Context isn't the problem with spam

Lately I've noticed a sharp increase of googleads on more and more personal web pages and blogs. I find this to be an insanely tacky way to make pocket change, not to mention it's just another form of spam. I suppose that the irony in this is lost on those who cry foul on email offering penis enlargement in their inbox but feel no guilt from putting 'contextual advertising' on their blogs and homepages to make money for themselves.

How does calling it 'contextual advertising' make it not spam? Granted, I've yet to see a googlead offer me Viagra or ask about my erectile dysfunction, but they often don't seem well targeted and the sole purpose of their being there is for them to make money from me/you. I don't begrudge people that, but maybe I expect a lot less shameless greed on personal web pages.

I doubt many personal blogs make that much cash in exchange for the ugly blot of commercial text. Yes, I could just install a filter to remove the ads, just as I filter my email, but there's the rub and the connection since the problem then becomes mine if I don't want to be constantly barraged everywhere I go on the net by marketing ploys. I really don't surf much anymore, I surf less as time goes on and I wonder if my getting tired of the internet being turned into one giant marketing circle jerk isn't largely responsible. Spam is spam whether it's in my inbox or on some personal web page of someone who writes a lot of rhetoric about how horrible spam is with a googlead commercial break sandwiched between the text.

Now many of these people running ads on their blogs are getting comment spam and still they don't see how comment spam is really no different from googlead spam except that the comment spammers aren't making them any money. "Oh, but it's not 'contextual'" they'll say, but that's a red herring. Spam is spam, whether it's 'contextual' or not.

There are a lot of people who write to us at CPAN and ask if we'd advertise their products or exchange links and the answer will always be no. Sure, we could put googleads and amazon associate links on CPAN, search.cpan and across 200+ mirrors, and we'd likely make a tidy sum of cash. Certainly a lot more than Jarkko's ORA book royalties which are enough to buy a fine meal at McD's twice a year, but why would we as we've held out as one of the last sites from the more academic days of the internet to resist filling the site with advertising. Can you imagine using search.cpan and getting googleads with your search results as well as the "Users who liked DBI also enjoyed clean underwear" on module pages? How would that not be spam? How would that not be usurious? Perhaps we should reconsider, hire a big managed box somewhere, and move back to St. Croix on the proceeds.

How are googleads not spam? If you need money that badly for your website either get a paypal account for donations or get a bloody job and lose the adverts. I realise that sometime soon they'll find a way to market to us in our sleep, but that doesn't mean we all have to welcome its every step forward.

20 Oct 2003 at 15:39, Helsinki