Anti Democratic ads on DU

[HelenWheels]

Why does DU run ads against Democrats, i.e. Mary Burke who is running for governor in Wisconsin.

[HERVEPA]

1. Supplied by Google Ads. Skinner does not control

Ads needed to make money for site owners.

[Eleanors38]

2. I get no ads. Why is this, pray tell?

[malthaussen]

4. Paid members get no ads. n/t

[Jamaal510]

9. And people who have AdBlock Plus installed. nt

[on point]

3. Let them run. Deplete republican resources on useless ads. Good for DU $

[Yupster]

19. My thought too

Probably not moving too many numbers on DU. Let them waste their money here.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

5. Google ads...

The ads that show up depend on your browsing history. Before I installed AdBlock Plus, all my ads were for guitars and recording gear.

[FSogol]

7. All my ads were for....

....well, I better not say.



To the OP: Add ad-blocking extensions to your browser. You'll avoid lots of ads.

[Cartoonist]

12. I get a lot of ads about comic books

I'm cool with that. But it does bother me just a wee bit that someone is looking over my shoulder. Google probably knows more about me than the NSA ever will. The NSA goes searching for key words or addresses, Google follows me wherever I go and then intrudes itself into my digital world. If you're a nobody, like me, the NSA probably doesn't even know my name. Google has a file on me somewhere. Corporations wouldn't mind a peek at that file, they may even try to buy it. The NSA isn't interested.

All this hand wringing over the NSA here makes me wonder if people really know what's going on. I don't, so I never pretend I do. (except, maybe, sometimes) (Google probably knows when I do that)

[rurallib]

6. I think it is humorous that they are wasting bucks on ads on here

[bigwillq]

8. The ads, of any kind, do not bother me.

I noticed the ads for like the first week after I decided to no longer donate to DU. Since then, I hardly notice them.

[LawDeeDah]

10. I wonder if there is a line that won't be crossed.

Especially when promoting RW nuts during important elections -- seems like a really bad idea.

[HelenWheels]

13. Whoa! Not too friendly there, Buddy.

[aikoaiko]

14. This is a good question to post in Ask the Administrators.

Ask the Administrators Forum
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1259


Its been asked many times and the answer is the same -- DU uses Google Ads and Google has their own algorithm for deciding which ads to post. Its ironic but makes sense that very undemocratic ads would appears given the content of our posts.

[Revanchist]

15. I think it has more to do with being politically active

Google sees that you visit several political websites so you receive ads that are of a political nature. I don't think that the system they use are sophisticated enough to read the posts on the site. When I turn off adblock I receive a lot of medical ads, but that's because I'm working on a Master's in Healthcare Administration and my browser history reflects my research searches.

[malthaussen]

16. It's kind of comforting, in a way.

The ads chosen by the ad bots are so wildly inappropriate, it gives one hope that our Cyber Overlords have not yet quite perfected their mind-control algorithms.

-- Mal

[NYC_SKP]

17. 3 Reasons: Shits and Giggles. They don't work here. It makes takes $ from them, goes to us.

They're wasting their money and the proceeds go to help maintain this site.

If they only knew!

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

18. I don't see these ads, mercifully,

but I suspect they're the least of the anti-Democratic problem on DU.

[Vots]

20. ...

Everyone has ads tailored to their browsing history.