[projectvrm] The Verge vs. Ad & Tracking Blockers

[StJ Deakins < >]

Hi all, I haven't posted here for a while but have been following the ad blocking discussion with great interest. It seems to me that the simple answer is to give people personal agency and the ability to opt-in to ads and brands that they want to interact with (essentially VRM).

Ads pay for an open and ubiquitously available internet.  This is incredibly important to the continued development of a global, benevolent and inclusive web. E.g. A farmer in Botswana can use free Google spreadsheets because of brand offering information (paid ads and earned/native content) that I actually want to see when I'm considering what car to buy in the UK.

So, for me, the issue is not advertising per se - advertising has helped pay for content in real life since the dawn of the media age in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. 

The problem is that the current digital ad system is downright dysfunctional, exploitative and set to destroy the very ecosystem that it relies on. There are parallels with overfishing of the oceans. People block and 'disappear' from the digital sea because they're being exploited. This systemic "fishing" attitude is unsustainable. The ecosystem will soon collapse. The digital marketing systems that we currently have clearly need to be evolved - and very quickly. 

We're quoted about it at the end of this article on the BBC site today: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34268416

"A new model is to put users of the internet in control of their own data. Let them decide who they trade it with and for what reward," (and we will be sharing more about what we're building to try to solve this issue shortly).

Would love to hear thoughts. 

StJ 

On Friday, 18 September 2015, Steven Groves < ');" target="_blank"> > wrote:

Love the irony... maybe they're doing research and needed to stage all the trackers so they can talk about them.

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On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 1:24 AM, Doc Searls < > wrote:

See <http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web>.

With PrivacyBadger enabled, the page won’t load. With PrivacyBadger disabled, the page does load — full of tracking jive, sez Ghostery:

It’s 12:40am here (Prague) and I need to hit the sack, or I’d say more. 

Doc 

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