Most of the internet is funded by advertising. Without ads, there's no google, no hosting, hardly any websites at all. But imho, half of the ads are linked to criminal activities. I mean ads like the green lottery scam, "download 10000 smileys" which are spyware, online gambling, that kind of stuff. So what's better: Have an internet that can survive without advertising or only the non-criminal kind, or, have the current internet which is funded by criminal money? I wonder what the internet would look like if there was no money from ads funding it. I do think one thing: with our technology is SHOULD be possible to have a network all over the world where everyone can host what he wants without depending on hosting and domain names as it is today, so I think there would be some interesting 'net out there even without ads.

Quote: Original post by Boops
But imho, half of the ads are linked to criminal activities. I mean ads like the green lottery scam, "download 10000 smileys" which are spyware, online gambling, that kind of stuff.

Really? It must depend on the sites you're visitng. Most of the ads I see are for game development technologies, games themselves or for various webcomics. There's little money in shotgun advertising to all and sundry. It's all about targeted advertising these days.

Quote: Original post by Trapper Zoid

Quote: Original post by Boops
But imho, half of the ads are linked to criminal activities. I mean ads like the green lottery scam, "download 10000 smileys" which are spyware, online gambling, that kind of stuff.

Really? It must depend on the sites you're visitng. Most of the ads I see are for game development technologies, games themselves or for various webcomics. There's little money in shotgun advertising to all and sundry. It's all about targeted advertising these days.

Download 1000 C++ smileys?

In my mind the main issue involved here is the Internet's primary advantage, and also its primary bane.

The partial anonymity, openness, and freedom of the internet are all good things to protect freedom of speech and allow the sharing of a wide range of ideas. However on the flip side it also allows criminal activities to take place far too easily.

There is also a crap load of pages out there that are simply junk, not to mention the amount of spam that is floating around. But sadly none of this is an easy task to fix without starting a new system from the ground up. Something that I think would be very beneficial, starting a whole new system designed with security in mind, as well as designing it to work on the idea of mass sharing of large volumes of Data. (Legal Data, such as companies releasing official updates, or persons uploading their own creations.)


But then again going on with the horrible system we have no is easier in the short term,... So guess which will happen.

I'm always annoyed by those flash ads. I use noflash (for ie) and it works great. Simply switch on if you need to run a flash app.

Quote: Original post by Boops
I wonder what the internet would look like if there was no money from ads funding it. I do think one thing: with our technology is SHOULD be possible to have a network all over the world where everyone can host what he wants without depending on hosting and domain names as it is today, so I think there would be some interesting 'net out there even without ads.

I was there back in the dark ages of the Internet, 1996 [smile], it really sucked, every single site wanted your credit card information in order to show you any kind of information which had a slight hint of value.

Even if you're running your server from your basement, you have to take care of doing so, just your electricity bill is an expense, plus keeping its contents current is work you have to do, time you won't be compensated for, what drive would anyone have to do so? pure altruism? doubt it.

Quote: Original post by Trapper Zoid

Quote: Original post by Boops
But imho, half of the ads are linked to criminal activities. I mean ads like the green lottery scam, "download 10000 smileys" which are spyware, online gambling, that kind of stuff.

Really? It must depend on the sites you're visitng. Most of the ads I see are for game development technologies, games themselves or for various webcomics. There's little money in shotgun advertising to all and sundry. It's all about targeted advertising these days.

GDnet+ limits the ads significantly. Try logging in on a fresh browser, you'll see some of them are more... broad. Or at least, that's what is was like the last time I used a different computer to get here...

Quote: Original post by Trapper Zoid
There's little money in shotgun advertising to all and sundry. It's all about targeted advertising these days.

I have been targeted a lot with Smokey the Bear ads here. I don't think we had a decent forest fire in the last five hundred years in this country, but it was still very educational. :)

Quote: Original post by Prinz Eugn
GDnet+ limits the ads significantly. Try logging in on a fresh browser, you'll see some of them are more... broad. Or at least, that's what is was like the last time I used a different computer to get here...

It's not just GDNet I'm referring to. Most of the sites I visit are either game or game development related, or they're webcomics. These days those sites tend to have ads that target their respective audiences. It makes sense - if I'm visitng a quirky webcomic I'm far more likely to click on an ad for another quirky webcomic than on an ad for goddamn talking smilies, and I'm also less likely to classify your quirky webcomic with that trashy underbelly segment of the internet that flogs goddamn talking smilies. Consequently after some subconscious filtering, I find the sites I return to tend to be the ones that care about what they advertise.

As for targeting advertising at GDNet, the control panel still keeps trying to flog to me "Unreal Tournament Game Programming for Teens". You've been trying to sell me that for two years, GDNet book choosing robot. Please suggest something else.