Taboola and Outbrain's recommendations are so pathetically insulting, and the tracking so obvious, that I've both blocked their domains (router DNS server) and specifically set "display:none;" properties on any CSS classes/IDs matching their names or substrings.
It's pathetic bottom-feeder crap.
Maybe if I fed the beast through tracking, I'd see higher quality recommendations, but I won't, and I don't. They only serve to tell me just how precariously miserable the current state of advertising, tracking, surveillance-supported media is. I'm hoping it will crash and burn, not because I want present media organisations to die, but until they do, we don't seem to stand any chance of something better.
(What better, you ask? Information as a public good, supported by an income-indexed tax.)
I was referring specifically to their paid same-site recommendation engines. So you drop it into an article, and it recommends other articles from your site. In my experience it's decent to good, depending on what metadata you provide it.
I agree that the '10 weight loss secrets' promoted junk to third party sites is bottom scraping.
I really disagree.
Yes, taboola maybe is promoting literally ANY content- even spam. So yes- I blocked them but currently Outbrain is really operating as a content discovery- I didn't find any content the abuses me as a reader. Not Yet. I know that they have strict guidelines as well for their advertisers.
It's pathetic bottom-feeder crap.
Maybe if I fed the beast through tracking, I'd see higher quality recommendations, but I won't, and I don't. They only serve to tell me just how precariously miserable the current state of advertising, tracking, surveillance-supported media is. I'm hoping it will crash and burn, not because I want present media organisations to die, but until they do, we don't seem to stand any chance of something better.
(What better, you ask? Information as a public good, supported by an income-indexed tax.)