this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
1195 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

60071 readers
3505 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

The only obvious ad I've ever clicked on was for a "free" IQ test. I figured I'd never done one cause they're fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through. After 20 mins or so answering questions, it ended on a transaction page. The only way to see your "results" was by paying $20. I obviously didn't pay, and instead tried to report the ad, only to discover that Google Ads has zero mechanism to even report scams to Google. After some research, it turned out that this blatant bait and switch scam had been operating via Google Ads for like 5 or 7 years. Google doesn't give a fuck if scammers use it's ad tech to scam your grandma or inject your system with malware, as long as they get paid for the privilege.

I've always used an ad blocker, but the whole experience reinforced how anti-consumer and pro-criminal surveillance capitalism is. Permanent absolute ad block — without exceptions — is how everyone should operate, because none of these companies deserve any trust whatsoever. Even if you trust the site you're visiting, you can't trust any ad company they utilize.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago

The only obvious ad I’ve ever clicked on was for a “free” IQ test. I figured I’d never done one cause they’re fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through.

That click should have lead you to a page that says 'you failed'. 😂

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The EU is currently testing a new payment framework that would make payments faster and easier and also enable very small payments.

This could finally enable micropayments in browsers (well, in Firefox and maybe Safari) which would eliminate intermediaries like Google and all the scummy ad companies and enable websites to work out deals directly with visitors on the spot (pay a very small amount like a cent or a fraction of a cent to read this article).

Obviously, Google will need to be dragged kicking and screaming into this.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm still not paying a fraction of a cent for the obviously LLM-generated bullshit that has flooded the internet.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

And yet for content I can be reasonably sure is actually human generated (read: niche enough to not have been flooded to the point I no longer can trust the "usual"/"big" sites) I might consider paying for server costs a little.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

If you're walking around somewhere and you see a person or people offering a "free personality test," do not take them up on their offer. They're Scientologists. They once refused to let my mother leave back in the 70s until she said she would start screaming "rape."