I presume you say this out of a neutrality concern, so for fair disclosure, a technical education of how advertisement networks now operates these days:Randomoneh wrote: ↑30 Oct 2020, 19:383. Ads anywhere in any form but none from monitor, TV or mouse manufacturers
Blur Busters Ad Neutrality FAQ
Blur Busters usesautomated ad-bidding network system, and many advertisers just bid en-masse to a mass bucket of technology sites:
-- Even to this date, I don't even know all the monitor manufacturers that have ever biddeed.
-- Many advertisers don't even know they advertised on Blur Busters.
I don't get to choose the ads but I can exclude entire categories. I have specifically excluded three categories: no adult ads, no gambling ads, and no politics/election ads. Those ad categories are not allowed at Blur Busters.
If you notice any advertiser violates my strict category exclusion -- send me a direct blurbusters email via the website email link -- and I will promptly reprimand my ad vendor, AND will unceremoniously drop that advertiser from my ads.txt file. I also banned popup ads & desktop-browser sticky ads so if those appear, those advertisers are unceremoniously banned by Blur Busters as instantly as possible -- fortunately the ad agency has complied. I hate annoying popover ads, the ad formats I allow are a compromise.
All general electronics advertising is currently allowed. Excluding "Electronics" category means I'll have a large loss, making all the laptop ads and VR headset ads and Denon/Kenwood stereo ads and iPhone/Android ads disappear. Sometimes there's fine-tuned categories I can exclude, but they are currently too granular to configure.
The advertisers bid through my advertising network supplier (NextMillennium) using the industry-standard ads.txt -- mentioned in the Privacy Policy of Blur Busters; the Privacy Policy link found at the bottom of all Blur Busters pages -- system whereupon any advertisers can independently bid and fill space without my involvement -- I'm currently unaware which manufacturers have advertised in the banners in the past except I know at least some of them has. Thus, I am zero influenced by who advertises because the adfill is done unbeknownst to my knowledge!
I've seen ad fills from places like big name car manufacturers, mortgages, travel, conventions, banks, Amazon, Best Buy, virtual reality, etc. It's nice that Blur Busters is now able to be in the mainstream banner leagues now, even I'm still a small website compared to many.
Going with a banner ad agency that uses an automated auction-based system, was the best bang for the buck, though it only fills a % of the food on tables and roofs over heads, etc.
Consequently, it means monitor/TV/mouse companies can advertise if they wish, but I definitely won't be influenced by their advertising --
This is because the ad agency bidding system is automated for a pool of ads going to a pool of websites, automatically. Manufacturer just configure "Bid on Tech Websites", with a number (how many fills, total budget).
And the online ad agency it through all the ad networks in the industry standard ads.txt (found at many sites with ad banners, like tomshardware.com/ads.txt ... anandtech.com/ads.txt ... arstehcnica.com/ads.txt .... nytimes.com.ads.txt ... foxnews.com/ads.txt ... cnn.com/ads.txt ... overclock.net/ads.txt etc) to get the best adfill price through the banner ad networks. And then, finally, only then, the ad banner appears.
Thus, even though manufacturers bid on my site (often unbeknownst to their knowledge & unbeknownst to my knowledge), advertisement banners has no effect on my manufacturer neutrality. Conversely, I have only coarse control over excluding ads (e.g. ban adult ads, ban gambling ads), and banning "Electronics" category is too big of an exclusion.
A few websites completely opt out of advertising altogether (e.g. RTINGS) and depend more on a Patreon-style mechanism. That currently isn't practical at Blur Busters because we don't mass-test monitors; Blur Busters invents many tests that other websites mass-test with -- in a modified proverb -- we teach sites to fish, rather than give fish one at a time. More industry changing that way!
So Blur Busters has to rely on some additional sources of revenue to fund the continued operation of Blur Busters which is often smaller than some of our clients that uses our tests (such as RTINGS). Small, but powerful in high-Hz advocacy.
I have no problem if users wish to anonymize or use ad blockers -- it is your choice even if Blur Busters loses out -- I give express permission to turn on your ad blocker since it's mainly the experienced users that do -- but over 90%-98% of mainstream people don't bother.
One can also disable tracking (i.e. FireFox); the ads go more generic if you disable tracking. Most mainstream users do prefer more relevant ads, while advanced users sometimes prefer to turn off tracking for privacy reasons. I don't have awareness of the ads-relevance tracking at the fine level -- the automated software at the ad agency does that and the ad agency analytics does not reveal any of the tracking to me, so I don't even know which manufacturers advertised nor which users are tracked for which ad categories of interest, even if you saw an uncannily-relevant Amazon or Best Buy ad. The generic common ads-configure portal (that NextMillennium uses), only gives me basic analytics which is more fair to users, I don't want to know more than necessary. Some of the laws make it that way anyway in some countries, which the ad agencies have to follow. If the ad agency is breaking the law, they are reprimanded.
I rather experienced users (like you) volunteer to subscribe via Patreon instead, which will automatically disable the advertisements on both Forums and Main Site when logged on. A system will come out in 2021. Keep tuned.
P.S. For those worried about TestUFO... I have NO plans to add non-BlurBusters advertising to any TestUFO pages. It may advertise links to Blur Busters (self promotion) but TestUFO will stay clean (sorry, advertisers, I get hundreds of emails asking to advertise on TestUFO).