Political Ads Here

[Janet H]

We have very little control over advertising content. It's served based on individual users browsing history, location or even key words on a page. We can try to block specific ads but need the url of the ad to do it and it takes a couple of days after the request is made to google to see results.

Currently I am seeing ads from QVC (where I have never shopped), Jeep Compass (which I would not buy - ever) and a very annoying one about pee proof underwear (which I thankfully, don't need). On the positive side however, ads keep the board online, covering costs. In my specific case, they contribute to my general feeling of personal pride because I have not shopped on TV, am not buying a car that's been recalled many times and ... well, you know

win/win ?

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister I doubt we would have anything like our current membership if there was a cost to use the site.

'cause we're all a bunch of cheapskates?

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janet H We have very little control over advertising content. It's served based on individual users browsing history, location or even key words on a page. We can try to block specific ads but need the url of the ad to do it and it takes a couple of days after the request is made to google to see results. Currently I am seeing ads from QVC (where I have never shopped), Jeep Compass (which I would not buy - ever) and a very annoying one about pee proof underwear (which I thankfully, don't need). On the positive side however, ads keep the board online, covering costs. In my specific case, they contribute to my general feeling of personal pride because I have not shopped on TV, am not buying a car that's been recalled many times and ... well, you know win/win ?

OP here.
Win/win. To be clear, I wasn't offended or anything and I suspected that it was a 50/50 chance it was based upon my Google searches, even though as you note, there seems to be no connection to me.
Regardless, I was unaware of the ad blocker under "User CP" tools and have since applied the block.
Thanks.

[braumeister]

Maybe I should have mentioned one other little wrinkle in the system.

The system is set up so that when a member mentions ads on the site (even if in a disparaging way), that member's Google account is flagged for an ever increasing avalanche of online advertising, simply because they have proof the person is actually noticing the ads, so they might as well pile them on. They can also charge the advertisers more for those "this might actually work" ad placements.






No, just kidding.

[Tadpole]

Google's going to have to fight Amazon for possession of the ad area of my computer. I think Alexa is recording my thoughts and sending them up for ads.

[Janet H]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tadpole Google's going to have to fight Amazon for possession of the ad area of my computer. I think Alexa is recording my thoughts and sending them up for ads.

Not so far fetched....

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/13/se...e-amazon-echo/

[happy2bretired]

Sounds like it’s time for Duck Duck Go or the Tapatalk app. I see absolutely no ads..none.

[audreyh1]

2018 Alfa Romeo Guilia - hmmmm

[NYEXPAT]

I do not normally notice advertising of any sort (i know it is there, but do not see it.) I just looked an I have an ad now from VRBO on how I can earn $52,967.00 by renting out my house.

[NYEXPAT]

I do not normally notice advertising of any sort (i know it is there, but do not see it.) I just looked an I have an ad now from VRBO on how I can earn $52,967.00 by renting out my house.

Ha Ha, it just changed and now it is something called "Rublix" which I imagine is a Russian crypto currency?

[happy2bretired]

Well I thought I had Tapatalk I did at one time. I guess my ap was just er.org directly from the Apple ap store. So, now I’ve downloaded Tapatalk and I’m trying it out. Looks like er.org forum are separate from each other. It’s interesting, I need to play with it. But so far I still do not see any ads and I’m not complaining about that.[emoji1]

[W2R]

OK, right now the ad I see is an ad for vaping equipment.

I quit smoking 42 years ago, and although YMMV and that is fine, personally I think vaping is ugly, disgusting, and far worse than smoking because it is a repugnant excuse for self righteously continuing to indulge a serious addiction (to nicotine). I know, let me tell you how I REALLY feel about vaping! Anyway I know that others do not feel this way so AFAIK I have never once discussed vaping in any post or comment on the internet until this one. I do try to be nice sometimes.

So, obviously, TPTB really goofed big time on that one. Actually I am glad they know so mind-numbingly little about me. Probably the next ad they provide to me will be for Everclear (since I don't drink).

