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YouTube cracks down on ad blockers

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Mart68

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Make sure you are logged into your google account. Then go to: https://myadcenter.google.com/controls

On the left, click on "Manage Privacy."

While there you can also opt-in to tell Google what you like or don't like as far as advertising.

Just looked and it thinks I am in Health Care industry! I guess taking care of this forum makes me one. :D
It doesn't have much on me; I've used Maps a few times that seems to be about it

Even duller than I expected!
 

Talisman

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Make sure you are logged into your google account. Then go to: https://myadcenter.google.com/controls

On the left, click on "Manage Privacy."

While there you can also opt-in to tell Google what you like or don't like as far as advertising.

Just looked and it thinks I am in Health Care industry! I guess taking care of this forum makes me one. :D
it seems that they know more wrong things about me than right ones, frankly I would have expected more from Google's ability to cross-reference data
 

thecheapseats

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I am surprised as well. This is why they show so many wrong ads. I think they are just going by me being Male and over certain age or something.
kind' sorta' maybe could-be almost artificially intelligent - is a more exacting description... garbage in - garbage out...
 

RayDunzl

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Ads are not just annoying and a waste of time, usually play louder than the program and that pisses me off the most.

I use a compressor to eliminate blasting during ignored advertising...

Helpful when using the TV where I can't put a blocker (as far as I know).

Set it to barely trigger under normal sound levels, squashes the loud stuff.
 
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Berwhale

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On the topic of data being held about you...

On the Coffee Thread I was inspired to find out how much Coffee Beans i'd bought since buying my bean to cup machine in 2015. Since I buy the vast majority of my beans though Amazon on Subscribe & Save, I initially looked for a way to download my order history from Amazon. It turns out that this was possible until earlier this yes (in the US at least), but that now various hoops have to be jumped through. The first method is to use a Chrome add-on to scrape the data which I describe in the coffee thread, the other way is to request your data via Amazon's privacy central. The order data requested via privacy central became available just after my post in the coffee thread - about 2 hours after I requested it.

My Amazon order data covers 4,084 orders placed since March 1999, it is a 208MB ZIP file (which, somewhat bizarrely unzips to 207MB of data). Much of the content is taken up by PDF copies of the invoices relating to the orders I have placed, a text file (JSON format) detailing all of my transactions with Amazon UK is 3.4MB. However, 'orders' was just one of maybe 30 categories I was presented with when choosing which data to request, so i'm guessing that the data Amazon hold about me would run into gigabytes.

So now I have all of my Amazon order data in Excel (i'd be happy to explain how to ingest the JSON file as a table in Excel if anyone is interested) and the first sobering result is that i've spent £60,766.20 with Amazon to date and only £1,663.57 was on coffee beans :oops:
 

beagleman

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I think the issue many are having............

Years ago, there were barely any ads on youtube.
Somehow youtube worked, and it paid for itself.

I am only talking a handful of years ago. I think youtube has drastically changed in current years, is what is irking so many about it.

As of late, I tend to just back out of videos as soon as I see an ad. I am talking about on my Smart Roku TV set up.
So if people are stopping watching video, and I never did a few years ago, something has changed. I will not pay to watch amateur content.
I will not watch ads to support it, but maybe a few I truly love.

I think Youtube hit the point, where the ads are becoming annoying to a lot of viewers versus the value of the content. It did not used to be.
 

beagleman

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I am surprised as well. This is why they show so many wrong ads. I think they are just going by me being Male and over certain age or something.


In my case they believe I NEED a career at Amazon. At least that is the same ad I get multiple times a day over the last many months.
 

PHD

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Revanced for Android and Vivaldi web browser for Windows are still working great...
 

renaudrenaud

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To use their free internet to watch videos? ;)
Sorry, I am not English native and don't get it. I am working in computer science and youtube is my main source of information. Grafana and the ecosystem, Volkov Labs for the plugins, Docker, kubernetes and things like that: contains are free and contents are not full of adds inside, this is for education. Escpecially Grafana, there is no worse documentation in this universe, happily some people explain how to do in youtube.

I guess we did not understood many years ago this platform is not free, google want we pay looking at their adds. Not a problem, another platforms exist.
 
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computer-audiophile

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Galliardist

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Of course, it isn't just YouTube as adverts are coming to a lot more streaming services in the near future. Maybe we'll even start hearing them in paid audio streaming services, the way things are going.

I guess advertisers are more likely to pay than consumers.

For some years I've stopped buying products whose TV ads are particularly annoying to me. Maybe this is something that could expand: if we want an ad-free environment, stop ads from working?
 

RobL

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This is just the first phase of Google’s anti-ad blocking strategy. They know that ad blockers aren’t illegal. What they also know is that the circumvention of any anti-ad blocking measures they incorporate by the ad blocking software providers is illegal in the EU, the US and in all signatory-nations of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Copyright Treaty.
Legal threats will be the next step.
 

DavidEdwinAston

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Perhaps an aside, but I have just paid 40 quid to watch Channel four and it's offshoots without ads. For a year.
I suppose if I could find the Nordics when they are first broadcast. Record them, and fast forward through the ads.
 

restorer-john

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What they also know is that the circumvention of any anti-ad blocking measures they incorporate by the ad blocking software providers is illegal in the EU

So the ad blocking circumvention is hosted in a country that doesn't give a chit and that country routes its requests to another country that doesn't give a chit for the EU, and they are up chit creek (without a paddle).

Basically, nobody cares about what 'is illegal' in the EU, except those who have to suffer under their stupid and draconian rules. US doesn't care. We don't care and I'll bet eveyone else doesn't either.

P.S. Bring back full lead/tin 60/40 solder or die. ;)
 
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