well, that I’m back to my old self. No more days feeling left out since I’m part of the group again.” Shows them laughing with friends at an outside bar. “I had forgotten how much fun I was capable of!” Continues giving manipulative fear-of-missing-out statements while playing a montage of fake unlikely scenes, like a family playing with an unleashed dog in an empty park that’s clearly in a high-density urban area but somehow strangely inactive. After implying all of these benefits to convince you in particular need, they finally state, “Ask your doctor if Fixitall is right for you.” Looks away and throws the football at their kid while laughing from joy.

    Respectful: A calm text that says, “[Generic name] is a medication that has recently shown success in clinical trials at treating [whatever autoimmune disease]. You can click here to review the scientific evidence.” Link takes them to the publication of the actual study.

    The first one is just so invasive, pretending to hold some hypothetically normal one-way conversation, yet no one asked for it nor has conversations like that. Imagine walking down the sidewalk and a stranger comes up to you, telling you all that medical information you never asked for, promising a life that no medication can grant, then telling you what to do. Ugh. The second one is just offering an opportunity to learn about something you might not know about.