P.S. - - Oh, even worse! The next one was for a 8:20 PM ET kickoff between the Dolphins and the Texans. I presume that is professional football, which I do not follow. And, we are on central time here, not eastern.

[happy2bretired]

Nope don’t like Tapatalk. There’s lots of forums and glory be you can sign on thru Google or Facebook and if u don’t want to see ads, you can upgrade and probably a subscription.

[happy2bretired]

This is absolutely strange. When I had Tapatalk loaded on my phone I made a few mistakes while playing with it. I deleted the Tapatalk ap and went back to the er.org ap that I normally use. Now I also see those mistakes that I made thru Tapatalk. I must b connected in some way to Tapatalk but not completely. Oh well...

[Lakewood90712]

Got a political pop up ad today urging a yes vote on something I absolutely plan to vote no on. So they do show on my computer ( no adblock software)

[H2ODude]

Help me out here. I use Adblock + and never see anything here or anywhere else for that matter. Only negative is sometimes I'll go to sites that want you to turn it off, or they let you by if you check so.

I certainly understand how advertising supports many things. But, I absolutely detest advertising and truly don't believe 99% of it has any applicability to my habits. I even avoid the local gas station because they play this annoying TV while you pump your gas. We DVR what we want to watch or use pay streaming. So my question is, why would anyone not use something like Adblock? I know if I use smartphone to access this site, it is frankly unusable because of the ads.

I'd be happy to have a world in which for a subscription there'd be no ads, no billboards to clutter up my drive down the interstate, and no torrent of information about products I have no use for whatsoever. If I want a product let me just research it myself. Maybe my LBYM life has restricted my need to be sold so much crap.

[CaptTom]

Overall, I hate advertising at a visceral level, so I tend to agree with H20Dude.

But allow me to make a few points from the opposite side of the argument.

I have no problem with billboards. Let's face it, the side of the highway is pretty boring on a long, rural drive, and pretty ugly in the city. Rural billboards give you something to look at, keep you alert, and most importantly, clue you in to businesses ahead. City billboards just blend into the otherwise unsightly background.

Normal ads on web sites are the same way. As long as they don't make noise, or flash, or take up too much screen real estate, they fade into the background. Ideally, they may clue me in to something I'd be interested in knowing about. It's never happened to me yet, but in theory, it might.

If these unobtrusive ads help pay the bills for the web site operators, I'm all for it.

But when they shout or play music at me, when they flash or run videos which take a lot of bandwidth to download, they've essentially declared war on the user. And forced us to fight back with ad blockers and auto-play blockers. That only hurts legitimate advertisers and web sites.

I wish we could call a truce.

[Tadpole]

Whether ad or not, I hate anything that floats down the page as I scroll and covers what I am trying to read. I hate it, hate it, hate it!

[Midpack]

I assume it depends partly on which OS, browser, device, etc.

There are ads in a banner across the top on my PC and my iPad, but I don't even notice them. I do use an AdBlocker on my iPad but not my PC, doesn’t seem to make any difference WRT ads on ER.org. When I do look it's usually a result of another search or website I've been on.

I use FireFox on my PC, and recently switched from Bing to DuckDuckGo on my iPad. I just clicked on the X to close the banner ad here, and it said Ad closed by Google. I haven’t used Google for search on any of my devices for a long, long time

I just looked and there is a Voter Ad in the banner. I never even would have noticed it unless for this thread...

[explanade]

I suspect the location also determines if you see political ads.

I don’t see any ads because I’m using the built in blocker in Safari on iPad running iOS 12.0.1.

But there is another thread with someone complaining about political text messages on his iPhone and he’s in Chicago.

I’m in CA, in an uncompetitive congressional district, so I guess campaigns wouldn’t bother.

The other thing is, in mobile devices, websites ask for access to location services or GPS. I usually deny those requests. Websites can still determine approximate location by your IP but not as precisely.

There are some other sites I frequent which requires disabling ad blockers or whitelisting them to use certain features.

Otherwise, I generally won’t whitelist or disable ad blockers. If they block you from reading, I won’t bother, too many other sources out there.