It’s possible that consumers are happy to have the most minute details of their lives surveilled and monetized in return for seeing ads they might want to click on. This is a hard theory to test, because very few people even know they’re making the trade. However, one organization recently tried to find out. After the European Union’s landmark privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, went into effect in 2018, a Dutch public broadcasting agency started prompting all visitors to its website to choose, in a clear and straightforward manner, whether they wanted their data shared with advertisers. The result? Ninety percent opted out, and the agency abandoned behavioral advertising altogether. (A Google spokesperson notes that all users can opt out of personalized ads, and that Google has long prohibited personalized advertising based on sensitive information.)
I have a problem with those signs, they’re pollution of a public space.
I remember when Sao Paulo banned all outdoor advertising and their city became beautiful again.
Further, when nearly everyone has a GPS map to wherever they want to go in their pockets, do we really NEED giant fuckoff signs so people know where their local McDonald’s is anymore?
This seems to be mainly about billboards. I’m talking mainly about a sign on your door that explains what your business is. I hadn’t initially thought of this as a form of advertising but it technically is.
I’d be open to discussing a broader ban but my current thinking is that this very basic type of advertising which is primarily informational may be do more good than harm.
i used to live near a suburb that banned billboards as well as ‘great signs’ (the big and usually tall lit-up signs for businesses) over a certain height (they all had to be fairly short and set back from the roadways). there was also no overhead telephone or power lines there. everywhere should be like that.